Slashdot Mirror

What makes you think corporations becoming larger than the government will happen? That's one of many things that anti-competition law is designed to prevent.

Are you sarcastic? I'm sure you are!

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295938213_Multinational_corporations_A_new_global_dimension_-_Corporations_bigger_than_governments
• http://www.globalissues.org/article/234/the-rise-of-corporations
• http://www.globalissues.org/article/51/corporations-and-human-rights
• https://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html
• http://www.globalissues.org/article/52/pharmaceutical-corporations-and-medical-research
• https://archive.skoll.org/2011/02/21/corporations-are-more-powerful-than-governments/
• https://www.businessinsider.com/25-corporations-bigger-tan-countries-2011-6?op=1
• https://business.time.com/2012/01/27/are-companies-more-powerful-than-countries/
• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/5-myths-about-big-business-vs-big-government/
• https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/16598-focus-monsanto-protection-act-proves-corporations-more-powerful-than-government
• http://www.globalissues.org/article/54/tax-avoidance-and-havens-undermining-democracy
• https://makewealthhistory.org/2014/02/03/the-corporations-bigger-than-nations/
• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/02/control-nation-states-corporations-autonomy-neoliberalism
• http://www.confrontcorporatepower.org/how-corporations-influence-the-government/
• https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/15/these-25-companies-are-more-powerful-than-many-countries-multinational-corporate-wealth-power/

South Korea is also known as "Republic of Samsung":

• http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/25/business/fi-samsung25
• https://ipezone.blogspot.com/2008/04/dismantling-of-republic-of-samsung.html
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-s-korea-the-republic-of-samsung/2012/12/09/71215420-3de1-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_story.html

I think it's well established now through various supreme court decisions that the only way left to enact real campaign contribution reform in the USA is through a constitutional amendment. Support one of the various organizations that are pushing for that:

http://www.democracyisforpeopl...
http://www.movetoamend.org/
http://www.wolf-pac.com/

Lots more links on how to address all facets of the problem here:

http://www.corporations.org/so...

Both of which are owned by Viacom. http://www.corporations.org/media/

You see, the problem with that is the government is not the one in charge. They get their marching orders from the interest groups with the loudest voice, and big media conglomerates has made it so that it requires a whole hell of a lot of money to have any voice at all. Compounded onto that a trend where fewer and fewer people are owning a larger chunk of the available wealth, and we are on the fast tract willful enslavement. There is a reason why all major media is owned by 5 conglomerates. It is very profitable to control public opinion. No, CBS and their ilk are EXACTLY the ones we should be worried about.

Here's the dirty little secret Big Media doesn't want you to know; Big Media does not care one bit about pirates or piracy.

Almost every independent study shows the direct results of piracy (EG. the "lost sale") is negligible to the bottom line, and have sometimes even shown to improve revenues for lesser known artists. Big Media did not get to the position they are in by being stupid. What really scares Big Media is a free and open internet.

What most people fail to realize is that the profitability of the media empire has nothing to do with media sales. When mainstream media is owned by 5 conglomerates, they get to decide what's popular and what's not, what issues are talked about in the news, what is and what is not "popular opinion," and they even get to decide who we may choose as our president. This is not some tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy, you can go to school for this, and learn from the masters of marketing how to sway public opinion. Big Media is not afraid of lost media sales from piracy, they are afraid that if alternative distribution channels of media exist, they will lose their control over popular opinion, and thus the source of their power.

To this affront on our freedoms, there can only be one response: Death to Big Media!

he citizen that has a right to vote, is infinitely more powerful

That is, unless you are convicted of a felony.

Voting is a way to reach consensus between those who agree to heed its outcome. Corporations are at the mercy of the government less and less. Government is at the mercy of the corporations more and more. Let us also note that what is true in the US is not true or not as true in some other countries. I mean, most of the world's top economies are corporations rather than countries.

Don't forget that things change. Because the majority of those in power today are pampered, lazy pigs doesn't mean that tomorrow they won't be pampered pigs with intentions of institutionalizing corporate feudalism for the next 300 years.

a Capitalist system is an unstable social construct that tends to slide into Corporativism.

Only if the rules for granting corporate charters are not observed. Corporate charters, which grant limited liability, were only granted when it served the common or public good. That is why the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and the British East India Company in 1600 were granted their corporate charters. They were both shipping companies and it was understood that international trade was positive, however shipping was a risky business. Ships, their cargo, crews, passengers, and the ships themselves were frequently lost due to bad weather or pirates. Without limited liability people did not want to risk everything they owned, including their homes, by investing in shipping. Those charters can be revoked though.

