U.S.A.: America’s Scary Corporate Naming Problem

[Ichingcarpenter]

Around the country, the names of our public spaces are being sold off to private donors. Brooklyn’s busy Atlantic Avenue subway station is now the Barclays Bank station; Chicago is selling naming rights to its “L” stops; and Cleveland recently named an entire bus route “The Health Line,” after receiving $6.25 million from the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals.

In several other cities, meanwhile, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s logo festoons manhole covers and fire hydrants. A few municipalities have sold ads on their police cars. And seven states now allow pizza chains and other companies to advertise on school buses.

That’s good news for business, which can engage old customers and target new ones. And it’s good for our cash-strapped local and state governments, which can make long-needed improvements to crumbling infrastructures. Everyone walks away happy. Right?

Wrong. Our public spaces communicate important lessons about who we are. By selling these spaces to private interests, we teach our children — and ourselves — that nothing is truly shared; that everything is for sale, typically to the highest bidder; and that the clutter of commercial messages is the price we have to pay to sustain our common lives.

more:

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/welcome-coca-cola-town-usa-americas-scary-corporate-naming?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark

Banksy's take on advertising

[CaptainTruth]

1. If this continues, our entire country will be corporate sponsored ...

... if not outright corporate owned.

Welcome to the United Corporations of America ...

[Man from Pickens]

2. If?

We are already corporate owned. That shouldn't even be in question at this point. We're merely awaiting the microchip-implants-at-birth so they can explicitly buy and sell us.

[True Blue Door]

3. Americathon (1979).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americathon

[bvf]

4. Network (1976)

http://m.

Corporate control of culture figures in a big way.

Ned Beatty plays a small but scary role as the head of a conglomerate that acquires the Union Broadcasting system. His lecture to Howard Beale in the third act about how the world really works was satire at the time.

Now it's reality.

[LiberalElite]

5. The classic "flag" by Adbusters: