Joel Bakan is professor of law at the University of British Columbia, and an internationally renowned legal scholar and commentator. A former Rhodes Scholar and law clerk to Chief Justice Brian Dickson of the Supreme Court of Canada, Bakan has law degrees from Oxford, Dalhousie, and Harvard.
His critically acclaimed book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (2004), electrified readers around the world (it was published in over 20 languages), and became a bestseller in several countries. Bakan wrote and co-created (with Mark Achbar) a feature documentary film, The Corporation, based on the book’s ideas and directed by Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The film won numerous awards, including best foreign documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, and was a critical and box office success.
The New Corporation, a sequel to that film, is based on Bakan’s book of the same name and directed by Bakan and Jennifer Abbott. Bakan’s scholarly work includes Just Words: Constitutional Rights and Social Wrongs (1997), as well as textbooks, edited collections, and numerous articles in leading legal and social science journals. His award-winning book, Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children (2012), has been translated into several languages. A recipient of awards for both writing and teaching, Bakan has worked on landmark legal cases and government policy, and serves regularly as a public speaker and media commentator. Also a professional jazz guitarist, Bakan lives in Vancouver, Canada with his wife Rebecca Jenkins who sings the song.
A CHANGE IS COMING - LYRICS:
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution
Was meant to free slaves from persecution
But corporations shouted hey we're persons too
We want the constitution's rights for all we do
And now they have the same rights as me
But they don't eat they don't breathe, why do they need liberty?
Especially when you see they have
The psychology of a psychopath, oh boy
I see a change is coming
The people have had enough
I see a change is coming
It's time that we call their bluff
We know what the fight will be
We gotta reclaim democracy, hey yeah
Reclaim democracy
These psychopaths have built a toxic world
They feel no guilt, remorse zero empathy, no no
Because climate change, social inequality
Destroyed the earth corrupt democracy, mmm mmm
And too high a sense of their own self-worth
I'm surprised they don't boast of having a virgin birth, yea yeah
I feel a change is coming
The people have had enough
I feel a change is coming
It's time that we call their bluff
You know what the fight will be
We gotta reclaim democracy, hey yeah
Reclaim democracy
Create the world we want to see
Reclaim democracy
We know what the fight will be
Reclaim democracy
Reclaim democracy
Reclaim democracy
Democracy yeah
Reclaim democracy
Democracy