Modern American Corporate Propaganda
Modern think tanks with inane names such as the "Competitive Enterprise Institute" or the "Heartland Institute" have hijacked reality. While they'd feed you bullshit about their goals being noble, such groups believe that corporations should be allowed to pursue revenue regardless of the impact on the populace, and that government exists simply to nibble executive earlobe and dole out billion dollar tax-cuts and subsidies.
They take corporate donations then obfuscate their funding. They employ statisticians who manipulate and farm data. They are quoted in major newspapers as objective experts, and then pollute honest discussion across all industries with pseudo-science and spun research. Worse, many of them create artificial consumer advocacy groups in order to pretend policies have broad support.
Why?
Because what they're fighting for is total corporate freedom to do whatever necessary to maximize profits with absolutely NO accountability (and that is NOT hyperbole). Unchecked corporate freedom and power is an argument that can obviously not be sold to the public (and lawmakers) without lying. Thanks to these groups, laws are endlessly passed that repeatedly take American consumers out behind the woodshed and kick their ever-loving, inattentive, collective ass.
Real world examples? The Heartland Institute is interested in weakening government oversight of the tobacco industry.
"Laws protecting consumers from predatory corporations should be weakened" is obviously a tough position to sell Joe Public or Joe lawmaker.
So, flush with Tobacco company cash, the group instead creates a bogus campaign that pretends to be fighting for "smokers rights". Now the argument is: "Government should not be stepping in to limit your right to smoke."
What started as a push to simply maximize profits on the back of dead human beings is now a noble campaign to protect human rights. With new meme in hand, they issue vaguely scientific reports and press releases, offering up their experts (tied via financial umbilical to the tobacco industry) for quotes in major papers country-wide. Reporters fail to do their job, thus consumers read these paid-for opinions as objective fact.
It's an issue that annoys me to no end, but doesn't get much press because it's difficult to illustrate, and the conversation is easy to derail with now all too typical absolutist partisan rhetoric. But this isn't conservatism or liberalism. It's only libertarianism when convenient (regulation is fought only when it doesn't improve the bottom line). It's just public relations. It's just propaganda. It's just bullshit.
We've allowed public relations firms to pretend they are consumer advocates and objective scientists. That leads to a misinformed media and a misinformed public. That leads to walking potatoes holding the most powerful offices in the land, and laws being passed that erode consumer rights and give corporations the keys to the kingdom.
You're seeing the results. But in the current political climate if you demand corporate accountabbility you're mislabeled as a socialist. You're discredited as a radical for suggestiing that the citizenry as a whole should drive the democratic process, not corporate execurtives.
It's a huge fucking deal, yet every time I write editorials on the subject of modern corporate propaganda I somehow feel like I'm yelling in some long dead language at a herd of Penguins standing on railroad tracks. I get a few inquisitive looks, but usually the focus remains squarely on eating of fish heads. The train keeps coming.
It was refreshing to see Slashdot pick up one of my pieces last week (read my original story here), even if the majority of comments got mired in pseudo-political debate or the standard discussion of free markets. The real problem, the fact that these public relations firms are using sophisticated propaganda to pass laws not supported by the population at large, really doesn't seem to bother anyone.
My story was praised by folks like Stanford Law professor Larry Lessig and long-time telecom journalist Russel Shaw. But I still feel like this issue isn't being taken seriously.
I keep yelling. The penguins keep milling. The train just keeps coming.