Faustus Makes a Deal - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

Faustus Makes a Deal - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com: "Phil in the mountains of KyushuJapanJune 22nd, 20104:38 amCute, but you ignore the deepest reason Americans stay the way they are.

Americans – all too many – have been deeply trained to think in and to follow the habits of all their sociopathic corporations.

Americans know entities like BP-U.S., Goldman-Sachs, Halliburton, Enron, and Blackwater/Xe all have staff who appear human – talking like humans, wearing clothes like humans, going to yacht races like humans, and taking perks and bonuses for themselves and bribing senators, representatives, and regulators like humans. But these corporate types have all got about as much humanity in them as those Supreme Court justices who recently declared human all piles of money lawyered into the de-personalized fictions known as corporations."

What It Takes - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

What It Takes - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com: "Phil in the mountains of KyushuJapanMay 10th, 201010:49 pm
Please remember Walter Kirn’s memoir on his days pleasing meritocracy.

It’s a huge temptation – for many beyond Kirn, Kagan, and the Organization students you also cite. The Supreme Court has just elevated this non-personal twist to humanity – or contortions and suffocations of it – in its Citizens United case. It puts new power into corporate powers – none of which have any human loyalties – only addictions to bottom line profits, as if that’s all the “humanity” any of us need anymore."