Corporate bastards

It's odd, but it takes the BBC and a British newspaper to highlight some unusual problems with the state of speech in America. The authors report on the efforts of groups with discredited positions (Big Tobacco and the anti-global warming crowds) creating front groups and faking the existence of grassroots support or dissent. The story doesn't get really rolling until past the halfway mark, but it's worth a read.

Corporations do some truly wonderful things in this world, and have on the whole made thing much better. This, on the other hand, is clearly an attempt to pervert the dialogue that is so essential to American democracy.