Sunday, April 06, 2014

Dangerous Type

I have been debating writing this for days now - and yes, it's going to be one of those posts.

So the new CEO of Mozilla was pushed (or jumped) out of his job for donating $1000 to Prop 8 five years ago. "He is a hater", we as a collective group cried.  Or, if Michelangelo Signorile is to be believed, the CEO was actually ousted for donating to Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign............back in 1992!!!!

Now, without going to Wikipedia, I dare anyone to tell me exactly what Buchanan's platform was 22 years ago. And assuming they were extreme outliers and didn't jibe with Mozilla's culture - what was their culture back in 1992.  Oh that's right, the company didn't exist back then.

What is the statute of limitations on people who donate to campaigns, sign petitions, write term papers, say stupid things or take drugs?

The CEO of Hyatt gave tons of money for Prop 8. If I'm correct, the HRC still gives them a 100% gay friendly rating and the Advocate is happy happy happy to take their ads (and money for them). Of course they say, "it's the company we support not the individual". So why does the Hyatt CEO remain? Where's the boycott?

Giving $1000 5 years ago, or Bill Clinton smoking pot X amount of years before he ran for President. We vilify one and elect the other. Both, in theory, are illegal - one criminal law, one constitutional (though until lately, never upheld).

Clinton and Obama "evolve" on gay marriage and we cheer. A CEO donates money a half decade ago, and as far as I can tell, no one bothers to ask him if he's evolved. So he's fired.

Mind you "we" asked him to apologize. But of course we'd be the same people calling him out for faux-apologizing, whether it was sincere or not. Because everyone - you and me included - loves to be forced to say "I'm sorry".

We, as a group, are hypocrites. We are all broken or flawed individuals. To think that leaders - in government or business - are not the same, is only setting ourselves failure and disappointment. We expect more from them and when they can't rise to the level we project, we rally against them. We tell them they have to be above board and they tell us they are - because we demand it, though if we look closely at ourselves, we ourselves are not.

But again, where's the line?

If not the issue of marriage equality, then what else?  Where is the defining list of which we must all abide? And who makes up that list? 

We think there is an absolute and when there is not, "the other side" is now the enemy. The opposing side(s) think the same thing.

Nate Silver, whom I admire, has produced a list of all the top tech companies and the amount of people who donated to and against Prop 8 and the total amount donated for each.  There are any number of things wrong with this.

One is: he doesn't give a percentage of FTEs employed by the company. 80 people at Intel are a fraction of one percent. It also doesn't tell if they're management, front line workers or groundskeepers.

Either way, I think Joe McCarthy had a list like this.

Gay groups are all very comfortable with releasing names of donors to any anti-gay campaign. I am too. Of course there is a caveat to that:  any petition you sign, any donation you make, etc is fair game too. And if those don't jive with your employer's belief system - like Mozilla - you're good with being forced out of a job?

It's dangerous territory.

NOM at least attempted boycotts of Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc for supporting same-sex marriage and / or extending benefits to same-sex couples. The gays at least attempted a boycott of Mozilla over one known employee donating to Prop 8. In theory shouldn't the gay groups be calling for a boycott of all those companies and everyone on Nate Silver's list - at least until they terminate those employees?

I don't see how "we" can pick and choose who will get the brunt of our hatred, as I don't see anyone calling to stop using Intel, Apple, Google or Yahoo - because we can be just as hypocritical as our enemies.


Song by: the Cars

1 comment:

Ur-spo said...

good points, all.

I sense no one with any sanity will soon run for office as it is too scrutinized. So long as we won't allow charity, forgiveness etc. There won't be anyone wanting to go into civic duty or politics.