|
|||
|
This article was written by Bill Bodden of Redmond and published in The Bulletin (Bend) on July 14, 2003 After lawsuits were initiated against tobacco companies by people claiming injury from smoking many correspondents wrote to their local newspapers blaming the victims. Now we have a variation with lawsuits against the fast food industry. These correspondents make a plausible argument that the victims should take responsibility for their own actions because they made a free choice to smoke or overeat bad food. Unfortunately, victim bashers ignore the efforts made by these corporations to seduce people, especially the young, to purchase and consume their products. Through legal actions, we learned cigarette companies manipulated nicotine content to increase addiction to their products. We also learned these corporations spent hundreds of millions of dollars on psychologists and advertising to persuade people to smoke. There has been a similar practice in the fast food industry. As we learned from "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser recipes were not developed by cooks but were modified by scientists who added chemicals to enhance taste and color appeal to their calorie-laden products. There was also the task of getting people into the restaurants. One very effective method was to entice young children in their formative years with offers of cheap toys and on-site playgrounds. Should the children have seen through that ploy and considered instead warnings about saturated fats, cholesterol and excessive sugar consumption? If pedophiles used similar enticements, would corporate defenders apply the same standards and blame the victims? We should recognize that we are not as free-thinking people as we would like to believe. Corporate advertising has worked with great success on us since childhood to make us think and behave as consumers. Talk-show pundits and other charlatans have helped impair our ability to think for ourselves. Tobacco and fast food purveyors are not the only corporations that merit our concern. Many thoughtful people since the founding of this nation have warned of the risks that corporations could pose to our democracy. Despite historical evidence that these warnings were well placed, we are again in an era where our democracy is at great risk of being converted to a corporatocracy. The evidence is abundant that many, probably most, politicians are bought by corporations to one degree or another, and the level of consequent corruption should appall people with a sense of citizenship and concern for our democracy. Government is at risk of acquiring its versions of lung cancer, obesity and addiction. Now we have a situation where we truly can lay blame on the people, not that we should absolve corporations. A nation gets the kind of government it deserves. Citizens in this nation deserve better, but "the people" tolerate corruption and allow it to increase. Attempts have been made to counteract this trend with limited success in reforming the way political campaigns are funded. The voters of Maine, Massachusetts and Arizona approved reform. Elections have been much cleaner in Maine and Arizona but not in Massachusetts where legislators thwarted the wishes of the voters. Efforts by dedicated volunteers to get campaign finance reform in Oregon have failed to get a majority of voters on board. When I was collecting signatures for campaign finance reform, I met some of the more wretched people in this state. To persuade them to sign the petition, I suggested that we need to get corruption out of government. They declined to sign and said, occasionally in the presence of their children, they didn’t care. Fortunately, I also met some of the better citizens who signed enthusiastically. Regrettably, we have too many of the former and too few of the latter. This nation has many responsible corporations, but too many are indifferent to our democracy and endowed with avarice as they continue their insatiable lust for greater spoils. |
|
||