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[mark0benning]

GMOs: Trust Corporations to Decide What's Best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfVVwFkreo0

In a hilariously dry satire, the PSA, or public service announcement, entitled GMOs: Trust Corporations to Decide What's Best uses mockery to get its point across. The title itself is ironic, in that the true message is that corporations can NOT be trusted to decide what is best for consumers. In fact, the greedy bastards are more inclined to choose the contrary—what is best for them, more specifically their wallets. So by criticizing corporate, industrial America the PSA is able to suggest that food corporations should have to label their products as containing GMO’s. GMO stands for genetically modified organism. They are used to increase crop yields by changing the DNA of food. A war has been raged on companies, such as Monsanto, to cease this method or at least label whether or not products contain GMO’s. If they are harmless, as companies and corporations proclaim, then why not tell the consumers which product contain them? Clearly there is something negative about GMO’s and this PSA helps bring awareness to the absurdity of the secrecy surrounding them and their usage.

            The PSA initiates with a man speaking with a foreign accent, proclaiming that “telling us what is in our food is not the America I was raised in.” This scene suggests, satirically of course, that corporations have been able to get away with whatever they want for a long, long time but we need to change that aspect to achieve a more positive, healthy society. References to Agent Orange evoke traumatic memories for Americans who witnessed or have heard of that disaster. Agent Orange was used in the Vietnam War to destroy food crops, and caused death and defects to thousands and thousands of humans. The same corporation who created agent orange is the main adversary to, gasp, labeling whether a product simply contains GMO’s. Yikes.

            The remainder of the PSA is pretty straight forward. The featured speakers mock extremely ignorant people, making the opposing perspective seem ridiculous. Remarks such as, “I don’t want to know what’s in my food! Are you kidding me?” are hilarious and get the point across nicely. It raises the question: why would anyone be opposed to labeling? If you aren’t afraid to ingest genetically modified foods, well that is your own decision; but for those who choose to avoid GMO’s, it certainly helps to know which products contain them.

            All in all, the PSA is a successful example of satire that gets an important point across. Corporations are not to be trusted, and should have to label a product as containing GMO’s. And for the people who ignorantly wish for our “food to be shrouded in secrecy”, simply and without any doubt whatsoever, Trust Corporations to decide what is best for us.

[mark0benning]

Syria

Deciding a stance on the Syrian war is difficult as an outsider. Without being there to experience the devastation first hand, one can only empathize with journalistic perspectives. It is not wrong to have sympathy for the innocent civilians who are losing their lives; in fact it is very human. But the question is, can we, the United States, intervene and stop the merciless fighting and killing; or is it even our place to interfere with internal politics? These questions are very subjective and difficult to answer, because there is no definite idea of what will result from said actions.

            Max Fisher writes in his article 9 questions about Syria but you were too embarrassed to ask that Obama’s administration “wants to launch some cruise missiles at Syria, which would be punishment for what it says is Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians.” As noble as this would appear, It would be wrong. It could potentially deter Assad from using more chemical weapons, sure, but it could also immerse us into another war. And there is no telling what reactions that will incite from allies of Syria, or other countries.

            There is no clear definition of what we should do. There are a lot of lives at risk, and innocent lives at that. We should not interfere at this point. The situation is too fragile. It is not our place to act as World Police. On the contrary, the killing of innocent people is wrong. If we were to fire at Syria, we could end up adding fuel to Assad’s engines of death. As painful as it is, we have to stand at the sidelines at least for a little bit longer.