Thomas Jefferson warned about the Corporate Aristocracy, saying "I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country." Corporations no longer have to challenge our government, instead they buy the politicians who make the laws and the bureaucrats who enforce them. With a smaller, limited, government they wouldn't be able to do so.

I postulate that, given the way Politics (the rule setters), Power and Money interact, it is impossible to have a situation where the Players do not influence the Rules and furthermore, the bigger the player the more influence they have in setting the Rules.

That's true because of the size of government and it's regulations grows. Corporations use regulations, and often take part in writing those regulations, to limit their competition. For instance lawn care businesses like TruGreen lobby local governments to regulate lawn care businesses going so far as to require licenses. Hell, some places even regulate yard sales.

Falcon

the better discussion is why we have not punished our civil leaders for putting us into this system where there is NO protectionism of the American economy and production system.

A better discussion is that protectionism harms the economy. Try it some tyme. Look up the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 and what it did. Because the US passed a protectionist law other nations did the same in retaliation. Some economists, though not all, blame protectionism on causing the Great Depression.

Also, what happens to our "neighbours" ... our FUCKING neighbours! Flooding Mexico with our governments subsidized corn has repurcussions.

Ah, something we agree with. I have railed on about how because of NAFTA Mexican farmers are being driven off their farms because NAFTA allows large US agricultural businesses to export food and sell it in Mexico cheaper than Mexicans can grow it because of the massive subsidies these businesses get.

However you talk about "libertarian think-tanks that live in a dream world" but Libertarians, large and small "l", have called those subsidies corporate welfare. The article "Confessions of a Welfare Queen: How rich bastards like me rip off taxpayers for millions of dollars" was published in one of those libertarian magazine, "Reason". The libertarian think-tank CATO Institute has the article Archer Daniels Midland: A Case Study In Corporate Welfare on it's website as well as the CATO Handbook For Congress on corporate welfare. For more on what CATO has about corporate welfare check out the link.

Of course I don't expect anything more than "libertarians are evil" from many slashdotters.

Falcon

>The media treats Democrats better than Republicans.

You obviously werent around for the Clinton years.

>Google "media bias" for more.

Sure, from here. Turns out they have a corporatist right-wing bias because right-wing ideas like taxing the poor and not the rich and going to war on a whim means more profits for the elites:

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media" -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six.

In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.

GE owns NBC. GE makes aircraft engines for planes used in Iraq and Afghanistan. MSNBC was completely and uttery pro-war with their hilariously inept Lestor Holt giving us the "Iraq Lowdown" everynight more or less cheerleading for war. Funny how that works.

Media reform (ownership regulation, equal time for qualifying candidates)

Electoral reform (physical and fully auditable ballots, banishing the electoral college, plurality voting, etc.)

Reform of banking and finance sectors (start with close reevaluation of the Fed).

But I would place media reform as probably the first or second priority in returning the country to a saner path. These highly-concentrated corporate wealth centers now have major stakes or own the mass media outlets, and those media have so little in common with the average person that they are turning many important issues into incoherent and emotional posturing (when they're not stumping for new wars, that is). The public can't hash out important issues like this.

This might be a good place to start.

Other interesting links:
http://www.stopbigmedia.com/chart.php
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080616/mcchesney

Oil, soil, copper, and forests are forms of wealth. So are factories, houses, and roads. But according to a 2005 study by the World Bank, such solid goods amount to only about 20 percent of the wealth of rich nations and 40 percent of the wealth of poor countries. So what accounts for the majority? World Bank environmental economist Kirk Hamilton and his team in the bank's environment department have found that most of humanity's wealth isn't made of physical stuff. It is intangible....The rest of the story is intangible capital. That encompasses raw labor; human capital, which includes the sum of a population's knowledge and skills; and the level of trust in a society and the quality of its formal and informal institutions. Worldwide, the study finds, "natural capital accounts for 5 percent of total wealth, produced capital for 18 percent, and intangible capital 77 percent." Social institutions are most crucial. The World Bank has devised a rule of law index that measures the extent to which people have confidence in and abide by the rules of their society. An economy with a very efficient judicial system, clear and enforceable property rights, and an effective and uncorrupt government will produce higher total wealth.

There isn't a corporation in the US that's a match against the power of the federal government.

True but they are getting closer.

