You do realize that most of your favorite businesses are corporations, right?

[eeyore]

I've been seeing so much corporation bashing on the DU of late. Fuck the corporations, they're all evil and out to screw us all. Corporate = greedy, soul-sucking, abusive motherfuckers who have no regard for the lives of the average worker. Anti-union, anti-tax and overall anti-worker. The worst of the worst.

You do realize that every independent coffee shop, record store, book store, restaurant, landscaping business, toy store, computer repair shop, pretty much any local business you can think of are all corporations, right?

Corporations are not any more evil than the people who run them. Businesses are corporate, whether they are the local liberal book store or Wal-Mart. Yes, there are different forms of businesses - LLCs, S-Corps and such, but in reality a corporation is just a business that has been set up to limit the direct liability of the people who own it. It's protection for the business owner(s) against being personally liable for suits that may arise in the course of doing business. The business is liable, not the individual(s) who own it.

It's common sense, and necessary protection for a business.

Corporations are not evil by definition. If they are, then you may as well stop frequenting DU, stop buying coffee from your neighborhood shop, start fixing your own car, and while you're at it stop going to the doctor.

Just because a business is a corporation does not mean it is evil and out to destroy your way of life.

[cali]

1. In all fairness, the majority of people criticizing corporations here

are referring to corporate culture and to the large corporations that dominate our existence. Most of us realize that small businesses are incorporated and that they are not the target of our ire.

[eeyore]

2. I don't think most people make the distinction at all

Corporate = evil incarnate. I'm not a huge fan of big businesses, but here I am typing this into my MacBook, manufactured by a corporation. I just drove home in my corporate produced Nissan pickup. I just ate pasta that I made with ingredients sold to me by a local corporate supermarket.

Corporate does not equate with wrong. It's the actions of said corporation that may or may not be wrong.

[tkmorris]

3. You think incorrectly

Most people DO make the distinction between small local corporations and the Microsofts and Toyotas of the world. BTW I know nothing of your local supermarket but Nissan and Apple are prime examples of all that is wrong with large corporate philosophy.

[eeyore]

8. Can you buy a computer or a car from a non-corporation?

We do the best we can to purchase wisely from good companies, right? Even if you build your own car or computer you are buying from corporations. The local computer parts dealer is a small corporation that is buying from larger ones that manufacture said parts.

Corporations are not evil by definition. That is my point. The attitude here, and in most liberal circles, is that corporations are greedy and have zero social conscience. That is just plain false.

Do you buy beer? If you buy it from wind powered New Belgium Brewery you are supporting a corporation with a reasonable conscience. Do you watch MSNBC, lauded here daily? You are watching corporate TV. Do you buy Tom's of Maine toothpaste? Again, a corporation.

Businesses vary in their social responsibility, but they are damn near all corporate entities. Not all people are evil, not all corporations are evil.

[cali]

11. the vast majority of corporations are decidedly NOT socially responsible

and by corporations I mean the corporations that dominate our culture. You're putting up a classic strawman and clinging to it most tenaciously.


Oh, and btw, Tom's is owned by Colgate-Palmolive.

[Xipe Totec]

12. Can a corporation build a car or computer without labor?

A corporation is a legal fiction. It does absolutely nothing. It is a sock puppet.

[gleaner]

18. As I have posted before ...

In addition to their other functions, corporations create a separate entity for purposes of taxation. It is a way of lowering income that flows through to individual returns, whether it is a lawyer who is most likely an S corp, or a family business which is closely held and does not sell stock. The laws which apply to corporations regarding deductions, rules and taxable income are more liberal than the laws which apply to sole props or individuals. So first you get to net the deductions and losses from the corporate return to lower the income. Then the corporation files a return and issues statements to the employees, or the family or the sole owner which gives them a reduced amount of income to show on their individual returns.

