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February3

Public Citizen’s Commercial Alert: Taking on Commercialism at Every Juncture

By: Elizabeth Ben-Ishai

Breakfast cereals equivalent in nutritional value to Twinkies are heavily marketed to children using cartoon mascots and online “advergames.” Schools display advertisements for everything from fast food to the U.S. Army on every available surface, from lockers to flat-screen televisions in cafeterias to report cards. Corporations hire student “brand ambassadors” on college campuses to subtly push their product on classmates and friends. Public art galleries, subway stops, and roadways are named for the highest corporate bidder. Historic bridges and parks are draped with advertisements. Infant formula makers market their products in doctors’ offices and hospitals.

These examples are all evidence of the rapidly growing space that commercial culture has come to occupy within our society. As large a space as they may already inhabit in our lives, corporations are seeking still more facets of our society that can be put up “for sale,” never mind the higher values that get trampled in the process – values like family, community, environmental integrity, and democracy. That’s why Commercial Alert, a project of Public Citizen, has no shortage of work to do.

Ralph Nader and Gary Ruskin founded Commercial Alert in 1998, seeking to keep commercial culture within its proper sphere. Since then, Commercial Alert has fought to lay down boundaries that preserve crucial spaces in our culture as commercial-free. Commercial Alert has stood up for children’s right s to be free of commercialism in schools, parks, libraries, and other public spaces. We’ve demanded that government be a vehicle for democracy, not commercial advertising, fighting back against plans to advertise on government vehicles, history-laden bridges and buildings, and in cultural institutions. We’ve decried the number one public health disaster of our times – marketing-related diseases, including obesity, smoking-related illnesses, diabetes, and many more.

Despite successes along the way, the fight is far from over. As those intent on putting everything and everyone up for sale wage their war on our culture, Commercial Alert continues to resist the spread of commercial culture – now as an important part of Public Citizen. We’re confident that supporters of Public Citizen will find that Commercial Alert’s upcoming campaigns address crucial issues that are important to them – issues that fit well with Public Citizen’s historic concerns about unchecked corporate power and consumer protection. And supporters of Commercial Alert who have been eagerly awaiting our return to action after a brief hiatus will be excited to see the powerful connections between Public Citizen’s work and Commercial Alert’s goals, connections that will enable us to combat excessive commercial culture even more effectively.

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Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Commercialism, Consumer Protection, Ethics, Financial Reform, Money & Democracy Update0 comments

February2

Debunking the Myth of “Lucrative” School Commercialism

By: Elizabeth Ben-Ishai

Public Citizen’s Commercial Alert project monitors the spread of commercial culture, fighting back against its expansion into evermore spheres of our lives. As we track tales of governors selling naming rights to highways and bridges and online games pushing junk food on children, a perennial story we encounter is that of increasing commercialism in our public schools. Not a week goes by without at least a handful of stories of school districts selling students short by allowing (or considering allowing) advertising on their campuses, whether on lockers, school buses, cafeteria trays and menus, sports fields, or right in the classroom.

With massive state budget cuts, school districts are facing tough times – there’s no doubt about it. So when they claim that allowing school advertising will help them manage their budget shortfalls, many parents and community members believe that, distasteful as advertising to kids may be, such measures might just be worth it. But is it? Our just-released report, School Commercialism: High Costs, Low Revenues, debunks these claims, highlighting the miniscule revenue that these programs actually bring in.

How much money are school districts bringing in? Houston Independent School District (HISD), the seventh-largest in the country, has a total budget of $1.58 billion for 2011-2012. In 2010-2011, HISD raised only $62,250 from a combination of signage, scoreboards and school bus advertising. That’s less than 0.01 percent of its budget – and a far cry from the $100 million in cuts the district faced last year. Also in Houston, Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District, the eleventh-largest district in the country, raised only 0.03 percent of its annual budget through in-school advertising. And in Florida, Orange County Public Schools has allowed advertising from Pizza Hut, the U.S. Army, Buffalo Wild Wings and other, raising just 0.02 percent of its annual operating budget.

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Posted in: Activism, Commercialism, Health, Social Justice, Uncategorized0 comments

January27

Citizens Ignited: The movement for the 28th amendment steps out

By: Sean Siperstein

THIS is what democracy looks like. And more specifically, what American patriots throughout the nation, determined to renew our democracy and reclaim it from the auction block, look like.

Click the image above to play our YouTube video!

