Posted on 04/05/2021 4:57:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
Corporate titans tripping over themselves to be “woke” by condemning election integrity laws like Georgia’s SB 202 are failing in their duty to focus on running their companies profitably, ironically instead pushing an agenda that other nations show destroys private business under one-party socialist rule.
As a shareholder in the ownership of a major sports franchise and a former partner in a broadcast company, I could do whatever I want with profits once they were in my personal pocket. But I could not treat shareholders’ money that way when serving on a board or as a corporate officer because I’ve also served on a number of boards of directors, both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits are dedicated to some sort of mission, whether it’s educating the public, charitable work, or advancing a particular political or policy issue. By contrast, for-profit companies’ top objective is to turn a profit for the shareholders.
Directors on for-profit boards know that they have a fiduciary obligation to those who own shares in the company to make money, giving those shareholders a return on their investment. Corporate officers – from the CEO down to vice presidents – must answer to the board to explain how their decisions are in the financial best interests of the company. When officers fail to make decisions based on that objective, or directors fail to hold officers accountable, shareholders can even bring lawsuits against them.
So it’s stunning to see companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines have become so woke that they take public stands condemning some of their own customers (and presumably some shareholders as well) in Georgia, and as Major League Baseball moves the All-Star Game to a state that probably has similar or more restrictive election laws.
Many such corporate leaders are simultaneously doing business in China – which truly is an oppressive, freedom-crushing regime that does not allow democratic voting at all – kowtowing to Beijing, often with over-the-top flattery and gushing praises, while denouncing duly elected lawmakers in American states passing laws to protect the voting process.
These corporatist wokesters have been sucked in by Joe Biden’s “big lie," that these laws are racist and un-American to the point of being “Jim Crow on steroids.” Those of us whose families lived under Jim Crow segregation decades ago, and also who in modern times have the everyday experience of pulling out photo identification for all sorts of common activities like checking into a hotel or getting medicine, find that comparison appalling.
Yet some corporate leaders are tripping over themselves to be President Biden’s apologists. Consumers are turning on many of them by pulling back from purchasing products from some of those companies, which will hit their bottom line. These corporate officers who are treating their for-profit corporations like nonprofit political activist groups may yet be held to account.
What are these corporate leaders (and Biden) condemning? Election integrity laws like voter ID.
The reality is this: the least favorable poll for voter ID laws I’ve seen lately – from the Associated Press – said that 70 percent of Americans support this commonsense measure. Other recent polls say 77 percent. Americans support these laws by overwhelming margins, and black Americans support them by a whopping 38-point margin (64 to 22). Let’s be clear: Jim Crow doesn’t get that kind of poll numbers in the black community.
As I’ve written before in a university publication, election integrity is part of your voting rights – your right to have your legal ballot fully counted, not diluted by other people doing something illegal.
Speaking for my home state of Ohio as someone who spent almost three decades in elected office there: Ohio’s voting laws focus on election integrity as much as Georgia’s new law, with our own voter ID requirements and other safeguards. And we have two baseball teams: the Cleveland Indians and the Cincinnati Reds (the sports franchise in which I have ownership shares).
If they’re targeting Georgia today, they can target Ohio tomorrow, and whatever state you call home.
But Biden is not just condemning states’ fulfilling their sovereign responsibility to protect their citizens’ votes. He’s also pushing H.R. 1 (S. 1 in the Senate) – the Corrupt Politicians Act – which would abolish all voter ID in America, mandate nationwide mail-in ballots with no way to confirm the identity of the sender, universally register as a voter everyone who interacts with the government, repeal laws that clean up voter rolls and basically take everything that caused chaos and problems in 2020 and make it the law of the land.
The Corrupt Politicians Act is a hyper-partisan power grab to ensure that America becomes a one-party state, where only Democrats are able to win the White House and both houses of Congress. In just a few short years, that would mean they control the courts as well. Serving as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, I’ve seen in other nations what one-party rule gives you: socialism, where companies exist only at the pleasure of an authoritarian government.
By the same reasoning that the corporate wokesters at Coca-Cola, Delta, MLB, and other businesses condemn SB 202, they would also have to endorse and push the Corrupt Politicians Act to be consistent. Such a regime would destroy the very free-market principles they rely upon to run successful businesses.
Laws like SB 202 make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat. The Corrupt Politicians Act does the opposite. It’s not good business to take sides against such a principle of American freedom.
“I like honest elections.”
“Oh! You are such a racist!!”
Biden and the democrats continue an open attack on any attempt to clean up election integrity. Why? Because it would inhibit their ability to cheat in elections and for no other reason.
Can’t argue with those polls, 70%..77% support. Democracy, the will of the people, is speaking and needs to be supported!
I would suggest, however, that the Woke corporations the author mentions are not violating their fiduciary responsibility but are yielding to threats from the Ruling Establishment (and perhaps from China itself) to damage their profitability if they do not surrender to the Woke revolution.
Keep in mind that the Ruling Establishment controls the media...and the media can greatly influence the consumer markets.
Such threats are not empty.
Communists are not big on honest elections.
Coca-Cola Expects Growth in China Even as Global Sales SlideCoke opened at least 6 new bottling facilities in China last year and has plans for more in 2021. Guess who their partner is.
I was thinking about the MLB moving that game out of Georgia, so I looked up Atlanta and evidently its a 51% black city. The voting law is being equated with racism and the boycott pressure campaign is being carried out in the name of African-Americans. There doesn’t appear to be much pushback against this use of proxies by the power-grabbing West Coast elites who are at least allied with this effort if not leading it and gaining the most if the effort is successful.
If you can reasonably expect 51+% of people to boycott the big expensive thing you are trying to do in a locale, it only makes sense to not stay where you aren’t wanted. Thats rational.
Its an interesting dilemma, how sports are going to adapt to Wokeism destroying the places that offer so much taxpayer support for stadiums etc.
Am I right in thinking that baseball is more self-sustaining than football because of the farm team system? Football has bent itself into pretzels over Wokeism, which has not been great for viewership. Football is also dependent on college student debt in the form of borrowed fees to keep their recruiting going. Baseball doesn’t have that problem, and it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
Why can’t we call it what it really is? Fascism.
The elites aren’t even hiding their contempt from us now; since the 2016 election campaign they have used blatant lies and censorship to try to control public opinion, they stole the 2020 election when their plot failed, and now they are silencing any dissent while re-configuring this country (under the guise of fighting a virus much less harmful than the Spanish Flu).
Voter ID is a commonsense (their word) reform law. Period, as demented joe would say.
I want similar woes to befall all of the cities involved in the 2020 election theft: Philly, Milwaukee, Detroit, Phoenix, Atlanta. A pox on all of them, especially their Dem machines.
The a-holes know if they can’t hold the line of COVID and election fraud gains, Bidet/Ho will be flushed in one term and if the GOP can get some spine, we can take back sizable portions of the Senate and House. My opinion is that at this point I see none of this happening.
It’s simple, the democrats have to cheat to win
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