Month: April 2014

Why You Should Uninstall Firefox and do Some Soul Searching

Today, I uninstalled Firefox from my computer. There was no fanfare, or large protest, or media coverage of the event. In fact, I’m sure many have recently sworn off Firefox lately, but unlike the rest of those who did, my reasons had nothing to do with whether I support or don’t support gay marriage, proposition 8, or whatever. Nor did they have anything to do with my opinion on whether Brendan Eich was fit to be CEO, or whether I thought he was anti-gay. In fact, I would have uninstalled Firefox today regardless of what my position is on the gay marriage issue, or any other political issue for that matter. Instead, I uninstalled Firefox today for one simple reason: in the tendering of Eich’s resignation, Mozilla crossed over from a company that had previously taken a neutral, non-participatory approach to politics, to an organization that has demonstrated that it will now make vital business decisions based on the whim of popular opinion. By changing Mozilla’s direction to pander to the political and social pressure ignited by a small subset of activists, Mozilla has now joined the ranks of many large organizations in adopting what once was, and should be considered taboo: lack of corporate neutrality. It doesn’t matter what those positions are, or what the popular opinion is, Mozilla has violated its ethical responsibility to, as an organization, remain neutral to such topics. Unfortunately, this country is now owned by businesses that violate this same ethical responsibility.

Corporations have rapidly stepped up lobbying and funneling money into their favorite political vices over the past decade. This radicalization of corporate America climaxed in 2010, when what was left of the Tillman Act (a law passed in 1907 to restrict corporate campaign contributions), was essentially destroyed, virtually unrestricting the corporate world from holding politicians in their back pocket through financial contributions. Shortly before, and since then, America has seen a massive spike in the amount of public, overt political lobbying – not by people, not by voters, but by faceless organizations (without voting rights). What used to be a filthy act often associated with companies like tobacco manufacturers has now become a standard mechanism for manipulating politics. Starbucks has recently, and very rudely, informed its customers that they don’t want their business if they don’t support gay marriage, or if they are gun owners – in other words, if you don’t agree with the values of the CEO, you aren’t welcome in their public business. This very day, 36 large corporations, including some that have no offices in Oregon, are rallying in support of gay marriage in Oregon. The CEO of Whole Foods has come out publicly in protest of the Affordable Care Act. Regardless of your views on any of these, there’s a bigger problem here:  it has now become accepted that corporate America can tell you what to believe.

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