Another nail in the coffin

I'm sitting here stewing in my own juices - a nauseating feeling oddly similar to the night of Nov. 2, 2004. Just like that fateful night, here I am in a kind of mouth-open, stupefied slump. Although this time, my cupboards are cursedly devoid of booze to lull myself to sleep. I just read that the Supreme Court has handed lobbyists and the corporations that employ them, the power to spend unlimited amounts of money to intervene in our supposedly democratic process.

I sound dramatic, I know. I'm sure many people would say, "well that sucks, but what can you do?" Indeed, what can you do? Don't worry, this is a democracy! And every 2 years you get to go to the polls and do your part to make this country great! (sorry, my "facetious" font is not working).

Increasingly, I'm finding that so many of the problems I concern myself with studying - the food industry and global hunger, the demise of independent media, the alleged health care reform - stem from a problem that has to do with corporate personhood. Corporate personhood is the (in my non-J.D. opinion) absurd notion that a corporation is a person, and entitled to the same rights are individual citizens. Did you know that it's illegal for a person in Texas to criticize the beef industry? After all, beef companies are people, and you might hurt their feelings. Just ask Oprah - who spent upwards of a million dollars defending herself in a Texas court for saying she didn't want to get mad cow disease from a hamburger. So please, if you're in Texas reading this, I beg of you to close your browser, because frankly, I can't afford a lawyer.

So, I went to the library tonight and rented The Corporation - a really fantastic documentary about these issues. I'd seen it for free on the internet - and you can too, although it's worth a purchase of the DVD, which is much better quality, and a mission worth supporting.

Here is a particularly savory slice of the film. This clip is only about 11 and a half minutes of your time, and it shows a real world example of just why these issues affect you and me every single day. You will never watch corporate media in quite the same way. And you might never want to drink milk in the US again.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out a way to channel my anger. I'm thinking... a white russian at Eclipse - who's with me?