And it goes on and on ...

So, to continue a theme ... I recently criticized "Avatar" for being yet another Hollywood movie that portrays corporations as evil. I have since rented "Surrogates" with Bruce Willis and "Moon" with Sam Rockwell. While both scripts are more original than Avatar, both — again — offer up their versions of futuristic evil corporations. In Surrogates, the creator of walking, talking robots controlled by average people decides all the surrogates must be destroyed, along with all the people. In Moon, a mining corporation creates, lies to and enslaves clones. (Yes, both highly probable premises.)

I'm trying to figure where all this comes from. Corporations make products or deliver services. How are soft drinks, tires for your car, pizza, mobile phones, steel or airplanes viewed as threats? Yes, there are corporations (or the bosses) who commit fraud or other crimes. Enron or Bernie Madoff come to mind. These people tend to go to prison. But so — hopefully — does the guy who picks your pocket on the street corner.

In the history of mankind, it has not been corporations that have caused the humanitarian disasters. Rather, governments and their guns have routinely perpetrated theft, slavery, torture, murder and genocide. Yet people seem terrified that government might not hold corporations "in check." In check from what? Making more soda? In the meantime, whose holding government in check?