If you're still confused as to the motives behind the Occupy protests, don't worry: Coca-Cola has just stepped in with a textbook example of the kind of hold corporations have on our government today. The National Parks Service had a nice plan to phase out the sale of beverages in plastic bottles in and around the Grand Canyon. Tourists get thirsty out there on their sightseeing, buy bottled water, and then don't dispose of the containers properly. As a result, the national park is littered with plastic waste. The NPS wanted to curb that waste by banning the sale of bottled water and building water fountains so that visitors could fill up a Nalgene instead of chucking an empty Aquafina. Coke didn't take too kindly to that plan and asked the Service to forget about the ban--after donating $13 million to the country's national parks. The NPS agreed. In most situations, we'd call that bribery. When it comes to relations between corporations and government agencies, it's just business as usual.

This is exactly the kind of thing that leads people to camp out in cities for weeks on end despite increasingly cold temperatures and waves of police brutality. This is proof that the biggest corporations have an uncomfortably tight grip on the agency of our government. The White House isn't in control--the money is. And the money is going to make damn well sure the only way you can stay hydrated while touring one of the natural wonders of our country is by purchasing Coke-branded tap water.

I mean, that's what it is. That's what they're selling. It's the same stuff that comes out of your faucet and the same stuff that would be coming out of those proposed water fountains at the Grand Canyon were they to be built. The only difference is that Coke can charge you two dollars for a cheap, disposable container around it--and they'd like to keep doing just that. But Coke-branded tap water soon turns into Coke-branded litter that sullies the Grand Canyon and gets swept into the ocean by the Colorado River. Plastic waste harms animal life from the canyon to the river to the sea, poisoning the planet all for the sake of profit.

Other national parks have already banned plastic water bottles. Coke wants to make sure the trend stops there. But people are speaking out against the pollution and the corruption alike. A new petition asks the Director of the National Park Service to stand up to Coke and go ahead with the installation of water fountains and the bottle ban. You can add your name here to let the NPS know that this sort of corporate bribery won't fly when it comes to protecting the planet.