Endless acquisition, endless expansion

Recently i wrote an article dealing with this in a sense for my school. Because of lack of funds i guess we have allowed Moore Cadillac a local dealership to own the name of our stadium. And recently Verizon is bringing our school new connections to the internet. They are giving away free ipods 26 in all and a 5000 dollar scholarship as a prizes for certain contests. The contests involve the spreading of light on my community. And we can do a video or a graphic of some sort to promote this. But it doesn't seem right to be selling away kids as products in a public school.

It seems to me that as soon as a public school makes a deal such as this one is made with a company that the school no longer becomes a public school and quickly becomes a school of commercialism and consumerism. Granted, I see no problem in the school acquiring a faster Internet connection; however, my question is: is this new "high speed" connection worth the integrity of our school?

There was a school system in Georgia that was entirely sponsored and supported by the Coca Cola company (They went as far as having a Coke day in which the school who most successfully represented the ideas and "wonderfulness" of Coke would win a prize).

Does anyone else think that public schools should not sell out their own students to market company products. Arn't we forced to go to school to be educated not promote businesses?

I agree. The term globalization is falsely termed as a new phenomenon. In reality, globalization began the moment western cultures entered non-western cultures and began to assert their influence on them. For example, India, China and Japan have adopted the model of the western standard in the manner of business approaches and dress. And, the question, in addition to yours, is why is the world spinning out of control? What centrality have these cultures lost that were unique to them?

An excellent point, Discreet. We are becoming marketed to death. But are we any happier with all this acquisition?

Well i got a free ipod for putting up posters for verizon! So i can;t complain. But im biased if i were objective id say it is definately a bad thing

Gala, a fine question. I would say these cultures have lost the core of their spirituality for the sake of modernity. This is why Buddhism is such a compelling focus.