Marking the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate spending in our elections, the rapidly growing movement to fight back with a 28th Amendment to the Constitution has seriously stepped out into the national spotlight.

Thousands of Americans, in nearly every state turned out for over 350 events to “celebrate” the anniversary of the Court’s disastrous ruling and the resulting unprecedented leverage of corporate power over politicians. And from courthouse steps to corporate offices, from mock arrests and funerals to rousing rallies to teach-ins and simple one-on-one engagement with neighbors, the (cold) air was thick with the spirit of people-powered democracy that they’d prefer to raise up instead.

Indeed, this wasn’t just another series of protests and demonstrations, but a chance to turn Citizens United into a mechanism that unites citizens. Last weekend was a movement-building moment; an initial “coming out” for the 60-plus organizations, and countless citizens, united by the common purpose of ensuring that democracy is for We the People, not corporations and concentrated wealth.

Occupying Corporate Offices, Downtowns, and State Capitols

On Saturday, thousands of people joined Public Citizen and our allies to Occupy the Corporations, often demonstrating and engaging in creative actions at Bank of America branches and offices, Chevron gas stations and other corporate outposts in our communities. They ranged from local activists braving snow by the dozens to rouse and educate their community in places like Joliet, Illinois and Prince William, Virginia; to activists with the Rainforest Action Network and Occupy groups who “arrested” Cargill at its Minneapolis headquarters and conducted manhunts for a “person” going by the name of Bank of America in Charlotte and San Francisco; and to the hundreds who joined Congressman Jim McDermott to rally and march through downtown Seattle in the slippery aftermath of an ice storm.

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Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Congress, Open Government, Social Justice, Uncategorized3 comments

January26

Same old problems with new drilling proposal

By: Tyson Slocum

The Obama administration’s announcement today to expand offshore oil drilling is a terrible idea: It won’t lower oil or gas prices, and it puts taxpayers on the hook for accidents.

The last time the president made such an announcement, the BP disaster occurred two weeks later. We all saw how that ended. Obama should not be laying the groundwork for history to repeat itself.

Current law caps accidental spill liability at $75 million, far below what actual spill damages would likely be. This translates into a huge subsidy for the industry and puts the American people on the hook.

Congress has yet to pass reforms in the wake of that disaster – including raising oil companies’ spill liability from the current $75 million cap.

Opening new areas to drilling while failing to hold oil companies accountable for fleecing taxpayers on existing drilling leases is unfair.

Obama should know better than to hold Big Oil’s support above Main Street’s interests.

Tyson Slocum is Public Citizen’s Energy Program director. Follow him on Twitter @TysonSlocum.

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Posted in: Activism, Climate Change, Congress, Energy, Environment, Ethics, Regulation, Uncategorized0 comments

January19

Citizens United v. We the People

By: Sean Siperstein

Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate spending in our elections, the fast-growing movement to fight back with a 28th Amendment to the Constitution is taking shape. With a “Super PAC” frenzy inundating the 2012 presidential campaign, feeding the public’s widespread revulsion at what the Court has wrought, the time to act is upon us. Public Citizen’s Robert Weissman in the Washington Post:

Activists join Maryland legislators and U.S. Representatives, as well as Public Citizen's Mark Hays and other allies, to call for a constitutional amendment at the State House in Annapolis.

“We’re already at a point where the public overwhelmingly opposes the decision ,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a watchdog group helping to spearhead the efforts. “The goal is to build a grass-roots movement that will eventually be able to shape the debate.”

Public Citizen’s Democracy is For People campaign, as a founding member of the United for the People coalition, is proud to be in the thick of this amazing “movement moment.”

Building on more than 50 cities and towns that have passed resolutions demanding a constitutional amendment that overturns Citizens United and stems the influence of money over elected officials, Public Citizen and our allies have been organizing in four different states vying to have their legislatures follow suit (and in the process declare that they’re ready to ratify an amendment). Rallies supporting those resolutions were held in Massachusetts and Maryland over the last 2 days (with Congressmen Chris Van Hollen and John Sarbanes attending in Maryland). Vermont and California will follow suit tomorrow and Saturday.

And to mark Saturday’s anniversary itself, activists around the nation will “Occupy the Corporations,” and expose the corporate imposters posing as ‘people’ with the constitutional right to buy unprecedented influence over elected officials and public policy. We’ll be focusing on some of the mega-corporations most empowered by Citizens United and most responsible for greedy, disastrously short-sighted policies, to the detriment of the rest of us.

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Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Open Government, Social Justice, Uncategorized0 comments