L. Brent Bozell III
CREATORS SYNDICATE
Published 6/8/2002
An anti-corporate lynch mob showed up in
Dallas for the ExxonMobil shareholders meeting. Their language was
intemperate, their historical comparisons absurd, and their demands on a major
oil company could be reduced to one word: Surrender.
Ever since radical mobs with a violent and thoroughly anticapitalist agenda
stormed Seattle, many in our media have treated the parade of anticorporate
hooligans with kid gloves, awarding them instant idealism on the front pages,
giving their spokesmen precious air time for their sound bites, and presenting
them without any notice of an ideological bone in their bodies. At best they are
dreamers; at worst, confused.
To see what these people are really like, see CNSNews.com reporter Marc
Morano's report from the scene of the leftists' "mock trial" of ExxonMobil in
Dallas. Prosecutor David Cobb, the local Green Party candidate for attorney
general of Texas, compared the oil giant to Adolf Hitler's dictatorship. "Just
as the Nazi Party had to take over the democratically elected government in
Germany to achieve its goals, so, too, did ExxonMobil take over aspects of our
democratically elected government to achieve its ends."
Ask yourself this question: In all the news reports about the Green Party
you've watched on the networks, have you ever seen their political agenda
described this way? You haven't, because to report on the reality of the Green
Party's agenda is to shatter the illusion so painstakingly promoted by its
sympathizers.
The ExxonMobil meeting wasn't just a magnet for anarchists outside the
meeting, but also for more mainstream liberal activists inside the meeting, like
established green groups and the homosexual left. On the Web site of the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram, one small preview reported on their efforts: "Social
activists, ranging from environmental, alternative energy and social policy
proponents, will present shareholders with eight proposals."
Why can't reporters in America find the term "leftist" - or the more
appropriate, "radical leftist" - in their dictionaries? They're not helping
their readers understand politics with vague and meaningless terms like "social
policy proponents."
The leftists demanded that ExxonMobil divert its oil revenues into
alternative-fuel schemes like solar energy - still uneconomical after all these
years - and offer domestic-partner benefits for homosexual employees, which
presumably has something to do with environmental issues. When these liberal
proposals were rejected by almost 80 percent of the shareholders, the
Star-Telegram didn't report the liberals were routed. Heavens, no. They told a
warm story about high-fiving activists convinced that doubling their vote from
10 percent to 20 percent meant that a shareholder-endorsed socialist utopia was
not far behind.
But there was another story unfolding in Dallas that week. When the
anarchists came to protest outside the meeting, this time conservatives
counterprotested, and the startled left-wing mob was routed.
Activists from Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Congress for Racial
Equality showed up for a little sidewalk debate, armed with signs like
"Capitalism Rocks," "Stop Global Whining," and "Greenpeace Hates America." As
Mr. Morano reported, "I think we rattled them. They're packing up their bags and
leaving,' stated Niger Innis of CORE. 'Victory is sweet,' he added."
There's a lesson in Dallas for conservatives. Hitting the street and
answering that leftist rant is one way even a small group of conservatives can
force their message to stand next to the radicals in the so-called mainstream
press. Just don't expect much coverage from the press. Liberal activists still
dominated the Star-Telegram coverage, while the conservatives only had their
slogans quoted. (You could tell the reporters were shocked when they described
counterprotesters who were, gasp, "questioning the validity of ecological
concerns.") But any time a story about an oil company protest includes the words
"Oil Employs, Anarchy Destroys," it's a good day in the newspaper for
conservatives.
Too many reporters arrive at a business story with the prospective idea
that there are only two sides, the Marxist caricature of capital vs. labor - the
stuffed-shirt, bottom-line titans of profit opposed to the scruffy, lovable
humanitarians of not-for-profit. But the events in Dallas proved the presence of
conservative protesters and journalists can ensure that left-wing militants and
liberals alike can be refuted within (somewhat) and without the mainstream
press.
When supposedly skeptical journalists go soft on the left, we need
reporters like Marc Morano who can question them on hypocrisy - as in Dallas,
when he asked a group of "green" radicals why they showed up at an oil-bashing
rally in a big Ford Econoline van. And we need a little army of conservative
protesters in every big city when a business is targeted for "idealism." Show
them there's another side: everyday people who love freedom, love America, and
appreciate the bounty of goods and services that free enterprise provides.
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