The consolidation of Big Media over the last few decades put newspapers on this path. Americans bitch and moan about how the media is either too liberal or too conservative, but that misses the point. Americans may have allowed our government to loosen ownership rules, but we're mistrustful of a handful of companies controlling access to all news and opinions. When the mass-market Internet arrived, people realized they could find news and opinions that weren't being provided by the news oligarchs.

People want to hear independent voices, even though those voices are often screwed-up, looney, and unprofessional. We've all grown used to sifting the wheat from the chaff online.mThe really good newspapers that are providing high-quality reporting and are well-managed will still survive. The rest of them won't, but new forms of news will continue to germinate on the Internet.

if such regulations werent around, united states would be controlled by around 4-5 big robber barons as of now.

Whew! Good thing that's not the case!

Yeap, Thomas Jefferson warned of corporate challenges to government: "I hope we shall crush ... in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Great quote. Sucks I don't have mod points today. Can you source it for me?

Corporate Accountability Project. Thomas Jefferson: On Central Banking.

I also found these on where TJ denounces corporate power:
Thomas Jefferson: Against Corporate Power, Thomas Jefferson's Dream. Ask.com has more.

It's a simple two step process.

1) I would discuss the issue. there needs to be an open dialogue with a free exchange of ideas. However this cannot be done without performing step two.

2) Reform the media in the United States. Inform the general public. Give the airwaves back to the public. There are a handful of transnational media conglomerates that control the news and entertainment in the United States. Discussing unfair wealth distribution is a complex issue, which will not increase their profit base, therefore it is not discussed in the media at large. Instead, temporal issues of little significance are crammed down peoples throats to keep people pacified and preoccupied (Super Bowl, White House scandals, bad TV) so they forget what the real issues are. And so they continue to consume consume consume.

Without mention and discussion of these important issues, Americans will continue to be played and controlled and kept stupid.

Effectively 'Rewritten' (that is to say, very 'creatively interpreted'), or openly disregarded, in many instances, yes.

The Bill of Rights was too inconvenient for the Shrubinator, so thanks to Patriot, and other absurdly dangerous legislation, they have systematically attempted to create a 'new, convenient, streamlined legislative environment' free of such cumbersome restrictions, all, they would have it, in the name of 'national security'.

To be very clear, I agree with the quote generally attributed to Benjamin Franklin:
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Who's been paying attention? Let's take a quick inventory to see where we stand.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Freedom of speech, and the right to peaceably assemble
This now appears to apply only if you're in a 'designated free-speech *zone*' far away from the Shrub, or other government officials.

Similar aggressive tactics have been employed when confronted with any public opposition to administration positions. Steven Howards was arrested for simply voicing disagreement with Administration polices during a chance meeting with Cheney during a mall photo-op. Howards was taking his son to a piano lesson, and took the time to voice his opinion.

Another example is of the peaceful protesters ejected and threatened with arrest at the Ohio State commencement where Dubya spoke, simply because they attempted to peacfully and non-disruptively express disagreement with the Shrub and his his policies.

Still another is when two women, one the wife of a Congressman, were ejected from the Capitol building, simply for wearing T-Shirts with anti-Bush slogans into the Congressional Gallery. (The article references numerous other examples, as well.)

Freedom of the Press
Mostly, journalism from major news outlets in the US appears to be in significant danger from numerous sources. While it is still possible to find information if you dig for it, many of the significant stories never make major headlines, if they even see the light of day.

The Shrub has significantly reduced press events, and when holding them, has required journalists to submit questions in advance, selecting only those questions he chooses to answer, and calling only upon reporters who agree to 'stick to script'. Rather than challenge these policies, reporters have agreed to these stipulations, resulting in chilling effect, effectively self-censorship, rather than ask questions the President didn't like, at the risk of press room access.

Concurrently, starting in 2001, regulations limiting the scope of ownership of media outlets, designed to maintain diversity of opinion, so as to prevent control of too much of the media by a small number of individuals have been systematically attacked and dismantled. The result is that now most major media outlets in the US are owned by a small number of conservatives. (This has bee

The point was, your post begged the questions: "is the media controlled by few people, or many?" and "compared to what?"

I didn't miss your point; I understood it completely. But, there is no necessity that I am either a) incorrect about media diversity, or b) the president of a major broadcast network. I could be neither.

But anyway, I'll bite. Surely you're not denying that the media that would be covered by the Fairness Doctrine is controlled by fewer people/corporations than in the past? If so, please check these out:
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQI wG&b=2127045
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_medi a_ownership#United_States
http://www.corporations.org/media/

Other than that, I'm not sure what you're talking about.

