Activists and companies used to fight like cats and dogs. Apparently, that cliche can no longer be used as a rule.
Per a recent opinion column on FoxNews.com, groups traditionally seen as left-leaning are getting together with big business and government to hammer out environmental policy.
Hey. What happened to the rights of the voter and the shareholder in determining environmental policy?
According to the Fox News article written by Tom Borelli, the coalition We Can Lead is a broad-based coalition of activist groups and energy and technology companies. Among the companies in the coalition are Hewlett-Packard and Duke Energy. Among the left-wing activist groups, reportedly, are CERES and the Apollo Alliance. The former is reported to be a coalition of investors and labor/environmental organizations that push companies to further environmental policies. The latter is reported to be a coalition of business, environmental, labor, and community leaders. The board members of the Apollo Alliance are according to the article members of the United Steelworkers and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
In the race to look more “green” than their competitors, companies are throwing in with activists and, as Borelli pointed out in his article, after years and years of fighting the activists, companies have apparently decided to “switch rather than fight,” in a take-off of the old Tareyton cigarette commercial.
Okay. Ecology is good. I’m not in favor of wrecking the Earth. But is all this action on behalf of Mother Earth really necessary? And who decides if it is necessary? Who decides if the decisions made and campaigns pursued by We Can Lead are the right way to go? The left, in social media, likes to support the concept of crowd-sourcing, democracy in action via new technologies. But do we see any truly democratic action from groups like We Can Lead on behalf of the people for whom they ostensibly act?
Where do the shareholders, the owners, of Duke Energy and Hewlett-Packard stand on the issues for which We Can Lead advocate?
Where do the constituents of the politicians who We Can Lead lobby stand?
And who told We Can Lead that they could lead? Yes, they can lead. But who told them they could or should?
And has anyone given any thought to what the throwing in of the green does to the economic process?
Leftists and big business . . . now that’s a dangerous combination.
