So I have begun. I am tackling Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. I can’t say I’m totally pleased with the direction it is heading. I finished the second chapter last night “Your Trusted Friend” and Schlosser’s obvious bias against corporate America makes it difficult to glean relevant facts.
For instance, Ray Kroc and Walt Disney once served in the same unit together during World War II, and even, later on attempted to do business to together (For those who don’t know, Ray Kroc is the guy who made McDonald’s what it is today.) From this small connection, Schlosser spends half the chapter diatribing on the evils of Walt Disney and his “synergy” marketing plan (which is later used by Kroc). All right, I can see some connection here, but going on about the evils of Disney does not convince me about the evils of the Fast Food industry.
Also, I take issue with his assertion that having corporate America involved in the public school system is a bad thing. I agree, public schools should not become marketing arms of corporate America. It is true that marketing directed at kids is rather uncouth. To this I agree. but Schlosser fails to see the opposite side.
These school districts started selling sponsorships and making agreements with corporate America fo the purpose of making up budget shortfalls. Schlosser asserts this is because of tax cuts and the unwillingness of the voters to increase taxes. Okay, maybe that’s true. But as a conservative, I know that if taxes are increased, more of my money goes to the government (something liberals want) which is usually misspent anyway. What I’m getting at is that while Schlosser asserts that the Fast Food companies are undermining education, he implies that he expects the taxpayer and the government to step up to the plate and meet the budget shortfalls that the fast food companies are taking advantage of.
This is not something I agree with. I don’t want more money in the hands of a government that spends wantonly and has more programs than necessary (the Department of education being one of them). Liberals do, and its is obvious that Schlosser would like that as well. I don’t. So I say, let the corporations purchase ad space in the schools, sell their products in the schools, help the school districts make up revenue shortfalls (which wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the bureaucracy wasn’t so expensive to maintain, and useless programs – such as teaching kindergarteners about homosexuality – were not using up available funds.)
Anyway, it boils down the fact that while Schlosser implies these corporations – whose true loyalty is to their stockholders, as it should be – are evil, and we should remove them from the school setting, he fails to mention that doing so increases the size of government and allows them more money for programs and education I think is as much marketing and propaganda as what the fast food companies are more openly doing.
I have been rethinking some of my assumptions, and Schlosser is well-researched and his points are valid, I’d like to see what solution he offers up to the problems he sees in our fast food nation. I’ll be back with an update in a few chapters.
Read more of my thoughts on post 2: More thoughts and post 3: Book Review
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I can tell you this, I thought the movie was boring!
Ugh, I could not finish that one. I agree with your observations so far.