It's also not fair that nearly the only voice one can hear is the corporate voice.

WHY IS NO ONE IN THE MEDIA ASKING THESE QUESTIONS?

No one in the mainstream media is asking these questions because if they did they would lose their jobs. More than 95% of all the media we see (radio, newspapers, tv & movies) comes from one of five media corporations. These corporations are interested in maintaining and gaining power. They do not want the general population to start asking these questions, so they rarely allow any dissenting viewpoints to enter the mainstream media.

If you want to hear these and other questions being asked, you need to go to independent media sources.

Here in NZ, our tax law is quite clear. There are very few loopholes, and corporations are taxed at the exact same rate as human beings. Yet still they manage to thrive and multiply. In fact, R&D is not considered a pre-tax expense. It's just a cost of doing business, yet still we innovate (e.g. WETA Digital)

Despite the US making loads of mouth-music about "Free Trade" it props up its Corporations with the most generous corporate welfare of any other country (currently adds up to $150 billion) as well as tarrif protections and price controls.

If corporations have the same rights as an individual (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad), they should have the same obligations -- but they don't, do they? They are taxed less, they can't be arrested or do jail time even if they knowingly and willfully kill purely to protect already their over-inflated profit margin (Ford Pinto).

<sarc>Obviously we can't ask these "people" to share the burden while they reap all those benefits. They are too poor, too weak, too frail, too moronic to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the world.</sarc>

In your country, ________, you are all a bunch of [socialists/terrorists/Frenchmen]

Why can't you drop your backwater idea of spending on social programs, and instead give that money to corporations like we do here in the USA?

Nearly 100 American media resources today are owned by only 5 corporations.

First, I don't understand what the statistic is talking about -- "100" what? Second, I think it's probably wrong by vastly understating the problem.

The top media corporations in America include Advance Publications, Disney, General Electric, News Corp., Time Warner, Viacom, and Vivendi Universal. You can go here to see who owns what. Where in 1983 it took 50 large corporations to accumulate control of half the media outlets, today 5 corporations control over half the outlets. Don't forget that there are also vastly more outlets today that were two decades ago.

Some examples: Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting unit alone owns 184 radio stations. The infamous Clear Channel puts that to shame with over 1200 radio stations. As Clear Channel notes, there are over 13000 radio stations, not to metion the other types of outlets. The statistic in the question is at least confusing and probably badly wrong.

This is an important topic, but please fact-check the question.

"You're American, aren't you?"
You're not American are you?
It's so hard to tell.

"Hundreds of countries livelihood is entirely dependent on the ongoing success of our economy." Mainly Columbia and some sections of Mexico, but mostly where the world has resisted the economic bullying of the US they're getting along fine. Go check out your balance of trade and let us know if it's an import or export deficit.
Let me ask where your country is on this list. Because mine seems to be on top. I think a few countries more than two are influenced by the amount of money we Americans use.

Let see, our trade balance. I would hope to god that its an import deficit as we don't really want to be producing goods in our country since it costs much more here than to get it from other countries. It's a natural progression to get products from other countries as your economy grows (somewhere is always cheaper). And Again we as Americans consume much more than other countries this inturn allows even more imports helping other nations.

Now generally you might consider this 'anti-american'...
...one of the downsides is the people are soft, fat and lazy. Now where would I get that idea?

http://www.corporations.org/welfare/

A great resource on the subject of media consolidation is The Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian. Also this site is an excellent collection of links related to this subject.

All in the name of progress! Where are we going to go when this place becomes so hot and toxic that only the people who made billions polluting it will afford the luxury of living here.

Be sure and ask about their environmental initiatives, while you're at it.

IF people were paying their fair share, they'd all pay the same PERCENTAGE of their income to taxes-- and thus the richer you are, the more you'd pay.

This isn't really fair either, actually, because EVERYONE gets the same benefit from the government and has the same cost to the government.

Truely fair would be for everyone to pay the same DOLLAR AMOUNT in taxes to the government.

But you'd never stand for that, screaming about how "unfair" it is based on bullshit assumptions (like the rich get more from government-- often made, never backed up. Fucking idiot statement, that.)

But no, you want to tax a higher percentage from the more wealthy-- which is pure bigotry.

You might as well be advocating that gay people and black people pay more taxes than straight or white people-- cause its just as bigoted an idea.


