This is why corps are always thinking they are above the law. Man I want to stop these guy but w=hat should I do to start and giving the corp the birdie they derseve?

The world could learn much from this example.

Partially it's because government has beed lead astray from it's first purpose, which is to act in the interests of the people first. Modern big business is very nearly feudal in it's mode of operation. We wrote up the constitution as a way to sheild ourselves from monarchistic domination, only to brew up our own brand 200 years later.

I can see the point of big business bringing richness to many. (You know, as long as they have money) and in many cases, harming very few. Having received an engineering education, I can tell you that whenever you dick around with tools that can really make things happen, the dangers increase exponentially. Government regulation is there to make sure we don't have another chernobyl.

But I see your point here: Always tough to mean well in a world where the system eats people just so we can have Iphones. But some crisis will come along so bad that people forget about hat they Want and startfocusing on what we all Need.

Semi-awesome note however: Was just reading about an independantly wealthy genius in montana who's wanting to fly a wind turbine kite in the jet stream. More power 3 miles up from wind than a thousand nuclear plants.

"Government regulation is there to make sure we don't have another chernobyl."

Of course, the irony of this statement is that Government regulation by the Soviet Union did Fuck-All to prevent the Chernobyl disaster.

Thus showing that Governments can fuck up as badly as Corporations, if not moreso. You think the BP disaster was bad? The Soviet Union's record of environmental despoilage makes the Exxon Valdez disaster look like a drop of oil in the pacific ocean.

Take the Black Sea for example. To comply with five-year plans for housing and building construction, gravel, sand, and trees around the beaches were used for decades as construction materials. Since the beaches belonged to nobody because there was no private property, developers just strip-mined the area. This practice caused massive beach erosion which reduced the Black Sea coast by 50 percent between 1920 and 1960. Now the shores of the Black Sea are damn near impossible to build on.

The Aral and Caspian seas were massively drained for irrigation projects, and tons of raw sewage was dumped into the feeder rivers, polluting them.

In China, vast areas of forests are dying out due to air pollution and acid rain. And waterworks and landfill projects, along with neglected fish breeding have all but eliminated certain fish from the national diet.

You can find more evidence thereof here: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/col.....ses-pollution/

Say what you will about Corporations, in the end even they have to answer to their stock-holders. Powerful Governments, however? They answer to nobody.

Wow, have you got it backwards.

It's because corporations have to answer to their stockholders that they cut corners, shave costs, all for the sake of a few numbers going upward here and there for a short trend.

Stockholders are an evil in and of themselves: social parasites the like of which make the mythical "welfare queen" a dime-store pariah by comparison. They contribute nothing but a chunk of starting capital, which might not have been theirs in the first place (see: buying on margin), all to shave off chunks of profit to pump and dump the next stock, never a moral to be had.

Regulations enforce the morals that corporations toss away when overburdened with parasitical "investors" and "stockholders." A company by itself may have many goals, some of which are profit, some of which are expansion, better conditions for their workers, more social involvement... but as soon as stockholders come in, it's the bottom line. As an incentive, the heads of these companies are turned into autoparasites, feeding on the very stock they have control over... talk about conflict of interest!

Think about this: for the sake of profit, companies used to put copper compounds (hint: known to be toxic) to make gooseberry pies more "marketable." And market forces did absolutely squat to put in place food regulations. No stockholder ever raised a hand and said "I'd like to make less money by having less toxic but safer gooseberry pies."

Some of that depends on the time frame though mate.

There was some times where people thought mixtures of lead and pomegranate were good for your liver.

Well, the fellow who pursued food reform did so because dipping his silver fork into the gooseberry pie, he pulled it back to find it (due to acidity plus the metal salts making it essentially carry current) electroplated in copper.

I'd be pissed if my silver fork went copper, which is most likely the reason that he would have gone this route in the first place. None of that would have happened if his fork was gold plated instead.

Earning billions and often paying zero in taxes.

You deliver information in awesome (comic) package.

By the way way, have you heard of the chemical waste spill in Hungary?

Oh pish! If it weren't for filthy evil greedy corporations, we'd all be living in caves eating each other.

This caused me to do a little digging on the Bhopal and Dalkon Shield stuff, and man, that was depressing. Gotta love cutting corners with safety to make a little profit, hurting thousands of people in the process. :/

It really takes a special kind of person to, knowing the risks, OK such things in the first place. It's sickening that they often get off with a slap on the wrist, or worse, no penalty whatsoever. For example, even after the people for the Bhopal incident were found guilty, the maximum penalty there were able to receive was 2 years in jail and a $2,000 fine. I don't even know what happened to the Dalkon guys. :/

This guy is the best superhero EVER.

Sadly enough, one of my bosses completely doesn't get this viewpoint. He honestly feels the marketplace will adjust itself and regulate the more 'troublesome' groups out of self-interest. I admire the fact that he trusts others so much, but am often saddened by his sheer naivete and willingness to assume that business can do no wrong. Facts, schmacts, he knows what he believes.

