I literally said, "they may not be the origin of these trends," so no, I'm not blaming them. Of course the stranglehold the companies you mention have on Ameri

I literally said, "they may not be the origin of these trends," so no, I'm not blaming them. Of course the stranglehold the companies you mention have on American society is far more extensive and corrosive. But I grew up in an era where we were constantly proselytized that "these corporations are different." I was always skeptical, but that wasn't the zeitgeist. Now, I hope that my generation (millennials) will see the error in this judgement, but again, not terribly optimistic. In the pursuit of self-indulgence, we saw the Baby Boomers turn into Wall St Reaganites and still seemed not to learn. We just invented a "cooler" version of this story.