Cheryl Seal
NEW WAR: Investors of Conscience VS Corporate Front groups
Thu Feb 9, 2006 12:41


If you dig hard enough through the Bushie Bullshit that fills the mainstream news - you will discover a critically important story. A coalition of 211 international investors with net assets of $31 trillion dollars (that's right - THIRTY-ONE TRILLION DOLLARS!!!) have written to 1,933 public companies and demanded to know just what measures these companies have taken to address global warming. This group of "stockholders of conscience" calls itself the Carbon Disclosure Project. " The CDP is a rapidly growing force for change - its assets have climbed over 30% in just one year, from $20 trillion in 2005 to $31 trillion today.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002043.html

"The numerous indications of accelerating human-induced climate change make it clear that there are business risks and opportunities that have implications for the value of investments in corporations worldwide," said CDP project coordinator Paul Dickinson. In other words, the CDP wants to identify those companies who will be left in the carbon-laden dust by failing to change.

Meanwhile, the rightwing NeoCon brigade is doing what it always does when threatened by public-interest and change that may cost them money: Create new corporate front groups. Here's an example of one such "counter strike" from the right: a "shareholders group" calling itself the Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF). FEAF is dedicated to harassing corporations that attempt to be move toward sustainability and social consciousness

So what the hell, exactly, is the Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF)? Well, here's one take: The "Boston Herald's" Chuck Jaffee on Jan. 24 proclaimed FEAF the "Stupid Investment of the Week." :

Says Jaffe:"When a mutual fund’s agenda is more important than its investment strategy, you can make two easy bets:



1) The fund is likely to be a darling of the media.



2) The fund won’t come close to topping the performance charts.



" When performance is reduced to the point of being an afterthought, however, you’ve got a Stupid Investment of the Week, which is precisely why the Free Enterprise Action Fund takes today’s honor. "

But being slammed as a bad investment will hardly break the hearts of the folks at FEAF. Why? Because they are a corporate front group that is only POSING as an investment fund.
FEAF is a spin off of the Free Enterprise Action Institute. Their funding hardly relies on investors - except whatever shadowy bunch may be funneling cash their way to keep them afloat [more on that later]. In any case - Jaffe's right - FEAF is all about an agenda. And their real agenda is to worm their way inside board rooms and try to pressure corporations and stockholders into "getting with the program" - the NeoCon/Bush program that is. One of FEAF's current primary objectives is to undermine the fight against global warming and to derail any efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions by corporations.

Sound too despicable to be for real?

Well, just look at who one of the co-founders is! Steve Milloy, one of the most reprehensible NeoCon shills around! He not only works for FOX, but operates a site called Junkscience.com, and is a phony Cato Institute "expert." Junkscience.com is dedicated to debunking any scientific finding that threatens corporate interests in any way, shape, or form. Steve is a veritable font of "sound science" - (he operates a site in fact he calls "The Advancement of Sound Science Center.") Yep, Steve's a real "science expert." Just ask him and he'll tell ya about how DDT and smoking aren't really so bad for you, and that greenhouse gases are actually HELPING the planet turn into one big happy greenhouse.

Steve's Free Enterprise Action Institute and Advancement of Sound Science Center are dedicated to debunking global warming. And they are well paid to do it, too! ExxonMobil donated a total of $90,000 to the cause!

And now we have the "action fund" arm of the operation. On its website, FEAF is currently boasting about how they used their influence to get the SEC to pressure GE into footdragging on positive climate change action. So how does a "Stupid Investment of the Week" group get access to the SEC - not only that, but induce the SEC to do its bidding? Easy - the objectives of FEAF and the Bush administration, and thus the SEC are the same.

Here's FEAF's triumphant report: ""On January 17, 2006, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission denied GE’s request to exclude a resolution filed by AFM principal Thomas Borelli [ FEAF's chief "advisor"] requesting GE “to report to shareholders on the scientific and economic analyses relevant to GE’s climate change policy [announced in May 2005].” "

The GE shareholders had already asserted themselves and called for positive action on climate change. But now their wishes are being ignored because FEAF is forcing GE to waste time and money getting together a "restudy of a study" of climate change impact that no one had requested or wanted.

So here we have a major corportion, GE, on the brink of moving toward a positive, perhaps even proactive stance on climate change. Yet, a two-bit "investment fund" is able to derail that effort? What's wrong with this picture? Either FEAF is simply an arm of the Bush administration and/or it is a planted arm of several major corporations - maybe even including GE - who, like ExxonMobil don't REALLY want to address the climate change issue. They simply want to APPEAR to be doing something until, gosh darn! that pesky FEAF comes along to screw it up. The same sort of ploy you might use if you didn't want to go to a some friend's party and prearranged to have a buddy call you just as you are greeting the host, saying you have an emergency at home!

There is certainly evidence that FEAF is operating this way. For example, most of us know that Citigroup is one of the most corrupt institutions around and that they were one of the top ten donors to the Bush campaigns. So isn't it interesting that one of FEAF's crusades is to force Citigroup's supposed "Environment Partners" to "diversify" by including rightwing front groups (whoops - think tanks and public policy groups).
http://www.freeenterpriseactionfund.com/release092205.htm

Says Milloy: “We look forward to helping Citigroup make business decisions that are based on sound science and sound economics." Now doesn't that sound Bushily familiar? Guess what "partners" FEAF recommends? American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, the National Center for Policy Analysis, the National Center for Public Policy Research, the Pacific Research Institute. Yeah, real diversity here! 100% rightwing corporate shills.

So the pattern emerges. Until now the only thing that still held any sway at all over megacorporations was their stockholders. Now an increasing number of stockholders are becoming more conscientious and are demanding that the companies they invest in behave in a more responsible manner. So what's a poor li'l ole corrupt CEO to do? Easy! Hire your own team of inside provocateurs to derail your stockholders efforts to steer you in a more honorable direction! And who better to take on the job than Steve Milloy & Co.?


http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=122681
 

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