Posts tagged corporations
Cognitive Dissonance
"Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!" -- Allen Ginsberg
My Doritos is a taco! My corporation is a person!
Have y’all seen that commercial? It’s for the Doritos Taco Locos at Taco Bell, which was sent from heaven as proof baby jeebus is cool with stoners. Or something. Seriously, they’re awesome.
Anyways…
Every damn time I see that commercial, I’ve taken to yelling, “My corporation is a person!” But my person can’t be a corporation, no matter how much I as a Uterused-American wish it to be so. That’s TOO freedomish! Therefore, less rights for you, Meg!
Sigh.
And now with SCOTUS shooting down Montana’s defense of their campaign finance law, it’s more likely the Citizens United decision is here to stay. And it’s more likely other states could see their campaign finance laws go the way of Montana’s.
My Doritos is a taco, my corporation is a person…
Tastes like freedoms!
You know, I think that’s so self-evident I’m not sure that needs to be answered - come on. Of course corporations are not people. Come on. Who would say such an outlandish thing? I can’t imagine anyone running for president would say something like that.
Jon Huntsman, answering a question on corporate personhood at a campaign stop in Concord, N.H. today, and taking a well-deserved swipe at the top-polling Mitt Romney. Watch it:
Romney famously insisted at a rally in August that “corporations are people, my friend,” and continues to defend the claim.
(h/t: ThinkProgress)
(Source: cognitivedissonance)
John Walsh gets political on America’s Most Wanted on Dec. 17th, 2011. He begins by talking about how we’re balancing severe cuts on the backs on teachers, firefighters, police officers, and others who contribute greatly to society and asking nothing of those who’ve benefited.
And then shit gets real. An excerpt from Walsh’s statement, courtesy of Crooks and Liars:
Wow. America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh has an earful about cutting the government to spark economic growth this week. He notes letting police and firefighters go is bad for our communities. Flint, MI which laid off two-thirds of its police force, according to Walsh has become a “small city murder capital of the U.S.”
But then, Walsh goes full Occupy.
“Who’s going to pay for the economic meltdown - the huge debt?” He says, “How about companies? Companies that have made more money than in the whole history of the world and they’ve done it with less people. Some of the Fortune 500 companies pay no state taxes at all. We all know about GE not paying federal taxes.”
And he continues to rail on this conservative cure-all for our economic woes: “It’s a quick fix but it’s not a good fix. We got to make the corporations pay more money and we can’t let these people [police] go. You got to speak up.”
America’s Most Wanted now airs at 9 p.m. on Friday on the Lifetime channel. Is it just me, or does John Walsh lay out a fantastic defense for those who are against cutting vital services so others can have an even more obscene amount of wealth?
To detractors: I’ll stop supporting movements like Occupy Wall Street when corporations stop occupying Congress. It’s not that I don’t think people should be rich. I just don’t think they should be able to buy themselves a pet Congress.
(Source: cognitivedissonance)
Rep. Walsh: That’s not the problem! The problem is you’ve got to be consistent. And I dont want government meddling in the marketplace. Yeah, they move from Goldman Sachs to the White House, I understand all of that. But you gotta’ be consistent. And it’s not the private marketplace that created this mess. What created mess was your government, which has demanded for years that everybody be in a home. And we’ve made it easy as possible for people to be in homes. […] Don’t blame banks, and don’t blame the marketplace for the mess we’re in right now! I am tired of hearing that crap! This pisses me off! Too many people don’t listen. […] Quiet for a minute! Quiet for a minute!
Constituent: Joe, what did I say–
Rep. Walsh: Quiet for a minute or I’m going to ask you to leave. You need to listen, or I’m going to ask you to leave.
Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois, screaming at a constituent during his “Cup of Joe with Joe” in Gurnee, Illinois this Sunday.
Just a reminder: Walsh is the “True Blue” family values leader who is over $100K behind on child support payments and may be cited for contempt if he ditches his next hearing.
Video here:
Walsh also falsely claimed that unions somehow have more power and influence than corporations in America. The constituent had asked a very reasonable question regarding the influence of bank lobbyists and the revolving door of former senators becoming lobbyists or heads of corporations, or vice versa.
(Source: thinkprogress.org)
So then there’s this…
Just as mass incarceration has burdened American taxpayers in major prison states, so is the use of inmate labor contributing to lost jobs, unemployment and decreased wages among workers — while corporate profits soar.
The use of forced labor in prisons took off in the early 1990s. Funny that. So did our incarceration rate:
Our prison industrial complex is nothing but corporate slave labor. Not saying people are purposefully being locked up to be a captive labor force for corporations, but with a largely privatized prison system, plus corporate contracts for labor going to said prisons, it’s an awfully interesting correlation, no?
I want you to root for me. Everybody in Germany roots for Siemens. Everybody in Japan roots for Toshiba. Everybody in China roots for China South Rail. I want you to say, ‘Win, GE.’ I think this notion that it’s the population of the US against the big companies is just wrong.
General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt, acting stunned that people might be a titch pissed off at Wall Street and corporations like GE. After hearing his answer, Leslie Stahl is nearly unable to form a complete question. He’s also Chairperson of the White House’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Yeah, I’m sitting here like this:
And then I realize he truly just doesn’t get why we’d be furious with a company that’s offshoring jobs and paying no taxes.
I don’t understand how he can’t grasp the anger people feel. Perhaps he does and he’s an excellent actor. Either way, it’s obvious he’s almost offended that we’re not all TEAM GE!! Well, I don’t want you to “win” the class war.
I want your workers to keep their jobs, and make a good wage. That’s what I’m rooting for - is that cool? I still can’t get over Leslie Stahl. She asks him another question, but her face says what we’re thinking:
(Source: videocafe.crooksandliars.com)