EOD

You're delusional. Fact is that any employer would just take that theoretical difference and pocket it, leaving you with the same salary as before, only without unemployment insurance or workman's comp to cover you when the shit hits the fan. You'd be left buying your own insurance on the same salary, facing the choice between losing a significant chunk of your income or doing without insurance for inevitable hard times. In fact, I could see companies viewing employees who buy workman's comp. or unemployment insurance as disloyal, since they wouldn't trust their employer to take care of them.

The government may be inefficient, and it may be corrupt, but in the end it pays out reliably and consistently. That's more than any for-profit venture would do if given the chance to take over the potential market for either insurance.

Even if you only make $36k a year- the average salary- you're paying half your income in taxes- and that's just direct. The things you buy, would be %30 or more cheaper if there wasn't a federal income tax, etc. (And the value of the services you get from the government? Less than %10 of what you pay in taxes-- thats how much you're being ripped off.)

AS they say, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

The outrage one should feel is that while the average American citizen gets only a 10% return on the near 50% of our income we pay into the system, the wealthiest members of our society see massive returns on the relatively tiny share of their money that they pay into the system. Corporate welfare kickbacks, polluter's tax credits, offshore shelters, and all the other tricks in the book used to stimulate the economy through trickle-down voodoo economics mean that those lowest on the social totem pole see the lowest return on their buck, while the CEO's of the world see a heavy return on their taxes.

Too bad that, in most cases, companies don't clean themselves up; they convince local government to establish c o r p o r a t e 'wealthfare' programs that force the public's tax money to foot the bill for whatever maintenance and equipment is needed to reach standards set by environmental regulations.

Aside from the point made about imprisoning someone for making software, that remark was made in general and not just as a comment on this particular "injustice". Without going into a whole diatribe, comparing the events that lead to the American Revolution (what other revolution would I be referring to in english, and how often is the term 'Revolutionary War' used to describe anything else) to current abuses perpetrated by the private sector, would need to include deaths caused by HMOs, deaths caused by drug companies (cures aren't as profitable as expensive, long-term treatment), corporate slave-labor, crimes against the environment, bribery, money laundering, I could go on and on. So yes, the revolutionary war started over less.

That's a gutsy statement from a slashdot reader, that probably realizes that corporations can lobby for laws like the DMCA, and then prosecute people, and prompt raids to confiscate and arrest people who have DVD's that are region-coded for another country. Then there's the poison water and dead ecosystems from oil spills, the Nike sweatshops, the Gap sweatshops, the genetically altered food that isn't labelled because genetics isn't an exact science and corporations afraid that if people knew what was genetically 'enhanced' their profits would suffer. Did I mention that the corporations that make genetically altered foods are in this business because their previous business of making chemical weapons dried up? Then there's corporate welfare. Examples of this include billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's successful effort to build a $300 million dollar stadium for his billionaire Seattle Seahawks, and have taxpayers foot the bill. Corporate Welfare costs the country at least $150 billion a year, and it goes to companies like GM, IBM, AT&T, GE, and Motorola, to name a few. Drug companies and HMO's lobby on a daily basis to increase profit at the expense of human lives. They profit fine in Canada, despite being required to actually make life saving medicine affordable. You might've heard about elderly people taking buses there to get pills. Tobacco companies planned advertising campaigns to specifically target 11-18 year olds, and when the research on the results came out, when the lawsuits started flying, they bought off congress to bring the backlash to an end.

To say that any of this is the product of a free country and a government not empowered to take away rights is naive. The founders never meant for corporations to have rights. WHY SHOULD THEY? Why should an entity comprised of people who ALL have rights that are absolute have rights of it's own!? It's NOT EVEN A PERSON. And in fact the founders understood that business HAD to be regulated in order to preserve democracy for everyone, from a farmer to a CEO. But greed won out, and now we get all our news and information from corporate elitists. And people have a distorted view of democracy; believing that profiteers somehow have their best interests in mind, 'surely they're not driven by PROFIT and profit alone! Damn that evil government for picking on a poor multinational corporation!' And with attitudes like that none of it will change until corporations ARE the government.

Think of it this way; we all hate an oppressive government. This is America. Echelon, Carnivore, they both deserve to be brought to an end. The thing is, if you have a beef with the government in a democracy, you can run for office and change the government. At least you used to be able to. But ask any politician of any party what it takes to win an election, and they will tell you that these days, the guy with the most money wins. And where does that money come from? Corporations.