Then the individual's allowable deductions are applied to the income which the corporate deductions have already reduced. Corporate losses also flow through to the individual returns of the owners and officers as they do in partnerships and limited partnerships. With sufficient losses, properly treated taxable income is reduced further. The tax paid by these individuals is much less than it would have been if they had treated business income the way a sole prop has to. Corporations have many functions but reducing taxes is one of the main reasons they exist. Which would be fair if everyone was able to treat their taxable income the same way, but those of us who have to or have had to work for a living before we retire to eat cat food, do not have access to ways to reduce our taxable income before we take receipt of it.

There even used to be a tax on the amount by which inflated mortgages were reduced by the mortgage holder to keep the buyers from opting for foreclosure. It mostly hit the middle class and working poor who were trying to buy homes. I don't know if they still do that but it used to be a big joke that you could tax income which didn't even exist. The mortgage holders filed a form called 1099R with the amount they deemed to be taxable to the buyer because he/she would not have to pay it on the mortgage. Another little punishment thing on people who were trying to keep their homes and not file bankruptcy because of homes which suddenly lost value like the houses that are "underwater" today.

Not all corporations are evil, and roses which are beautiful to look at have thorns which will cut your hands up if you're not careful with them. I just think that the people here who are angry at corporations are angry with the system that created all of the favoritism and loopholes which protect the corporations from taxes and other consequences of their actions. We know the difference between huge monopolies who want to eat us alive and corporations which are more benign and trying to cut themselves a break. It's just that you can still make a profit without victimizing people who have less, and we are feeling more and more like businesses in general are beginning to forget that.

Be aware of who you are doing business and what their interests are in the running of this country and trying to dominate the government's policy or buy the government. To quote a phrase I took with me when I retired from my job, look carefully at everything. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

[cali]

5. I think you're underestimating DUers

if you believe that the strong majority can't and don't distinguish between a small local business and the corporate culture and the grip that culture has on the political culture and our lives.

[eeyore]

15. What happens when your small local business grows?

Does a company automatically become evil as they expand to new markets? I'm just bothered by the notion that corporation = greed. Boca Burgers are a corporation, Tom's of Maine is a corporation, Seventh Generation is a corporation. All things that many liberals enjoy and purchase without a second thought. These are not small local businesses at all, but they have maintained a left-leaning corporate identity.

Corporations are not always evil. That is my point. Small, large, they operate in roughly the same fashion. Some care, some don't.

[cali]

17. depends on the corporation but generally speaking

when small corporations start to grow, they're now snapped up by mega corporations- just like Tom's of Maine or Ben & Jerry's or Boca Burger. Seventh Generation is the hopeful exception- and by the way, it's a very small company with few employees.

And no, large corporations generally most certainly do not operate in the same way as small ones.

Please stop listing companies like Tom's and Boca Burgers as independent companies. They are not.

[sendero]

27. Please..

... first of all, you are calling out the exceptions, not the rule. There are millions of corps in the US and you name three.

Of course not all corps are "evil". But it really does seem like the bigger they get the more likely they are to be so.

Corporations are a necessary business structure. Hell, I was a corp myself for many years. But, they are not people and they should not have the rights people have.

And to presume that they don't have influence much greater than they deserve it folly. The big banks that just wrecked our economy did so secure in the fact that someone else would pay for the damage. Thanks to Obama, Geithner, Summers and Paulson for making that so.

[asdjrocky]

36. Speaking for myself, someone who is incorporated.

I can say you are wrong.

We are smart enough to know the difference.

[Jack Rabbit]

58. Well, I make the distinction

I often like to say the world will be a better place without the Fortune 500, or something to that effect, as a way of distinguishing the artificial-person-as-tyrant corporations from the local independent bookstore.

