DeKalb, Illinois is another American corporate town, and with the new construction of Starbucks and Chipotle on W. Lincoln Highway, it is only getting worse. Cold concrete buildings rise up from the black asphalt. Corporate boxes look all the same, with monotonous stores and fast food chains. This could be anywhere. This could be everywhere. Let’s face it, this is everywhere.

The sad reality of the matter is that corporations take money out of local communities by conducting business across a widespread area and putting profits into their own, private interests. Profits that local businesses make are recycled within the community, according to the recent PBS documentary “Store Wars.”

Furthermore, Stanford Business School graduate David C. Korten, Ph.D, argues in his book, “When Corporations Rule the World,” that local governments compete against each other, give large corporations tax breaks and subsidize their operations with public funds.

An instance of this was when South Carolina recently bent over backwards to attract a BMW factory. The state spent $36.6 million to buy 140 properties, (which included a large number of middle class homes) then leased the properties back to BMW for $1 a year. The state also covered the costs of recruiting, screening and training workers for the new plant. The total cost to South Carolina taxpayers for these and other subsidies to attract BMW will be $130 million over the next 30 years.

We live in a competitive capitalist country where convenience is favored over quality, familiarity is preferred over uniqueness, exploitation is tolerated when profit is guaranteed and a person’s bank account measures their success. Corporations have infiltrated nearly every aspect of our lives: Ronald McDonald is more recognizable than Santa Clause or Jesus to children in the states, according to Morgan Spurlock’s film ‘Super Size Me,’ and holidays have been corrupted by the corporate push.

However, we must place some of the blame on ourselves. Corporations wouldn’t have such great power if we didn’t shop at their stores, allow our local governments to give them tax breaks and pay them to advertise their logos on our T-shirts. We must blame ourselves for buying into the bland, homogeneous scene.

Our culture has been vandalized by corporations and has been perversely mutated into a consumerist culture of brand names and clothes that look the same, becoming more and more a company and less and less a country.

When people from other countries think of America, they think of Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and Disney World. Think about it. How would you describe American culture? Are we or are we not a consumer driven corporate culture?

Sure, there are seemingly unique elements with deep roots in American culture, such as baseball and jazz. But corporations have entangled themselves within these cultural identities. They own baseball teams, stadiums, equipment, as well as jazz recording labels and so on.

Escaping the grip of corporations is difficult, but we must try. Otherwise every town will look the same, and our cultural identity will be based on market value.