Keeping America safe for Big Business!

Here's an interesting thing to notice about the way most media outlets present the news:  Nothing is related to anything else.  You have story A and story B and they are isolated things removed from any context of history or culture.  We are encouraged to view stories in a vacuum and generate a collective amnesia in case we forget and start seeing connections between them.  This critical analysis of the media is nothing new, read Noam Chomsky's famous book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media for more information.  But I just wanted to point out a good example of this I noticed recently.

Two recent newstories that should NOT be viewed next to each other: The Senate approval of "tort reform" limiting the consumer's right to sue big businesses AND the FDA's refusal to ban the sale of Vioxx and other drugs which have been shown to have serious health affects including death. You should completely forget that the FDA takes monetary contributions from the very industries they're supposed to be regulating (in this case the drug companies) and that 9 out of 10 advisors were once consultants for these very companies and so this story is totally a coincidence:  Pharmaceutical shares rallied moments after the FDA's announcement came out.  If you live in St. Pete and read the Times, you should NOT remember reading this editorial last fall .

In short, you should NOT wonder if the Bush regime is doing all it can to keep America safe for big business.   You should NOT worry that corporations are out of control and are running amok over the citizens they are supposed to be serving (according to the theories of Adam Smith type liberalism anyway).  You should NOT think that this country is mostly concerned with protecting the rights to profits of companies over the basic human rights of people. 

No, you should think none of those things and just go happily off to Wal-Mart and buy more stuff!  The government is watching out for you.  If you're a big business.

I think this Don Wright cartoon is the best summary of the Senate approval of Bush's tort "reform" plan .  The text of the cartoon reads:  "Congress realizes that we big businesses are the lifeblood of the nations' economy!  Just because we make huge profits selling you a drug that ruins your health, or a tire that rolls off the rim, or a car with an exploding gas tank, doesn't mean you consumers have the right to brutalize us with class action lawsuits!"

It's a great day for business in America!