Nevertheless, you seem to be barking up the wrong tree. "Too big to fail" is just too powerful. It is naive to think, as tea baggers do, that such corporations (i.e, the slimy greedballs who own and run them) are the coming of Plato's philosopher kings and that we peons should welcome their benevolent rule. They were no more philosopher kings than was the landed "aristocracy" overthrown by the French and Russian Revolutions decades after outliving its usefulness to anybody. It is just another self-interested class of tyrants attempting to justify its tyranny.

[JVS]

4. Not VEB Robotron! Their computers were the best!

[jmowreader]

57. Ah yes, VEB Robotron...

Pride of the German Democratic Republic, VEB Robotron computers were as sturdy as anvils and had nearly as much computing power.

[Occulus]

6. We know all those things.

We are bashing the huge, multinational corporations that are fucking everyone without lube or even a reach-around because they have almost unlimited power and an insatiable, sociopathic greed that is as bottomless as they are immortal.

Jesus. You knew those things when you posted this. Stop flamebaiting.

[eeyore]

10. I'm not flamebaiting at all...

I'm not convinced that people get this, and that's why I posted. Corporate is to the left as community organizer is to the right, as far as I can tell. It's an inflammatory term to us, and it's used in a very blanket fashion that makes me cringe when I see it used in such a rabidly dogmatic fashion. I'm just looking for people to understand that they willingly frequent corporations every day by choice.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mari333]

31. oh yeah Im supposed to live in a fucking box in the street

rather then collect SS money my husband paid into all his life until he was killed in an accident at work..
dont paint all boomers with so broad a brush.
in the meantime, if you want to yell at someone, yell at the pentagon and defense dept..they are the ones making all the cash. SS was paid INTO by the boomers.
yell at huge corporations who squeeze the life out of people with their low wages and union busting and wars.
dont yell at the poor. and every boomer I know is barely making it on their SS check.
and, no, Im so sorry, we are not going to commit suicide to accomodate you.

[tkmorris]

22. No. YOU don't see the nuance.

The rest of us do. We know that we frequent corporations. We differentiate between those that try to serve the public good while making a profit and those that know nothing OTHER than making a profit at all costs. The prejudice lies within you sir, and it originates with your inability to acknowledge that others may think in a different manner than you do. You believe (or at least are trying to push the idea that) we view all corporations the same. We don't.

[Syrinx]

7. the Bill Of Rights was meant to defend and enforce the rights of citizens, of people

Corporations are neither citizens, nor people.

[eeyore]

13. Correct.

But small corporations are not evil. If you own a bar you'd be a fool to not have the protection of a corporation. You serve one drink to a person who appears sober, but that person actually had drinks before coming to your establishment, then gets into a fatal car crash. That person's family, or the victim of their crash, can sue your bar. If you are a sole proprietor, they can go after everything you own personally. It is in your best interest, as a bar owner, to be incorporated, to offer whatever minimal protection you can get from that business structure.

Citizens are not always in the right. and sometimes a corporate structure can protect against frivolous suits effecting the individuals who operate the business.

[cali]

14. stop humping on that straw man; you'll wear him out

[Hannah Bell]

26. most small businesses aren't corporations. the most common form of business organization

is the sole proprietorship.

[EOTE]

42. Just what is it that you're trying to say other than what is absurdly obvious?

Do you believe that corporations should be afforded the same rights as citizens? Do you believe that corporations should have the ability to throw as much money into the political system as they want? If you don't believe those things, then the words that you write ring rather hollow. If you do believe those things, then you probably don't belong on DU.

[sandnsea]

9. Globalization Multinational Corporatism

That is destroying the local mom and pop SCorp. People know the difference.

[TexasObserver]

19. Disingenuous. I'll explain why you're mistaken in the post.

While some may paint with a broad brush in their attacks on "corporations" here, it's a given that many, many corporations in America are closely held businesses, privately owned and operated.

Those are not the corporations feared. The corporations feared are those which control billions of dollars and who subvert the political system in every possible way with their wealth. Comparing those corporations to the many Mom and Pop corps is as silly as comparing a Cessna four seat, single engine airplane to a Stealth Bomber. But they're both airplanes!

