comment #1

BobbyLupo says ...

You're over-estimating Republicans. Who up on the debate stage would not say "Yes" to the question "Are corporations people?" (Especially once the question had the same qualifier that Romney tagged on as to what he meant.)

comment #2

A Pop Calypso says ...

Sociopaths are people, too, what are you talking about? Aside from property, buildings, assets, and the like, corporations DO consist of people. Who else? Corporate executives should be subject to criminal penalties for corporate malfeasance under their watch.

Obviously, the legal and financial structures governing corporate behavior enforces what we can call sociopathology, but no one but people have created it, run it, and keep it going.

Corporations should not be regarded as persons with rights like freedom of speech (used by them to buy politicians) because that leads to fascism, which is where we're teetering now. But the fact that people are responsible for all of it is quite true, although Romney doesn't mean it in a way to hold them responsible, but just to defend them.

Because this issue is confused, even though it's so simple, corporations have been set up to cloak and protect the actions of sociopathic PEOPLE.

comment #3

cyanic says ...

OT: I don't know where to put this but I think it's official that James Franco is gay.
http://www.indiewire.com/article/james_franco_is_directing_a_documentary_about_porn_megasite_kink.com/

kink.com is a gay fetish porn site -- yes I've been there.

comment #4

cyanic says ...

sorry. it's not kinkvideo.com

never mind. false alarm.

comment #5

joe banks says ...

he is probably finished, but more because Rick Perry is going to collapse his support among the party establishment and evangelicals, who have been waiting for their non-Mormon savior to jump in the race.

comment #6

Movie Watcher says ...

Now Perry is in the race. The circus begins...

comment #7

actionlover says ...

Was that it, Jeffrey? Was that the final straw? No chance of you voting for Romney now, huh?

You're right. He's D-O-N-E. 9 months before the primaries, 12 months before the convention, 15 months before the election he says something during a speech that doesn't jibe with people who don't like corporations. THE END. Rest in peace, Romney Campaign.

Y'all have followed elections before, right? Just checking.

By the way, "Hudson Hawk" is going to be the smash hit of Summer '91. It's as sure of a thing as Bush sweeping to an easy victory in next year's election! (seriously, who's gonna even challenge him? Tsongas?!)

comment #8

bluetide says ...

Jeff,

This will be a nice sound bite for the Obama camp to use against Romney in a TV ad come next fall, but nothing more. He has smartly double-down on the statement instead of apologizing for it and it will only further endear him to the anti-tax wing of the GOP. What was the public reaction (not from Dems but from the general public) when the Supreme Court essentially said the same thing last year? A collective yawn. No one gives a shit. Most people legitimately don't care that their kid's college degree is worthless or that the American Dream has become a night shift job at Wal-Mart; they just don't want to have to pay anymore in taxes (what's that? most of these people effectively don't pay ANY income tax because of the EITC and the standard deduction? no matter).

Romney is going to beat Obama because he is going to be able to make the case to the majority of the American people that his experience at engineering mass layoffs so that he and his buddies could strip the assets of companies means he "can run a business" and thus through magic Reagan dust can somehow fix the economy. "Corporations are people too" just fits right into that narrative.

comment #9

Krillian says ...

Obama said there are 57 states? He's finished.

comment #10

Rashad says ...

I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court agreed with him

comment #11

Mr. F. says ...

Yes... Because every decision the Supreme Court has ever made has been unanimous, intelligent, correct and eternal.

comment #12

berg says ...

reminds me of that unproduced script by Joe Esterhaus called Sacred Cow ....

"The wickedly humorous satire re-creates the environment of Washington, D.C., in the heat of a presidential election campaign. The key plot point is a photo secretly taken of the incumbent President of the United States during a campaign visit to his brother's farm in Nebraska. The photo shows the chief executive in the family barn having sex with a cow."
-- la times

comment #13

Chicago48 says ...

Jeff, you're wrong. Romney is going to win the Republican race because? the people who vote for Republicans want a clean cut, religious, well spoken, RICH person to run. They don't want a black man -- Cain, they don't want a woman -- Bachmann.....however, now that Perry has entered the race, it will be between him and Romney to win, and I'm betting on Perry because he's got the Bush consultants and the money behind him. These guys are known to steal elections, and they will do whatever dirty deed to beat Romney.

comment #14

Rashad says ...

Well in the debate, Paul got the loudest (positive) responses

comment #15

JR says ...

Jeff, if Romney is done, he has been done since the day he was born Mormon.

His corporation remark has nothing to do with it.

comment #16

ROTC says ...

I hope Jeff is right because Romney here has shown again what a well-heeled pig looks like.

By definition, corporations are legal entities, not people. They are designed specifically to protect their officers from the types of personal liabilities that non-corporate business owners (i.e., real people) risk. As such, they most certainly are far removed from personhood and, because they are a creation of law, the law has an absolute right to tax them differently.

comment #17

HoopersX says ...

Sorry, but both the men's and women's restrooms are out of order, may I use the Corporation's restroom?

Vogue will be releasing it's annual Corporation's Fashion edition next week. It's what all the corporations will be wearing this fall.

But somehow I doubt this comment will be the end of Romney. The end of Romney will be his continued social awkwardness. On a stage, he does just enough to not shoot himself in the foot. In a folksy setting, he makes bad jokes and raps 15 year old horrible rap songs that make him look like he can't relate to actual human beings.

comment #18

Ray says ...

