Corporate Role of Honor

National Review | October 25, 2004 | Editors

[Mars55]

Shall we call the corporate roll of honor? There's Nortel, which invented for the Chinese government an Internet surveillance mechanism "specifically designed 'to catch Falun Gong.'"...Google has helpfully omitted all PRC-banned sites from its search service. From its search service in China, that is. What you can find via Google in Peoria--or Kobe--you can't find in Beijing. Google has bowed to the Communist rulers.

[Mars55]

It's their dirty little secret--or was, until someone ratted them out. I have to hand it to these folks, very enterprising to have profits so near to their hearts. Patriotism and ethics are just abstractions, but money...that's something to die for. The web is truly an equal-opportunity avenue for freedom lovers and dictators alike. Should war break out between China and the US, would Nortel and Google be allowed to keep their contracts with the Chinese active, or have them interrupted? It is, no doubt, against US law to do at home what Nortel and Google are doing over in China (CENSORSHIP), but what's not lawful here is "fine" to do over there. By this logic, US companies could help bring back slavery on foreign soil while avoiding it at home. Something smells very, very bad here.

[GOP_1900AD]

What can one expect? Today, corporations are largely peopled (at least in management circles) by Third Way men and women without a country. They are believers in "Transnational Progressivism" and are, in the worst of all ways, patently anti nationalist. And that is not to be confused with *either* anti fascist or anti communist. Plus, diversity has gone global. The most "diverse" companies are ever so proud of how inclusive they are - in their various "geographies" they kowtow to local custom. Conversely, for headquarters personal to critique, for example, sharing dual use technological knowledge with a Flextronics CM operation in the PRC, or, kowtowing to the CCP's despotism, is considered "harassment" of nationals from the PRC who are one's coworkers, be they actually in the PRC or, in the US on H1Bs. Investigate, investigate, investigate. Oh, and enforce export controls to the hilt. This is my tip for the day.

[Peter vE]

That's a long roll of honor, from Loral (missile technology to China) to Halliburton (oil services to Iran). Their only loyalty is to the dollar, or maybe Euro.

[investigateworld]

Just ask any "free traders" that preach here. After all, it's just money.

[Mars55]

Excellent points, well said. We are far gone. These folks are all over the landscape. Seems unthinkable, but true. Come another war, this foolishness will go far to destroy us. In the Civil War, they used to call them "Copperheads." Why not help our enemies? Because the PRC is known to be taking our measure every minute, looking for signs of weakness. In addition, they are in the midst of a tremendous military buildup. What are they planning to do with all those weapons? Doesn't seem to matter to the Internet giants. They will be very sorry down the line.
After this sort of consorting with the enemy, items like sedition and treason are a peace of cake.