Why is it the average drug dealer spends more time in jail than the corporate board of Enron, yet who destroyed more lives?

Wow, I'm surprised to find someone else who knows what the whole Dalkon Shield scandal was about. o.o


This comic is just... mesmerizing. I could easily imagine something like this being published...

Actually, that was probably pretty current around the time Karno did this story. It's been around awhile, I think...

I guess you might be right, it did get a lot of press back in the nineties. I guess I never thought of that.

"That's one of the perks that mining, oil and chemical industry bosses get, although they don't like it to be talked about: They get to actually kill their workers. As long as it's accidental, natch. But most of these accidents happen because the company, WHILE EARNING BILLIONS IN PROFIT, cut corners on safety."

Having grown up in a mining town, I can confirm this.

my viewpoint as a hopeful honist politician some day.. bwahahahah ya that will happen.. ahem.. while i HATE regulation and think it should be used as little as possible.. when a company or industry proves it can't play nice, as has happened so many times, then regulate the fuck out of them. I think of it like punishing someone for a crime. you do bad things, we make it harder for you to make money the same way you have been.

Now if there was only some way of applying regs worldwide, otherwise the companies simply pick up their ball and leave to someplace nasty where life is cheaper even than the 1800s industrial revolution.
Happy Jack may be pointing to the right idea; dont stick it to the company, stick it to the people directly involved in the fuckup within the company and let everyone know what they specifically did wrong so no one else is tempted to shave those corners and end up just like them.

i agree and to that. companys more and more are trying to get coverage under the constitution and other laws that they are "people" there was a very recent court upholding on that very subject but i can't recall off the top of my head what it was. but yes, why not start charging them criminally when they break the law.. what a concept! sadly it seems many in power have their pockets stuffed by said corporations so its hard to do anything with so much corruption afoot. from the regulation side i have to say the EU is vaguely doing a good job. heck just look at the price of the internet over there for a good example of regulation done right. thats not to say everything they have done has been right but not everything our own government has does has been bad. i just wish more good would come of it.

Now here's a question... in a world fulla anthros you know most of 'em gotta still have the unique talents their animals WE know have. A bloodhound and his nose...
So how does Savage mask his smell? It could be a dead giveaway if someone gets a sniff of him and survives.

He's a comic character. Karno gets to pick-and-choose which animal traits are relevant to the story.

not very interesting, but it is how it works.

Don't forget that mess with Massey Mining or whomever it was, last year.

Verification of deaths directly linked to the BP dispersant? Sorry, but this is the first I've heard of this.

Meanwhile, BP's citations for safety violations were something in the order of ten to one hundred times that of the next highest offender, and what do people want for the Oil industry? ...More regulation.

I repeat.. BP Had been Cited.. by Federal Regulators.. With Up to One-Hundred Times as many safety violations as the next highest offender. And the answer to the problem is.. more regulation

I Repeat again.. Federal Authorities had Enough Regulatory Power to go down the line going 'That's unsafe, That's Unsafe, That's Really Unsafe' and declare BP In Violation ONE HUNDRED TIMES more than the next highest violator... And the answer to the problem is.. more regulation.

If BP could be cited That Much for violations and still not clean up it's act in time to avoid the accident that caused the Gulf Oil spill, what exactly is 'More Regulation' supposed to accomplish????

Yup.

Yup.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indept.....136220370.html

BP dispersants 'causing sickness'
Investigation by Al Jazeera online correspondent finds toxic illnesses linked to BP oil dispersants along Gulf coast.
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 27 Oct 2010 18:00 GMT

EXCERPT:
Indications of exposure
Subra explained that there has been long enough exposure so as to create chronic impacts, that include "liver damage, kidney damage, and damage to the nervous system. So the presence of these chemicals in the blood indicates exposure."
Testing by Subra has also revealed PAHs present "in coastal soil sediment, wetlands, and in crab, oyster and mussel tissues."
Trisha Springstead, is a registered nurse of 36 years who lives and works in Brooksville, Florida.
"What I'm seeing are toxified people who have been chemically poisoned," she said, "They have sore throats, respiratory problems, neurological problems, lesions, sores, and ulcers. These people have been poisoned and they are dying. Drugs aren’t going to help these people. They need to be detoxed."
Chemist Bob Naman described the brownish, rubbery tar balls that are a product of BP's dispersed oil that continue to wash up on beaches across the Gulf:
"Those are the ones kids are picking up and playing with and breathing the fumes that come off them when you crush them in your hand. These will affect anyone who comes into contact with it. You could have an open wound and this goes straight in. Women have a lot more open mucus membranes and they are getting sicker than men. They are bleeding from their vagina and anus. Small kids are bleeding from their ears. This stuff is busting red blood cells."
Dr Ott said: "People are already dying from this… I’m dealing with three autopsies right now. I don’t think we’ll have to wait years to see the effects like we did in Alaska, people are dropping dead now. I know two people who are down to 4.75 per cent of their lung capacity, their heart has enlarged to make up for that, and their esophagus is disintegrating, and one of them is a 16-year-old boy who went swimming in the Gulf."

