As Yahoo! Chief Executive Jerry Yang went before congress to apologize for Yahoo! China’s role in the jailing of a Chinese dissident, the ironic theater of this whole event aside, we thought of other recent news items. ATT & Verizon helping in the domestic wiretapping of Americans without being asked,the sub-prime crisis, the private security debacle, etc.
By virtue of their size, resources, and ability, corporations have always been and likely will always be on the chopping block for their sins. They make easy targets, they tend to be in the wrong, and their primary responsibility is to their shareholders and not say, their customers, the general public or the common good. Given the amount of these types of appearances recently, its hard to feel sympathy for them.
The Los Angeles Times was quick to point out that in dealings with the Chinese government Yahoo! wasn’t the only one taking a stand against human rights and democracy, in fact:
Cisco Systems Inc. helps send thousands of Chinese dissidents to prison by selling sophisticated Internet surveillance technology to China….Skype, an EBay Inc. subsidiary, helps the Chinese government monitor and censor text messaging….Microsoft Corp. likewise is a willing conscript in China’s Internet policing army, as Bill Gates’ minions regularly cleanse the Chinese blogosphere. Google Inc.’s brainiacs, meanwhile, have built a special Chinese version of their powerful search engine to filter out things as diverse as the BBC, freeing Tibet and that four-letter word in China — democracy.
That’s a pretty large swath of the tech tycoons currently on today’s landscape. And lest we forget that this is happening on American soil as well, Verizon and ATT have both aided and abetted illegal (sorry, retroactively sort of almost legal) domestic wiretapping. BAE Systems stood accused of helping the Saudi’s and their foreign policy agenda, until the investigation mysteriously stopped. Corporations are so much the bulk of our wars, many of these companies didn’t exist until we went to war, our spies are private corporate lackeys, our security comes from mercenaries given immunity to wontonly murder, and on and on and on. (We could bring up the old dogs of the past like Enron, but you get the picture)
Many are quick to say that this is the work of an administration so pro-corpratocracy that they are loathe to do anything. That’s probably true on some level but regulations were gutted under the Regan regime, and the roll back has been steady. Couple that with the business community crying foul anytime anything might encroach on their free market, golden parachute party, a culture against business oversight has been created in the court of public opinion as well.
Clearly, we’ve gotten to a point where these organizations feel like, and have in many ways, free reign. Now, they’ll say, they promote free speech with these activities, or they’re helping shield us against terrorism. Its for our own good, the public good. Plus, free markets are good for everyone. Right? right. But how much longer can we allow these bodies, some of which out rank in profits, the GDP of whole countries, to act like governments? Blackwater doesn’t have to apologize for murdering innocent Iraqi’s because we dislike them right now. Yahoo! apologized for a Chinese dissadent, because we don’t support Chinese dictators, but its not like he’s getting fired any time soon. There are no consequences, no accountability.
Free markets have nothing to do with whether or not the government hires Blackwater. I highly doubt any widespread boycotts of Yahoo! are going to ensue any time soon. We are either nations of people who run our governments or we are nations of people being run by our governments and their private sector henchmen. We can only hope that at some point we shift back to democracy.
Further:
AT&T Whistle-Blower Hits D.C. To Stop Telecom Spying Immunity
Yahoo Executive Apologizes to a Congressional Panel
Wiretap bill winds through Senate panels
Verizon Admits to Emergency Wiretapping
Yahoo isn’t the only villain
State Department under fire over reported Blackwater immunity
Welcome to Britain. But don’t mention bribery and corruption. This is business
Great post, PP.
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You would need a number of steps to get back there. Ever read a Jerry Yang essay? He knows nothing but Yahoo-centric society. And most kids today know Facebook, or mySpace, or YouTube-centric cultures, and not much else. Each new generation has become less educated about the “real” past, as opposed to the virtual past most discussed within their cultures. Thus, most have no clue about pretexts for the institutions that built America in the 20th century — including that fuzzy thing called Democracy. And who is going to teach them? Al Sharpton? Cindy Sheehan? Fred Thompson?
Without real leaders, and a respected academic infrastructure that can produce them again, we will be 300 million Facebook users without the faintest idea why democracy even matters. It’s just a concept. And the constitution is just a god damn piece of paper.
Oops. Damned WordPress masks what is placed in angle brackets. My previous comment started with a quote of your text:
“We can only hope that at some point we shift back to democracy.”