I don't have to explain that line to Americans who grew up watching one of
 our production company's sitcoms, Diff'rent Strokes, which ran for eight
seasons between 1978 and 1986 and for years after in syndication. Anyone 
who knows the show will recall this signature phrase repeated by the young
 Gary Coleman to his older brother when stupefied and maddened by something
 his brother just said, "What you talkin' bout, Willis?"
I know some people think Willard Mitt Romney is the only responsible adult
i n that implausible field of presidential hopefuls, but often he will say
 something so surprising and disingenuous in this seemingly endless campaign, 
I find myself thinking, "What you talkin' bout, Willard?"
Absent a profanity, I don't know a better reaction to Romney's declaration 
that "corporations are people." Of course he'd be correct if the people
 he's referring to are the billionaire Koch brothers. Or if they are the 
people who are setting up phony corporations for the purpose of supporting
 Willard Mitt Romney's candidacy with million dollar gifts, and they could of 
course include the Kochs.
"What you talkin' bout, Willard?" leaps to mind at the thought of the natty
 Harvard-educated Wall Street executive and former Massachusetts governor 
railing against "eastern elites" at the last Republican National Convention. And it aches to be shouted out when I am reminded that Willard Mitt Romney, 
seeking someone to head his legal team, chose a man whose reactionary views
 about the U.S. Constitution led to a bi-partisan Senate vote to keep him off 
the Supreme Court, Robert Bork.
Willard's embrace of Bork, despite his angry rants since then, such as those
 calling for active government censorship of popular culture, is clearly 
meant to signal far-right activists that they can count on more Supreme
 Court Justices in the mold of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito, who are all
 energetically working to make Romney's assertion that "corporations are 
people" a legal reality.
What are you talkin' bout, Willard?
Originally posted at Variety's Wilshire and Washington blog
Can any critic of Citizens United tell me of two constitutional rights that when you exercise one you lose the right to the other?
That seems to me to be the crux of Citizens United opposition. Just because people decide to exercise their right to association (form a corporation or a union) doesn't mean they should be constrained in their speech through that association. I know it's not popular to remind people, but Citizens United affected corporations and unions.
Why should exercising one right limit the ability to exercise another? I'm not trying to be snide; I'd seriously like to know.
If we can say we have government of the people, why is it such a stretch to acknowledge that when we have an American corporation it is also of the people?
If one group of people in free association have fewer rights than another group of people, just because of the nature of that group, then they have lost some of their rights.
In fact, Jefferson and Madison proposed an 11th Amendment to the Constitution that would "ban monopolies in commerce," making it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, banning them from giving money to politicians or trying to influence elections in any way, restricting corporations to a single business purpose, limiting the lifetime of a corporation to something roughly similar to that of productive humans (20 to 40 years back then), and requiring that the first purpose for which all corporations were created be "to serve the public good."
The reason this amendment didn't pass was because it was agreed that the states already maintained such restrictions. How times have changed! Indeed now we have "tea partiers" wearing tri corner hats who don't even realize they are paying tribute to a revolt against the largest corporation of its day, the East India Tea Company, and the favorable tax policies the British government had put in place to give it an unfair advantage.
Ignorance is really destroying this country. I just don't know why intelligent people keep enabling its progress.
We still have these problems today, but it is because of corrupt politicians and the overwhelming amount of money and power that the government controls. It is not because corporations can engage in political speech.
I agree with you that the economic and political power of mega-multinational corporations are a negative influence, in many respects, on our society and government.
The problem arises when corporations requests sainthood for itself, and tries to exempt itself from being part of the responsible economic system. Then corporation may become a negative force that facilitates issuing laws that serve only corporations to maximizes profits for top management at the cost to it's host, the country.
We The People form the goverment to block that trend. We create regulations that keep corporations honest, enact taxes that prevent accumulation of excess wealth in few hands. That's how Founding Fathers intended. Unfortunately, in large part these functions of the goverment have been already diminished and corporations actually are writing the laws in this Congress. That's what Romney meant by saying "corporations are the people".
make up corporations and that their earnings flow to the benefit of their employees and the
capital markets which finance investments. The pay at the very top has become indefensible
but business it not the enemy, it is the solution. The more mandates, rules and regulations
flowing from Obama's pen, the fewer jobs and less growth there will be. Not that anyone on
this site cares, but it was an act of Congress that led to the obscene increase in executive pay.
Congress, in its infinite wisdom, decided to cap deductible pay at $1 million. That began the
practice of salaries of $999,000 and unlimited stock options. With the internet boom, pay packages
routinely skyrocketed. Unintended consequences again overtake the best intentions!
All the corporate bashing I hear come from FNC telling eveyone how WH is trashing the free enterprise system. Never heard the word from Obama himself.
“Nothing is more important than balancing the budget with the least increase in taxes. The Federal Government should be in such position that it will need issue no securities which increase the public debt after the beginning of the next fiscal year, July 1. That is vital to the still further promotion of employment and agriculture. It gives positive assurance to business and industry that the Government will keep out of the money market and allow industry and agriculture to borrow the monies required for the conduct of business. I cannot overemphasize the importance of the able nonpartisan effort being made by the Ways and Means Committee and the Economy Committee of the House whose work are complementary to each other.
Now I know why Washington is focused on the deficit instead of unemployment
Each year, the US government borrows (at least) hundreds of billions of dollars from US and international investors. Just imagine how much of that investment money might go into productive, job-creating businesses if the federal government wasn't sucking it all up.
A corporatioÂn is a legal person created by state statute that can be used as a fall guy, a servant, a good friend or a decoy," the company's website boasts. "A person you control... yet cannot be held accountablÂe for its actions. Imagine the possibilitÂies!"
Campaign Finance Reform or Fascism—thÂat is everyone’s choice whether they know it or not.
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