A cursory look at the state of the economy, the political landscape, and the turmoil that exists in many parts of the world suggests that Thanksgiving dinner in 2008 may be very difficult to swallow. I am not certain that the future is as bleak as Pat Buchanan suggests, however, if things turn really sour next year, I’m hoping that our national distress may serve as a catalyst for a much-deserved reexamination of our business and social priorities.
I, for one, would welcome a thorough assessment of what decades of corporate appeasement of radical activist groups has meant for the American economy. A fair and balanced appraisal of the price we are likely to pay for the current worldwide experiment with corporate socialism—the so-called Corporate Social Responsibility movement—would be nice too.
A recent propaganda piece published by the Environmental News Service (ENS) reminded me once again that many large corporations have become the hand-maidens of anti-capitalist forces that masquerade as environmental and consumer advocacy groups. The ENS release proclaimed that Target Stores had joined “a group of companies including Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Nike, and Apple that are eliminating or reducing PVC in their products and packaging.”
PVC, a.k.a. vinyl, is a plastic used in a wide array of packaging, consumer products, medical devices and construction materials—from baby bibs to the siding found on homes. Environmentalists hate PVC because it is made with chlorine which the Greens consider the devil’s element. As a result, PVC has been under attack since Al Gore was in knickers.
First, the activists linked PVC with dioxin. That didn’t stick so they claimed it wasn’t recyclable. Wrong again, so the activists shifted the attack to additives used to improve PVC’s performance. The environmental nannies charged that additives in PVC toys caused early puberty in girls and reduced testosterone production in boys. Truth be told, the same could be alleged about soy beans. That’s because it’s the dose that makes the poison. If a child is slurping down gallons of soy formula and devouring several PVC toys each day, my guess is that could create both medical and dental problems, but I’m no physician. Nonetheless, when Greenpeace portrayed babies as victims of the mean and evil PVC, politicians in Europe jumped on the appeasement bandwagon and banned the additives, known as phthalates, from certain toys and baby products. Europeans engaging in appeasement? Shocking!