The Corporation

Monday, July 16, 2007

I watched the documentary The Corporation about the role that corporations play in the world, where they originate from, and their psychopathic behavior.

The film lays out the problems with a 100% free market approach. A corporation by it's nature is only concerned with profit at the expense of all else including the environment and human rights. This is why it's so necessary that there be strong governmental oversight of corporate activity.

The mass media is owned by corporations and their advertising is paid for by corporations. Because of this, they are of little help in reporting the injustices done by corporations. A story highlighted in the film was about two reporters who were trying to run a story on how artificial hormones given to cows were a great risk to the consumers who are drinking the milk that come from these cows. The reporters worked for a Fox News outlet and the story was squashed and they were eventually fired. Why? Because the corporation that sells this hormone (and who makes huge profits doing so of course) put great pressure on Fox News to not run the story or to run the story with all of the teeth taken out of it. Fox News basically told the reporters that truth is of no concern to them, all that matters is if their corporate sponsors are happy.

So you may be asking, "What does this have to do with the presidential election?" Well the "left" and the "right" have very different opinions on how to deal with corporate abuse. The left wants strong governmental oversight in order to keep these corporations in check in order to protect the world from their abuses. The right? Not so much. They believe in unfettered corporate power and that the market will adjust to any sort of injustices being carried out by corporations (I don't think they really believe this, but that's the lip service.) Sure people will stop buying the milk if they know that it's dangerous? Well as we just saw with the media controlled by these same psychopathic corporations these truths have a very hard time seeing the light of day.

People who fear the government over corporations have it all wrong. With a corporation you are nothing but a potential customer. A potential TARGET. At least with the government you have some role you can play. If the government isn't right you can play some part in fixing it.

We must demand of our presidential candidates a strong stance against corporate abuse. We know that Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel would stand up. But will the others? We have to demand it of them! The problem with politics today is the huge role money plays. Is Dick Cheney vice president or is it really Halliburton?

This is also another very good reason NOT to support Ron Paul. The Libertarian viewpoint is extremely flawed. The 100% free market ideal just does not work in the real world. You cannot trust a profit driven corporation to have any concern for anything other than their bottom line. It's obvious with the way things already are that corporations have way too much power. Pulling back Governmental oversight even more (as a Libertarian such as Ron Paul would support) would be a disaster.