The issue is not whether corporations can exist, but what they can do in the political process. Corporations do not have a right to vote. They are not persons. They do not have the same constitutional rights of a human being, and they cannot. They have the rights they are given by EACH STATE which authorizes them to do business.

They can be executed. They can be dismembered. They don't even have the rights of a dog.

Corporations are vehicles for humans to do things. It is a legal fiction that they have personhood, and that's what it is called - a legal fiction. It is a fiction designed only to stop the flow of liability which may arise from the corporation's operation, so that such liability cannot go beyond the assets of the corporation and reach the assets of the stockholders (beyond their stock in the corporation).

[eeyore]

20. We agree, and your last paragraph is my point...

"Corporations are vehicles for humans to do things. It is a legal fiction that they have personhood, and that's what it is called - a legal fiction. It is a fiction designed only to stop the flow of liability which may arise from the corporation's operation, so that such liability cannot go beyond the assets of the corporation and reach the assets of the stockholders (beyond their stock in the corporation)."

Small businesses benefit from the same protections that larger ones have demanded to the point of forming policy. Many larger companies have used these protections to the end of abuse of the system, but those same protections can be vital to the smaller ones. Just because a company is afforded these protections is not an indicator that they are abusive.

That is my point.

[depakid]

21. Dr. Corporatelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Third World Trajectory

[ddeclue]

63. DUZY ALERT...

I'd like to laugh but I'm too busy crying!

[mmonk]

23. I don't mind corporations as long as they don't rule or control me.

Criticizing corporatism is not the same thing as criticizing business.

[Hannah Bell]

24. i don't have any "favorite businesses". and no, the local indy bookstore is not typically

a corporation.

The most common form of business organization = sole proprietorship.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-05-30/business/17245741_1_proprietor-business-license-sole

[cali]

28. I think that's sad.

here are just a few of my favorite local businesses

http://www.galaxybookshop.com/

http://www.clairesvt.com/

http://www.vermontsoy.com/

http://www.highmowingseeds.com/

http://www.jasperhillfarm.com/

I support these folks and their initiative 100%. They are part of the solution.

[Hannah Bell]

46. you think it's sad the most common business organization is sole proprietorship?

[cali]

53. not what I said

[JHB]

25. Sorry, but the "Obvious Man" job is already taken...

...and Wiley of "Non Sequitur" writes him better.

Honestly, are you that thick-headed, or do you assume the rest of us are?

Just because we "bash" traffic accidents doesn't mean we want to go back to horse & buggies. It means we want better traffic signaling, perhaps intersection redesign, saftey features on cars, mass transit options to reduce congestion, etc.

Same thing with corporations. We want to fix the problems with them so that they act in their proper role as tools, and aren't turned into weapons against our society.

[GinaMaria]

29. You do realize that none of the entities you've listed are

people, right?

P.S.
I miss indie coffee shops, music stores, bookstores etc. They are nearly extinct where I am.

[GoCubsGo]

30. I don't have any "favorite" businesses

Just ones I use because I have to.

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

32. hilarious apologism

that uses a reduction to absurdity to mask its own sycophantic urges. Nice work, equating those local businesses to giant corporations like AIG and Wal-Mart, you clever persuader, you! There's no getting past your analysis! :eyes:

[liberal_at_heart]

33. local, small businesses usually operate alot different than multi-conglomerates

