[lit-ideas] Re: Christmas Trees
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:50:58 -0500
Mike: I haven't noticed any Leftists joining hands
with global corporate types to drive out the
Christians. The only "speak" I've heard --
overheard, that is -- is that of the conservative
radio heads screaming about the left trying to
paganize everything from
Christ to Santa Claus. Hmmm. Gotta start paying
more attention.
Eric: There's a very good essay about the
philosophical roots of the culture wars at
http://www.policyreview.org/dec00/Fonte.html
Here's a tidbit about group rights versus
individual rights::
The employees of America’s major corporations take
many of the same sensitivity training programs as
America’s college students, often from the same
"diversity facilitators." Frederick Lynch, the
author of the Diversity Machine, reported
"diversity training" is rampant among the Fortune
500. Even more significantly, on issues of group
preferences vs. individual opportunity, major
corporate leaders tend to put their money and
influence behind group rights instead of
individual rights.
After California voters passed Proposition 209,
for example — a referendum outlawing racial and
gender preferences in employment — Ward Connerly,
the African-American businessman who led the
effort, launched a similar antipreferences
initiative in the state of Washington. The
Washington initiative I-200 read as follows: "The
State shall not discriminate against or grant
preferential treatment to, any individual or group
on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or
national origin in the operation of public
employment, or public contracting." This language
was almost identical to California’s Proposition
209. Atlantic Monthly editor Michael Kelly
reported in the Washington Post on August 23 that
when asked his opinion on Proposition 209 during
the referendum debate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman
replied, "I can’t see how I could be opposed to
it. . . . It is basically a statement of American
values . . . and says we shouldn’t discriminate in
favor of somebody based on the group they represent."
However, Washington’s business leaders disagreed.
In his autobiography Creating Equal, Ward Connerly
wrote that the "most important significant
obstacle we faced in Washington was not the media,
or even political personalities, but the corporate
world. . . . Boeing, Weyerhauser, Starbucks,
Costco, and Eddie Bauer all made huge donations to
the No on I-200 campaign. . . . The fundraising
was spearheaded by Bill Gates, Sr., a regent of
the University of Washington, whose famous name
seemed to suggest that the whole of the high-tech
world was solemnly shaking its head at us."
Interestingly, private corporations are also more
supportive of another form of group rights — gay
rights — than are government agencies at any
level. As of June 2000, for example, approximately
100 Fortune 500 companies had adopted health
benefits for same-sex partners. According to the
gay rights organization, Human Rights Campaign,
the companies offering same-sex benefits include
the leading corporations in the Fortune 500
ranking: among the top 10, General Motors (ranked
first), Ford (fourth), IBM (sixth), AT&T (eighth),
and Boeing (tenth), as well as Hewlett-Packard,
Merrill Lynch, Chase Manhattan Bank, Bell
Atlantic, Chevron, Motorola, Prudential, Walt
Disney, Microsoft, Xerox, and United Airlines.
Corporate reaction to gay activist attacks on Dr.
Laura Schlessinger is another indication of how
Hegelian-Gramscian the country’s business leaders
have become. Sears and EchoStar have lately joined
a long list of advertisers — Procter and Gamble,
Xerox, AT&T, Toys R Us, Kraft, General Foods, and
Geico — in pulling their advertising from the
popular talk show host. Whether these decisions
favoring gay (read: group) rights were motivated
by ideology, economic calculation, or an
opportunistic attempt to appear "progressive,"
they typify American businesses’ response to the
culture war.
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