US meets UK

I’m ready to “move my money”. If you check the Huffington Post, then you know this campaign has been going for awhile. I’ve just put off dealing with the action for various reasons that are really just excuses – I’m lazy! Laziness however, doesn’t really get anyone anywhere.

Curious about the campaign? Here is a very populisty recap:

I don’t trust corporations, and I certainly trust them less now that they’ve essentially attained personhood in the US. Having been a consumer and campus advocate, I’ve fallen too far down the rabbit hole of corporate misdeeds and greed to be able to look at our system with rose colored glasses again. These corporations are actively taking your money to lobby against your best interests. Corporations have grown so powerful in the US that the actions by the US Presidency (both past and current) can be described as “Corporate Socialism”. The whole reason I left education was to make a difference in policy and work at a systems change level. If you’ve got the afternoon this Sunday, I highly recommend watching The Corporation on hulu. Fair warning, it isn’t a Michael Moore film, but he is featured in it.

Some people claim that PEOPLE have control over the corporations. That’s really only true if you have a choice of where to spend your money, and assuming that there actually is a “best option”. Consider the many monopolies that still exist, despite anti-trust laws? If you have to purchase a product and you’re choosing between, bad company, bad company and bad company? Well, who are you supposed to choose to give your money to? If you live in a rural area, are you supposed to drive hours to purchase it?

Not to mention, low income individuals that live in urban food deserts have very little choice over where to spend their food dollars. Low cost, low nutrition foods are made abundant, while healthier choices are more expensive and harder to acquire. These foods are hardcore marketed to them, and chemically constructed to be addicting.

Some also claim that only the government can mandate control over it’s constituent’s lives – who do you think is controlling the government? Perhaps by now you think I’ve gone off the rails, but I encourage you to watch the Corporation, and do your own research.

Happy activist Sunday?

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 11:03 am and is filed under Political thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.