In response to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial about the radical left’s effort to impose disclosure requirements on corporate political contributions, the Junkman writes in the WSJ:
While the left is highly motivated toward “capturing the corporation,” corporate management and shareholders are often not so committed to the defense of free enterprise and capitalism.
Many in corporate management and the institutional shareholder community swing left. Those that don’t are often afraid of political incorrectness. Conservative and libertarian shareholders who haven’t abandoned publicly traded corporations altogether in favor of private equity and hedge funds tend to exhibit an unfathomable ennui at the visible transformation of the publicly owned corporation from societal golden goose to socialist tool.
The irony is that the left has yet to figure out that socialists can’t afford to kill the golden goose.
Steve Milloy
Potomac, Md.
The other letters printed in the journal (from communists, in our view) support the left-wing tactic of politically silencing corporations through mandatory disclosure of political contributions.
Too many of our over-educated citizens misunderstand the roll of corporations in modern economies. Since corporate managements are to promote shareholder interests only, they are constrained in using corporate assets for pet causes. They can buy super-bowl ads hyping their beer for example, but they can not buy super-bowl ads to for or against particular candidates. Not because of regulations, but because of their obligation to apply corporate funds only for direct corporate purposes.
What has happened is that independent rich people have
used and misused their money. The classic example of misuse is Ross Perot;s funding of the “There are POW/MIAs in North Vietnam” nonsense for years, even though there never was any evidence to support that view. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was very effective.
It is my understanding that the recent campaign for gay rights was funded in an important way by one rich guy. There wasn’t that much injustice before the recent changes, but the changes don’t bother me, and I like that some people, such as congressman Frank, are really happy with the outcome.
By focusing on the modest support given to a few non-clique scientists, the public misses the powerful, and well funded, propaganda of Green Peace and the Sierra Club.
If the lefties were so much in favor of disclosure, their tools, such as the NRDC, should consider leading by example. Which of course they won’t, because it would reveal that they rely on corporate donors to support their ‘campaigns’. Like the Sierra Club paid by gas to protest coal.
And of course, corporate executives have to appear leftist, because so many corporate marketing claims rest on the notion of having ‘green’ products. Don’t want to have boycotts and such, you know.
All one has to do is read the proxy statements of any corporations in which you own stock to see that the directors often do lean left. Instead of just pitching them in the garbage why don’t you vote, as I do, against these directors when they come up for election? You can also vote against the bonus and pension plans. This way the owners can recapture the corporations.
Also, for unions to claim, as Trumka does, that they have to disclose donations is a lie. Obama just recently changed the disclosure rules, put in place by Bush, about many parts of the union organization.