FYI, the term that encompasses events these phenomenon, is corporate welfare. From the energy crisis, to patenting pubicly funded research, and (in my hometown) charging taxpayers the money to build an arena they don't want. If you want to know more, I suggest you read "Cutting Corporate Welfare".

This is my problem with the Libertarian party, and you've summed it up nicely. They understand what's right and what's wrong, but they're so misguided by anti-government rhetoric that they blind themselves to any possibility that a greedy, money-making machine, might be as big a problem as an oppressive government. Corporations are made up of people with rights like you and I, but the 'fascist government' you despise gave the corporation itself, the rights of an individual. A soulless machine with profit as it's only priority, has the same constitutional rights as a person with morals and ethics. These 'benefits' are bought and paid for, but despite the fact that they're sold by a corrupt government (that I imagine you agree is a problem), liberals can't see beyond a starry-eyed dream of 'capitalism in a free market'. At least, not long enough to admit that Corporate America is just as problematic. The founding fathers wrote corporate law for a reason, and it became unenforceable when corporations won the rights of a person. We can't restrict people from owning more than one home or business, we can't restrict their free speech, or their right to support an elected official with their hard-earned money. So now we can't Viacom/Infinity from owning half the radio stations in the country; now laws that regulate how many they can own are being misconstrued and shot down as 'unconstitutional'. We can't keep corporations from burying our government in bribes, because the money they spend is protected by the freaking 1st amendment! And when they use their mass-media ownership to give the entire country breaking news on crib safety instead of corporate welfare, there's nothing we can do but pile up on the couch and kiss democracy good-bye -- because corporate america is the American dream! A pristine ideal of profit in the free world! Besides, who cares about a little plutocaracy? If we don't watch dateline tonight our babies might die!!

/vent

The money should come either solely from the public, or yes, even from taxes. As it's been said, PBS is important to American citizens. Our taxes pay for this, when they should be paying for this. What could PBS do with $150,000,000,000 a year, I wonder? I can't tell you whether corporate sponsorship is an influence on PBS or not, but when it comes to MSNBC and other stations of that ilk, you'd have to be a fool to think it doesn't -- it most certainly does. And it will most certainly do the same, to PBS sooner or later, as it has before.

What news outlets do we even have left that aren't touched by some corporate influence? Not many, it seems. C-Span, I guess.

I can't explain the anger I feel when I see stories like this. I'm 20 years old and I didn't even start taking an interest in news and politics until I was 18. Before that, I had basically believed I was living in the heart of freedom, the greatest country in the world. I cheered when we protected Kuwait, and I joined in during the pledge of allegiance every morning at school. I know this isn't eniterly on topic, but I have an urge to express this feeling of utter betrayal I've had ever since virtues I saw in this country seemed to crumble and be replaced by lies. I heralded 'freedom' until I learned the term 'soft money'. Soon afterwards, what I believed to be our democracy began to look more like plutocracy. I remember how proud I was in highschool when I read about the statue of liberty -- "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breath free." I thought, how lucky I am to be a part of this. In my worst nightmares I never would've thought that the 'poor huddled masses' would be funding a $140 billion dollar a year program nicknamed 'corporate welfare' that subsidizes some of the richest companies in the world. And when I see this sort of organized crime not only existing, but thriving, I wanna wake up and have it all been a dream. When I see people accept it and go about their lives, with only their comment that 'someone will make a workaround' or 'things will work out for the best' I wanna scream until I find out why no one is as angry as they should be. I wanna take a baseball bat and smash hard drives for a living until every advertisers fucking demographics database is gone, until every lobbyist and greedy CEO is buried in sharp, pointy computer parts and begging for the medical care they refused to provide for their employees. Ugh.

There is an expiration on all copyrights. Unfortunatly, the late Sen. Sonny Bono managed to extend the law so copyrights effectively don't expire before he skied into that tree. But don't blame him, copyright extensions are a slippery slope.

Every so often the Mickey Mouse* copyright comes up, and Disney and the Gershwin grandchildren (who have are rich despite having produced no music of their own) pays whoever to extend copyright laws for a few years, and our intellectual property rights are eroded that much more.

Unfortunatly, sensible copyright laws conflict with corporate greed, and since the corporations own the politicos, there's not much that's going to change that without a massive overhaul of the system.

Remember, public companies can be held legally liable to their shareholders if they choose doing what's right (not abusing democracy) over what's profitable (keeping the rights to a dopey mouse because they haven't come up with a better mascot in 75 years). If that's not a recipie for social disaster, I don't know what is.

* Mickey Mouse is the trademark of Disney
--