Corporations Versus Democracy

Last year The Nation (thenation.com) ran what they called the 2007 Student Writing Contest. Below and linked is an article by one of the five finalists, Ned Resnikoff. In October of 2007 Resnikoff was a freshman at New York University. He wrote this essay while a senior at Middletown High School in Middletown, Connecticut.

"Corporations Versus Democracy
- Ned Resnikoff

The most important issue to young people in the 2008 campaign is one that no presidential candidate will discuss. In fact, even touching on this subject is taboo for anyone with aspirations to Congress or the White House. Anyone who has the temerity to mention this political third rail will almost certainly lose the campaign.

The issue is the curtailing of corporate power, and as long as corporations continue to finance major candidates, it will remain unspoken. No one running for office wants to be blacklisted by corporate lobbyists in Washington.

That's a shame, because this issue is connected to almost every other problem facing America today. As long as corporations have no incentive to avoid polluting, we will continue to poison this planet at an alarming rate, and as long as corporate lobbyists hold an inordinate amount of influence in Washington, there will be no substantive solutions to problems like income inequality or our woefully inadequate healthcare system." (read more....)