Corporate America rethinks support of right-wing fringe

[CatWoman]

Kraft Foods announced Thursday that it has joined Coca-Cola and Pepsico in withdrawing support from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group created in part to disseminate controversial conservative legislation to state legislators around the country.

Last week, GM announced that was pulling its financial backing of the Heartland Institute, which specializes in the denial of climate change and dismisses it as “junk science.” And in the past week, Arby’s, Walgreen’s (see tweet to the right) Proactive and Kohler have added their names to the list of more than 100 companies that have either pulled their ads from Rush Limbaugh’s show or ordered that ads for their companies not appear there.

If so, I can think of several possible reasons that might have changed:

A. Greater transparency is exposing relationships that once were easier to hide.

B. As Planned Parenthood demonstrated in its faceoff with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, liberal groups are publicizing such relationships and rallying their supporters.

C. The positions taken by ALEC, Limbaugh, Heartland and others have become more and more extreme and thus less defensible in the public sphere.

D. The market is speaking. As the public becomes disenchanted with such extremism, companies grow more fearful that association with fringe viewpoints is costing them business and reputation, and they are acting accordingly.

So what’s the right answer? Obviously it’s E., all of the above.

– Jay Bookman

http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2012/04/06/corporate-america-rethinks-support-of-right-wing-fringe/

[aquart]

1. Keep up the pressure.

[DearAbby]

2. D

The market has changed, and it's good busine$$.

[CrispyQ]

3. Women do most of the purchasing in this country

& these companies realize the right wing has pissed us off, & that we are paying attention to who is advertising where.

[Spazito]

4. The emergence of the social media has made information and the....

ability to organize boycotts, protests, etc., has brought daylight into what used to be the murky corners of organizations like ALEC, counter the power of Limbaugh and it now happens at lightning speed. Corporations can't so easily hide their support in the light of day and, ironically, it is the "free market" that is now scaring the crap out of them.

[Iliyah]

5. I don't believe

American corporations are reconidering their position concerning supporting wingnuts agendas since majority of the CEOs are wingnuts themselves.

[SemperEadem]

6. this begs the question

why was it that they weren't moved to withdraw their support of these entities until their bottom line/profit margin/return on investments became the focus? Why wasn't it that it was a fucked up thing to support in the first place?

The fact that they funneled money into those entities AT ALL should be the focus, not that they had some "come to jesus" moment once Color of Change began their twitter carpet bombing run.

thankfully, I don't eat processed foods, I quit drinking pepsi and coke 30 years ago (causes my skin to break out and I'm vain), I don't eat Arby's, I don't use Walgreens and I haven't had to replace my Delta faucets.

[Brooklyn Dame]

7. So many of the Fortune 500 leaders are right wingers...

...but at least they have sense enough to pay attention to their bottom line. That said, there's a huge difference between a "conservative Republican" and the bat$hit loonies who are currently controlling the GOP. The choice is REALLY clear where votes belong!


http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2012/02/r-or-d/


http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2012/03/this-is-america-on-wingnuttery/

[eyewall]

8. The negative effect right wing policies have on the economy could also be a factor.

As the middle class loses ground, there are fewer customers for your products. Why support the cause of your own loss of revenue.