TOM THE DANCING BUG: Hey, Kids! The World You're On... has CORPORATIONS!

• [milenkovitch]

  um so what are the people gonna do about this
  or are we just gonna laugh through the pain
  and read comics about it and feel all political because we can read comics
  m86

• [Matthew]

  I like this – how it makes fun of the “corporations are people” quote, then points out how we’re expected to treat corporations like citizens in every way… until it comes to taxes.  Well done, sir.

• [Matthew Elmslie]

  It’s not the right to vote that gets me. (Well, it does. But not as much.) It’s the right to run for office.

  • [jakelawson]

    I wanna see that corporations long-form birth certficate first!

• [Boomer]

  Humm, corporations have been sucking the life blood from mankind several hundred years.  Do they make a stake big enough to rid us of them?

• [Guysmiley]

  Perfect. I also love the “if you tax the rich / corporations, you take away jobs!” reasoning. At some point reality is going to have to set in. The wealth disparity in the US is getting entirely out of hand, and the people in charge are in the pocket of the rich. At some point that becomes a formula for Really Bad Things.

  • [jphilby]

    It has been a formula for really bad things for many, many decades. We’ve just been enjoying them more and more. Eventually we become Latin America.

• [hoole]

  Why is this suddenly a controversial topic? Corporate personality has existed for a while, since the 19th century in the UK, and probably as long in the US.

  • [strangefriend]

    Until the 1890s, corporations didn’t have constitutional rights.  Towns & cities could pass ordinances curtailing their power to say, dump pig entrails & feces into the local river.  Now they can’t.

    • [Bass]

      None of the corporations in my city dump pig entrails and feces in the local river.

      • [strangefriend]

        Oh, I see, they just do it in Alabama & Louisiana.

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        None of the corporations in my city dump pig entrails and feces in the local river.

        Funnily enough, you rarely see a big, brick factory with the slogan Dumping Pig Entrails & Feces In Your River Since 1879 painted on the side.

  • [MrJM]

    A central point of debate in recent years is what role corporate money plays and should play in democratic politics. Tillman Act of 1907, banned corporate political contributions to national campaigns.  But relatively recent Supreme Court decisions have given corporate money political power:  Buckley v. Valeo (1976) ruled that political spending is protected by the First Amendment’s right to free speech, i.e. money = speech, while Citizens United (2010) ruled that corporate political spending is protected, holding that corporations have a First Amendment right to free speech.  

    But you knew that already, didn’t you.

  • [Amy Zucker Morgenstern]

    Maybe because, even though Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad was decided in the late 19th century, we’re finally getting mad as hell and deciding not to take it anymore. Maybe because our country claims to be broke while refusing to ask our wealthiest corporations for a red cent. In other words, the corporations and their government stooges have gone too far.

    • [altstuder]

      you are awesome.

  • [jphilby]

    Since 1886 in the US – Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad

  • [altstuder]

    because people are suddenly aware of the topic.  

• [microcars]

  call me a bigot, but I wouldn’t let my daughter date one!

  • [greenglyph]

    Why not? At least if they’re dating she’ll likely receive a nice evening out before the corporation has its way with her.

• [eeyore]

  “Why is this suddenly a controversial topic? Corporate personality has
  existed for a while, since the 19th century in the UK, and probably as
  long in the US. ”

  Check your history, until the early 20th century, in the US a corporate charter could not be issued unless the filers could show some public or societal benefit.  “Corporate Personhood” is linked back to a particular Supreme Court decision, however, that convention is based purely on transcripts of deliberation and oral arguments.  The *actual* ruling made no such conclusions.

  The idea of limitation of liability or “the corporate veil” is an important one.  However, in modern corporations, it has overly indulged.  In theory, a corporate charter can be revoked for corporate malfeasance.  In practice, it has never occurred. 

  We will never have a stable, or ethical corporate system until officers and senior management are held criminally responsible for the criminal policies of the companies they manage.  No, a CEO should not go to prison for the actions of a single bad actor in his organization – however, it would be completely rational to charge Rupert Murdoch, or senior members of his board with felony trespass if they knew it was happening, or criminal negligence if they did not.

  Of course, here in the states, we can’t even charge bankers or government officials when we have written evidence and an unimpeachable paper trail.

• [Archer Sully]

  What I like most about Citizens United is that by recognizing personhood for artificial constructs it clearly sets the stage for the great Robot Lib movement of the 2030′s.

• [Jack Holmes]

  Well, will you look at that. A TTDB comic that doesn’t make me frothy with rage and annoyance for once. Well played, Bolling. Well played.

• [Ramone]

  It seems corporations are the only living beings immune to those immutable, imminent two laws that apply to the rest of us.

• [Johnny]

  Brilliant.

• [Lucas Zeidner]

  ok as well as a fan of the subject matter im also a fan of the art of this he does an amazing job replicating little kids magazines and the no brainer language they use… but wheres percival?

• [gjk]

  Mmm . . . them pig entrails can make for some mighty fine eating.  Yum.

• [CelebrityPlugs]

  Go to americanselect.org its a great idea for a truly open election process. The promise of a 3rd party president chosen by the people sounds really good to me

• [benher]

  Anyone who has seen Alien should know not to trust The Corporation :(

• [Farley Smith]

  Dimwits.
  I guess some people never heard of the US Revolution which was primarily to get out from under Crazy King George and the India Tea company.  The Boston Tea party ironically was about getting rid of corporations, which our founding fathers went out of their way to prohibit in the US constitution.  Corporations came back with a vengeance when hack lawyer for hire A Lincoln gave them super citizenship around the same time he presided over the re-emergence of fascism in a little thing called the US civil war.  Talk about the military industrial complex.  The industrial (corporate) North did very well with that number.

  • [altstuder]

    Dimwits.  Nice.  What is this “revolution” you speak of, Master Farley?

• [Sigmund Ausfaller]

  AmericansElect.org talks a good game, but they get their money from wealthy hedge fund managers.  Caveat emptor: http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/07/24/no-special-interest-funding-for-americans-elect-new-york-times-reports-serious-hedge-fund-money/

• [Bill Ding]

  Corporations do pay taxes… 25% of their profits on average…

  • [Eric Wiland]

    Corporations pay taxes on their profits.  You pay taxes on your income.  That’s a nice deal.

    Also, learn what “effective tax rate” means.

• [Bill Ding]

  I know what ETR is, I’m just pointing out that the comic made it seem that US corporations do not even pay taxes, which isn’t the case at all.  In reality, US companies today pay a pretty high tax rate compared to the rest of the world.
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/u-s-companies-pay-world-s-sixth-highest-tax-rate-study-finds.html