Corporations ain’t people
If they were your neighbors, they’d borrow your lawn mower for a year then claim ownership by right of possession when you asked for it back—although they’d probably offer to lease it back to you so they can write it off their taxes as a business expense.
They’d disconnect their house from the city sewer to reduce overhead and outsource their toilets straight into your yard.
Complain about them, and they’ll sue you for libel. Hire a lawyer, and they’ll get the cesspool they made of your lawn declared a wetland. Beat them, and they’ll spend whatever it takes to elect someone who will change the rules of the game.
They’re corporations. Delicate, unique persons under the law, with true human rights and in theory, responsibilities. If they commit crimes, they can be prosecuted, just like you and me.
But if I harm someone, I go to jail. Who, exactly goes to jail when a corporation robs, steals, destroys, kills?
No one, usually. For that is the magic of the corporation: limited liability. Shareholders aren’t responsible, nor is the CEO—unless he or she personally pulled the trigger and a prosecutor can convince a jury of their guilt.
It’s a beautiful system, really: All the benefits and grace of personhood, with few, if any, of the responsibilities. Who wouldn’t want that? It’s a sociopath’s dream.
And our collective nightmare.
This site exists for one, simple purpose: to demonstrate, in every way possible, that corporations aren’t people.
Why? To stir the pot. To piss people off. To tilt at this windmill until the day (maybe one day soon) that the US dispenses with the ridiculous notion that corporations have the same human rights as you and I.
Because if we don’t, things might get a little… problematic. Hell, they’ve already corrupted most of what we hold dear, pour as much money as they can muster into our politics, poison our air and our water, profit from endless wars. And then they have the ginormous balls to sell this giant, shit sandwich back to us as the culmination of western society, the fruit of Jesus’s loins the sacred drippings of Milton Freidman’s brow.
Fuck em, I say. And I hope to say it in as many interesting, enlightening, entertaining ways as I can.
Want to add your voice? Great. Send me a link. Send me an essay. Send me a stray article you’ve found. If it’s not obscene, I’ll post it. If it’s obscene and good—I’ll post it anyway.
Think corporations deserve their status? Can’t imagine democracy without them? Educate me. I dare you.
Enjoy the blog.
