Hogs, Credit Cards, and is Jon Stewart that Naive?

Is Jon Stewart really that naive? Last night, he had Paul Krugman, author of The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century, as his guest host. They talked about the recent Bankruptcy Bill, and Jon Stewart expressed surprise as Paul described how the credit card companies made large financial contributions to the politicians to write the Bankruptcy Bill in their favor. And Jon was all like, "Politicians take money to pass legislation that is harmful to their constituents?" "All the time," replied Paul.

I remember years ago when our farming community was in an uproar about a proposed hog factory that was to be built nearby. Not only for the environmental dangers it posed, but also for the deathblow it would sound to the already fading family farm. How could a thirty hog operation ever hope to compete with a thirty thousand hog operation? Without farming, there's really nothing else for these people to do out here.
So we headed down to the State Capitol in Harrisburg one morning, and bedazzled ourselves in neon sandwich boards bearing our message as we waltzed around under the great rotunda. Eventually, some Important Men of Government pulled us into a conference room to hear our side of the story.
Now, granted, they were actually listening to our complaints and asking us how they could help. But they also had some arguments against what we proposed.

So I don't know thing one about factory farms or hogs or anything of that sort. And I would venture to guess the average person does not have an intimate knowledge of the workings of the hog industry in America. Yet these Important Men of Government seemed to have every counter-argument for our group's side of the debate. This wasn't some devils advocate game; this was more as though they had just come from a PowerPoint presentation given by the hog industry, and they were reciting the bullets back to us.
It struck me as odd then, but I chalked it up to the fact that, as Important Men of Government, they must also be Learned Men. But their arguments were just too convenient, too contrived, to have come from some book they happened to pick up about the history of bacon in America. No, it wasn't until later that I realized we were the second ones to talk to them about the hog factory. They had already been approached and educated by the Hog Industrialists. In addition to the almost inevitable financial contributions and gifts given to these Important Men (which Pennsylvania Law does NOT require to be disclosed publicly), they were also brainwashed with the counter-point to Every Single Objection we raised.

It's like in Back to the Future II when evil Bif is relating to Marty the tale of how he came into Grey's Sports Almanac. His mysterious benefactor warned him that "one day, some wild-eyed scientist or crazy kid is going to come to you asking about that book." The Hog Industrialists are evil Bif, in case you didn't get the allusion, and we were the crazy kid. They already had Every Angle covered, and thought of any possible retaliation on our part, before we even knew we were going to do it. Kind of scary, but they pay people just to deal with that sort of thing, while we break the bank just to plan the trip to the capitol in the first place.

This was all done just on a state level, for a problem nobody cares about in some zit on the map in the middle of nowhere that no one has ever heard of. Just imagine what's going on at a national level with companies, such as the credit card companies, who have the resources to really put the hurt on.