Small businesses are run differently than multi-conglomerates. Most small businesses don't have stockholders and two dozen lawyers and accountants. It is not running a business that makes a corporation evil. It is how they are run. Most multi-conglomerates are in business to make the executive employees and the stockholders rich not to support their employees. And by the way many people have stopped going to the doctor because they can't afford it. I just got served papers because I am being sued for the remaining $1100 I owe on a surgery I had last year. I have already paid over $1500 but still owe $1100. The first $1500 was for the hospital bill. The $1100 is for the doctor. Lucky for me it is tax season although I'm sure they knew that too. Don't think the timing is lost on me. I was suppose to get more screening tests in October but I had to skip those because I am still paying off the surgery I had. One of my husband's friends worked at Wal-Mart. He and his wife are legally blind and their baby has eye cancer, but only he is covered by Wal-Mart's insurance. Then they cut his hours. They have since had to leave the state to find a state where the cost of living is less so they can afford their bills. The gap between the rich and the poor has become a casim and the middle class has disappeared and yes we are pissed about it. I am proud to say that I shop at a grocery store where the employees are unionized.

[LatteLibertine]

34. My thoughts

I'll always work against people who subvert the political process to represent interests of the most wealthy minority without regard for the good of 90% of the remaining population.

The top 10% of our nation holds more than 70% of all wealth. From 1990 to 2000, or the space of a mere 10 years, CEO pay rose by 400x over average worker pay. Prior to that is was 100x. Crony capitalism and corporatism are slanted and loaded systems.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Folks often crow about free markets and we do not have a true free market system. The United States is firmly in the grip of corporatism and crony capitalism.

We need strong financial reform, and regulation. The return of something like Glass Steagall would be a good start. Investigate the forces and factors that lead to the financial market crisis and more importantly how it has been handled.

The fact that you may buy products from large corporations does not mean you throw your hands up and walk away from promoting economic and social justice. It's no excuse to be apathetic or tolerant of injustice. We have to start somewhere and real reform won't be had over night. I do my best to be responsible and aware.

No one is declaring all of the most wealthy are terrible people and it doesn't take many among them to be full blown sociopaths to have far-reaching crushing effects on many folks lives.

[asdjrocky]

35. I don't have favorite businesses.

I have favorite people. I have favorite songs, even albums.

I do have a favorite food or two. I have favorite books.

What is this cheering corporations crap on DU?

[cali]

37. I absolutely have favorite businesses

see my post about this upthread. I encourage you to click on the links. those businesses and others are literally saving my town and region.

[asdjrocky]

41. What I'm saying, is I don't personalize business,

There are some establishments in my town where I know the owner and I like his/her place.

Also, there are local businesses that I will give my money to, mostly because they are local. I hear exactly what you are saying, but I'm coming to a place now in my life where I'm trying to look beyond the DBA and see the person behind it.

And yes, for sure I'll click on the link and take a look. Thanks.

[timeforpeace]

38. Correct, but whatever, if it wasn't corporations it would be something else as the boogeyman.

[laughingliberal]

39. Disingenuous, corporatist crap that shows up here about once a week. Unrec.

Nice try, though.

[pipi_k]

40. My BIL just bought a bunch of summer cottages on a lake and

had himself incorporated.

That bastard!!!


From now on when he comes to visit, I'm going to give him stale donuts with his coffee.


:+

[Marr]

43. I think this is common knowledge.

I incorporated my own small business a few years back-- we're not idiots.

[Romulox]

44. Corporate directors are REQUIRED BY LAW to be *amoral*

Or, rather, the only morality that corporate directors are allowed to act on is the desire to increase profits in any legal manner possible.

It is infantile to talk of "good corporations" and "bad corporations" therefore. :hi:

[TxRider]

56. No, they are not

Quote the law.

[Romulox]

65. Your request betrays your ignorance. "Fiduciary duty" is defined in the CASE LAW.

:hi:

[blondeatlast]

45. Most DUers can EASILY make that distinction and do every time this tired TP gets posted. nt

[anonymous171]

47. I don't have favorite businesses. They are all the same to me.

They provide me with goods and services, but for only for a fee. My "gratitude" is already paid.

[eeyore]

52. That's sad...

It's nice to feel good about where you shop. I truly enjoy buying quality items from local businesses, knowing that I'm helping to keep someone's dream alive by shopping there. I've moved away from places because of the lack of local businesses. It's sad when the hardware store is WalMart, and I refuse to live in places like that.