"Corporations are solely about profit."

Everyone is solely about profit. Just not everyone is paid in cash.

Unless this is "repeal human nature" week at H.E.?

Romney wasn't making a legal argument, but the fact is, corporations ARE people in the face of the law, and have been for longer than the movies- remember those?-- Have been around.

The argument Romney did however make is also true: corporations are made up of people, people with jobs and salaries and careers, and regulations and taxes affect their livelihoods (and those of their consumers, who always have to foot the bill) as if they were regulated and taxed themselves.

Corporations like Time-Warner, the L.A. Times, the New York Times Company, the Washington Post Company, Wenner Media, and almost everyone else who ever gave Jeffrey Wells a paycheck.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/about/index.php

comment #19

Ray says ...

Not to mention all the advertisers on this site, and all the studios that make movies.

comment #20

Kakihara says ...

Jeff: Bush called someone a major league asshole into a mic. How'd that work out for him?

cyanic: He can't be gay, 'cus his acting sucks.

joe; Again, moderate Repubs and Independents don't want fundies getting a shot at being President again, so they will jump in for Team Romney.

Ray: Little Eichmanns aren't people.

comment #21

bluefugue says ...

>corporations are not people -- they're sociopaths.

Nations aren't too nice either, but we still have them.

I'm pretty far to the left, but I also work for a corporation, so I can perceive their value in providing livelihoods. Romney's comment essentially meant "corporations are made up of people," I think, and so it's a bit of a pity if a poorly-chosen soundbite ends up being the thing that sinks him. I guess that's just the way politics works, though.

comment #22

Kakihara says ...

fugue: "so I can perceive their value in providing livelihoods."

Yes, I totally feel the trickle-down from China becoming an economic super-power.

comment #23

George Prager says ...

"Ray: Little Eichmanns aren't people."

Not suprised that DeeZee is a Ward Churchill fan.

comment #24

Kakihara says ...

Prager: Actually, I wasn't, but he's beginning to have a point.

comment #25

Kakihara says ...

I mean, when you willingly work for a company which is willing to sink the world economy, just to avoid paying taxes, how does it make you any different from Saddam Hussein's kids?

comment #26

BobbyLupo says ...

Haha, DZ has gotten so bitter about the fact that he is certifiably unemployable that he now blames the people who work for the corporations for what they do! Brilliant.

comment #27

BobbyLupo says ...

"The argument Romney did however make is also true: corporations are made up of people, people with jobs and salaries and careers, and regulations and taxes affect their livelihoods (and those of their consumers, who always have to foot the bill) as if they were regulated and taxed themselves."

It is true to a point, but there's an absolutely false premise built into it, which is that corporations aren't actually keeping any of their profits, but are passing it along to shareholders and employees. Given that this isn't true, given that they're fairly obviously hoarding money, taxes become literally the only way to get that money away from them and back into the economy. (And there's no serious argument for the position that *not* spending money will help the economy.)

comment #28

Kakihara says ...

Lupo: "Haha, DZ has gotten so bitter about the fact that he is certifiably unemployable that he now blames the people who work for the corporations for what they do!"

Well, we've seen what they do at Enron, News Corp, S+P, and Blue Shield. So the only conclusion is that there are a lot of bad apples out there who perpetuate a failed nation-state at home and abroad.

comment #29

actionlover says ...

Yes, we see clearly what they do at all of those corporations.... not hire DeeZee.

comment #30

Kakihara says ...

actionlover: Yeah, and it's clearly working out at the stock market, now, isn't it?

comment #31

Super Soul says ...

Yeah, and it's clearly working out at the stock market, now, isn't it?

Where do you disappear to when the market makes gains?

Naive person: "I'm going back to school to get my degree!"

DZ: "How did that work out for the Unabomber.?

Bakan's concept - that corporations are like sociopaths - always struck me as extremely, well...stupid. Why not also say the IRS is sociopathic, or the DNC, or the UBC Admissions Department? There is really zero substance to the point. It's the intellectual equivalent of drawing fangs and horns on a Romney poster.

comment #32

CinemaPhreak says ...

Well, if they are people they need to start paying their effing taxes (yes, Amazon, we are all looking at you: when you have revenues of $32B you are no longer a "small, start up" company).

But if you think those remarks will have any value out of rallying Obama's base and maybe swaying an insignificant number of independent voters, you are hopelessly naive about modern politics. You'd also have to be delusional if you are suggesting that any in the GOP base have seen those docs.

Wells must have been the guy who came into his college dorm room and smugly announced "This China trip is going to FINISH Nixon!"

comment #33

CinemaPhreak says ...

@cyanic - ironically, I have been to that site. Or to the girl-on-girl lezdom part, Whipped Ass.

Does this mean I can hang with Franco and discuss whether Chanta's Bitches is better spank material?

comment #34

Kakihara says ...

Super Soul: "Why not also say the IRS is sociopathic, or the DNC, or the UBC Admissions Department? There is really zero substance to the point."

Becase none of them are willing to send people to tent cities to avoid taxes, accountability, and employee health and environmental safety standards?

comment #35

Super Soul says ...

DZ is the poster boy for Antipositivism.

comment #36

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