Chamber of Commerce Pushback

American Journalism Center ^ | December 7, 2009 | Sarah Carlsruh

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Chamber of Commerce Pushback

Sarah Carlsruh, December 7, 2009

On November 24th, members of the Chamber of Commerce, the largest business federation, spoke at the Heritage Foundation’s conservative Blogger’s Briefing in defense of the interests of their more than three million organizations and businesses.

Thomas Collamore, senior vice president of Communications and Strategy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, addressed the recent media attacks of the Chamber. He said that Moveon.org and other groups have engaged in “an orchestrated campaign… to harass the Chamber and its members.” Groups such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) have mischaracterized a number of Chamber positions and have even gone so far as “to intimidate, harass, and threaten [the Chamber’s] allies,” claimed Collamore. This fall, a small handful of chamber members resigned over climate change stance, around the same time that the YesMen staged a hoax press conference claiming the chamber reversed its stance on climate change. Such reports, which Collamore said were “of dubious accuracy,” are reported as facts by blogs like the Huffington Post and then it is taken up by more mainstream media like the Washington Post.

Despite these smear campaigns, the Chamber of Commerce is “trying to stay on the high road,” and stay focused on their agenda “to get jobs growing” and “put the unemployed back to work” said Collamore. The Chamber of Commerce has a goal that 20 million jobs be created in ten years, but Collamore made it clear that this can only be achieved by “a strong sector powered by free enterprise” that “nobody can attack or tax, regulate, or sue our way to those jobs.”...

[FormerACLUmember]

The communists/democrats/liberals

versus

free enterprise/capitalism/democracy.

[Tempest]

What’s funny is that in about three years the COC will just end up being the willing lap dog of the left wing agenda.

Due to “pressure”.