[Zomby Woof]

48. The Apple groupies are especially fun to remind of this

Oh no! Not Apple! They are holy, and poop rainbows!

[anonymous171]

50. Yeah, they exist to help humanity and "revolutionize" the market.

They don't care about profits.

[alcibiades_mystery]

49. Wait...people have "favorite businesses???"

:rofl:

[eeyore]

51. Yeah, I do.

Some businesses make good things that I enjoy. I like the people who run the companies, and it's always a bonus when I find out that they are doing business in a way that is positive for the community.

Just one example...

Stumptown Coffee - great fair trade coffee. They treat their employees well, and they buy direct from growers. Duane, the owner, has been really innovative.
http://www.stumptowncoffee.com/coffees

I don't see what is so laughable about having favorite businesses. I have a favorite record store, bagel shop, hardware store, bike shop, mechanic, coffee shop, wine shop, boot store, lightbulb store, and salt & chocolate store. These are all locally own businesses where I know the people who run them, and I'm very happy and proud to support them.

Not every business acts like WalMart.

[cali]

54. unhuh

these are some of my favorite businesses. All local. All great people.

The effort to revive global credit markets has devolved into farce. Every day, U.S. authorities announce some earth-shaking new measure -- a $700 billion bailout, the Fed's extraordinary move into the commercial-paper business, a coordinated global set of rate cuts -- and every day, investors continue acting as tweaky as meth heads when the dope has run out.

Why should this matter to anyone who doesn't have a pile invested in the stock market? Because we're in what's known as a credit crunch. When banks stop lending for a long period, economic activity slows to a crawl, and the economy craters. The jobs that evaporate could include your own.

But are there not other forms of credit, other visions for how economies could function? Hasn't the Wall Street model of finance -- wherein multimillionaire b-school wizards "innovate" such wondrous "risk-spreading" instruments as mortgage-backed securities and credit-default swaps -- gone, well, bankrupt?

The front and business sections of Wednesday's New York Times brought plenty of alarming financial news. For an unexpected bit of financial cheer, dig back to -- of all places -- the Dining In/Dining Out section. There, you'll find a great piece by Marian Burros on the small, once-depressed Vermont town of Hardwick, where people are working together to build a thriving economy around food.

Like many towns in rural America, Hardwick -- once a granite-mining center -- had fallen on hard times.

Usually in such cases, food cultures wither. Restaurants and diners shutter, farms consolidate in search of larger, far-away markets, and food expenditures become a sieve draining any remaining wealth out of the community and into the pockets of distant shareholders in fast-food chains and retailers like Wal-Mart.

Something different is now happening in Hardwick. Here's Burros:

Facing a Main Street dotted with vacant stores, residents of this hardscrabble community of 3,000 are reaching into its past to secure its future, betting on farming to make Hardwick the town that was saved by food.

The activity Burros describes is dizzying:

In January, Andrew Meyer's company, Vermont Soy, was selling tofu from locally grown beans to five customers; today he has 350. Jasper Hill Farm has built a $3.2-million aging cave to finish not only its own cheeses but also those from other cheesemakers. Pete Johnson, owner of Pete's Greens, is working with 30 local farmers to market their goods in an evolving community supported agriculture program.

The area is also home to High Mowing Seeds, a leading national purveyor of organic fruit and vegetable seeds -- which, according to Burros, is intimately tied into the Hardwick scene.

All of these entities work closely together to share resources and create synergies. One way they do so is through the non-profit Center for an Agricultural Economy, one of whose projects is to roll out an "eco-industrial park" for agriculture-based businesses.

According to Burros, the Center also "recently bought a 15-acre property to start a center for agricultural education," and run a a year-round farmers market and a community garden (complete with greenhouse and a "paid gardening specialist").

