Reading Responses Week 2

America, The Sexist Fascist State:

According to the author of this article, the United States has become a nation obsessed with surveillance, weather that is by video camera, paparazzi, etc.. Thousands of government workers at various agencies sit at their little desks and stare into a monitor, which provide very little real intelligence dealing with homeland security. Mark Morford feels that the world is becoming a disturbing face, where peoples personal information is being released throughout the world through various methods, such as the internet and the millions of security cameras around the world.
One of his arguments focuses on the effectiveness of security cameras. The author uses the United Kingdom as an example. The country has over 4 million CCTV cameras and do not seem to deter crime at all. There is not enough manpower to efficiently run a good surveillance unit.
Morford firmly believes that this uprising of surveillance is in fact an invasion of our privacy, but the public doesn’t seem to mind. This bothers the author, because instead of solving problems before they start, society agrees to spend millions of taxpayers dollars on technology that does not solve crime, but watches it.
This author is obviously a liberal, due to his harsh criticism of President Bush throughout the article. He states that hysteria created by “Bushco” has continued to feed the obsession with surveillance. Morford is definitely trying to persuade the audience of this article into blaming the current administration for this invasion of privacy, but stops short on coming up with one solid reason as to why.





Hog Futures:
This article has to do with the ability of higher corn prices to affect the meat industry. The author’s argument is that even with the increased corn prices in today’s marketplace, the meat industry seems unaffected. This is due to a number of reasons; the exportation of larger amounts of meat to international markets, the ability to sell their meat to large retailers for a higher price, ultimately putting the higher corn cost onto consumers of meat. These high costs also affect the workers, who are non-union. These poverty stricken workers are forced to live near meat processing plants, which tend to be located in trashy areas with bad living conditions.The author assumes one knows about the increase in corn prices last fall and what might happen.
Tom Philpott, the author of this article is trying to bring attention to this powerful industry that seems to be able to do anything it wants to both the environment and the working class population in the areas of operation. People are living in unhealthy communities and are not being just fully compensated for it. The author does do a decent job of informing a total newcomer to the meat processing industry of the atrocities being committed by these powerful corporations.