Yes, because less regulation would have helped... oh, wait... no, it wouldn't.

The regulation we need is one with teeth. Say, 10% of yearly income before taxes per major infraction, additive.

That's what's lacking: enforcement and consequence.

Thank you, that was kinda my point.

'Regulation', it's a word people use in conjunction with the abuses of power that I don't think people really know what it means.. they have no concept of it in real terms and just use it as a nebulous catch-all for what they hope will magic-away the problems they perceive in the situation. There were more than enough regulations for authorities to find and cite BP for a hundred-fold, more regulation will mean fuck-all when enforcement is so dreadfully lacking...

and likely because the office of the government that regulates for oil-platform safety is the same office that gathers duties and fees for leasing-out off-shore drilling rights...

We need more prosecution and less regulation. Regulation punishes everyone, whether they were involved with problem or not. Prosecution just punishes the bad actors.

In the BP example, we're pushing more regulations that will make the profits of companies with good safety records lower, while simultaneously shielding BP from legal liability for the damages it caused (which are capped an will instead be made up for by taxpayers).

What's the incentive to be one of the good guys?

What's frightening is to imagine that not all the corporate abuses have received publicity.

Corporations have the legal benefit of being treated as people, but organizations have no conscience. They have charters, policies, and procedures, but they barely have a Jiminy Cricket-like voice from those executives who speak against some profitable but abusive practice. And an accountant-like pursuit of profit is what's demanded by the stockholders and board of directors. So anyone who speaks against profit (or power, which is seen as enabling profit) isn't a "team player" and will before long find themselves marginalized or looking for another job.

Well I donno about the coverage. I dont really remember main stream news doing anything other then bash on BP for the entire oil spill and then well after, so that seemed like a good while where every day I watched the news, they were taking another shot at BP. But then again, considering the numbers on their slew of violations up to that point, it was more then justified. Compared to all other companies, even compared to Exxon, they were worlds ahead of them in terms of violations on safty.

I just loved the 5th panel ha ha ha ha >XD

I think the reason you're not hearing about the dispersants on the news now is because after all the yelling and screaming they did, after all the money spent on containing the problem, after all the tough acts the government put on, making the big, bad oil company pay for their mistake...

no one wants to be the one to go to the people and say, "Ooops...! We kinda screwed up things... AGAIN..."

Hey, remember when Louisiana tried to send their own suction-barges out to hurry up and suck-up the oil heading for their marshlands before it was an eco-catastrophe... and then Coast Guard put a stop to that because they wanted to count fire-extinguishers before they could be allowed to do anything?

Or how about when Texas wanted to start setting-up sand bars to help stop oil from reaching their shores, but federal officials stepped in to stop them when somebody didn't get all the I's crossed and all the T's dotted from the Army Corps. of Engineers? Oh, what hilarity.

Remember when other countries offered a veritable armada of ships up to help out with the spill... right at the beginning?

That list goes on and on and on... so much stupid. I'm surprised it even FIT in one ocean.

I remember the Netherlands offering some UBER suction-barge, which the US rejected on the grounds that the water it spat back out was only 99.9% pure instead of the 99.99% pure regulations called for... or something like that. Nevermind that without Uber-Barge the water would just sit there being 0.1% pure while the bureaucrats dickered.

Never heard of the shield until now - that is grusome. Enjoying this comic quite a bit Karno - like to see more of Happy Jack in the future.

for some reason I find it hilarious to think that he's actually a little guy and that's a mech suit or something.

I just find everything about (most) corporations loathsome. I want to fight that monster but people want their D-grade factory burgers, their sweat shop prestige shoes, their craftsman-strangling imported garbage, their civilian model military personnel carriers. Willfully stupid, irresponsible people don't want to think about tomorrow, just so long as they get their fix of cheap, unnecessary bullshit today. I honestly despair that there is no hope in or for this world, and I wish it really was possible to just throw on a mask and take a crowbar to the corporate fulcrum of this horrible lever which turns selfish demand into suffering.

even when corporations are caught doing wrong, ignoring safety regulations, cutting corners, & killing workers, our sold-out government does NOTHING, & even when they do act like there doing something & places fines on them, the fines placed on them are the monetary equivalent of me fining anybody here about 2 cents. This is why NOTHING changes. Untill those responsible face 10=Years in REAL Prison, nothing will change. Our government has lost its way thanks to the all mighty corporate dollar.

funny this reminds me of Anonymous using computers to effect change... though the caught all the Kids everywhere... makes you aware of who is winning in this fight Suffering is winning and Corporate greed....