There's even a community-owned restaurant called Claire's, described thusly by Burros:

Fifty investors who put in $1,000 each will have the money repaid through discounted meals at the restaurant over four years."Local ingredients, open to the world," is the motto on restaurant's floor-to-ceiling windows. "There's Charlie who made the bread tonight," Kristina Michelsen, one of four partners, said in a running commentary one night, identifying farmers and producers at various tables. "That's Pete from Pete's Greens. You're eating his tomatoes."

The payoff of all this activity has been considerable -- and not just culinary. A town official told Burros that local-food enterprises have already created somewhere between 75 and 100 jobs to the area -- a substantial number in a town with a population of 3,000.

What we're talking about here is something I've been yammering about for years: serious investment in food processing and distribution infrastructure.

How did the town pull it off? Not by relying entirely on globalized credit markets. According to Burros, the town's ag pioneers have "lent each other about $300,000 in short-term loans" over in recent months.

And they've rejected the tired homilies of hyper-capitalism, opting for cooperation over ruthless competition. Burros:

Cooperation takes many forms. Vermont Soy stores and cleans its beans at High Mowing, which also lends tractors to High Fields, a local composting company. Byproducts of High Mowing's operation -- pumpkins and squash that have been smashed to extract seeds -- are now being purchased by Pete's Greens and turned into soup. Along with 40,000 pounds of squash and pumpkin, Pete's bought 2,000 pounds of High Mowing's cucumbers this year and turned them into pickles.

<snip>

http://www.grist.org/article/a-new-vision-of-credit-crunch

[Crabby Appleton]

59. .

the evil doers have even gotten to Skinner!!

[H2O Man]

60. They are like

members of the family. Sometimes, they almost seem human. We need to protect them, and advocate for their rights.

If you will contribute now, and become a member, we will send you a monthly update on a favorite corporation in need.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

55. In fairness, the majority of people here criticizing corporations...

Shop at Walmart, grab lunch at McDonalds, go to their jobs as baristas at Starbucks, then head home in their Toyota covered by Geico to watch Microsoft-National Broadcasting Company on their Magnavox televisions, then talk about it on their Dell computers with internet access provided by Comcast.

Or some variation thereof.

[mochajava666]

61. I'm not so sure about that these days

There is a lot more awareness that consumers can use their shopping choices to support businesses (or corporations) that support their causes.

I know many people like myself that never shop at Wallmart or Startbucks, etc. I won't shop at whole foods because of their right wing owner.

Also, I strongly disagree that people on DU can't distinguish between incorporated mom and pop shops (or chains) and large, multi-national corporations that have no country allegiance. It's those multi-national corporations that subvert our political process without any regard to the country's general welfare.

This straw man argument that people think all corporations are inherently evil is getting tiresome, as well as insulting the people that have concerns about large corporations creating economic policies that make them richer at the expense of the best interests of the country. The same people like myself, that have a problem with Obama's "corporatist" policies have also supported a bailout for the auto companies and banks. GM and Chrysler and big banks are large corporations last time I checked. If we hated all corporations regardless, why would we support these bailouts? Maybe because it was in the country's best interest. Is that reasoning really too difficult to understand?

[ddeclue]

62. Corporations ARE evil and you are just an apologist.

[Green_Lantern]

64. eeyore I hear you...

Corporations aren't necessarily evil but like any entity they shouldn't be trusted with too much power. They shouldn't have as much say over govt. policy as they do.

They certainly shouldn't be treated as if they're people and should have some social responsibility besides doing just whatever makes them the most money.

[alberg]

66. The "business structure" is not the issue dude. It's the fact that they are considered "persons"

with all the constitutional rights and previleges of real flesh and blood human beings.

This is not what the Constitution intended. It is a threat to our Democracy. It needs to be reversed.

Business entities are fine in their place. But when they become immortal beings capable of taking over our political process, then we are no longer talking about "just business".