Not buying the politics of business
Re “Chamber vows to spend big on campaign,” Jan. 8
This is not the United States of America Inc., contrary to what U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue seems to assume by proclaiming that big business knows what’s best for this country and that we, the people, benefit and “eat” from the generous graces of big business. Poppycock.
As we’re seeing with global capitalism, the homegrown kind also displaces people and resources and creates friction, fear and distrust. Donohue wants the opposition -- Democrats -- to be “gone from power for at least 40 years” by spending $60 million campaigning against them. Is this not economic terrorism and a throwback to the past in which Big Oil always knew what was best for America and its working class? We need to move forward, not backward, to continue the ideals of the United States; these ideals have never been about partisanship. We are smarter than this.
Mark Papas
Los Angeles
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Donohue defines pro-business as against environmental protection and worker rights. Donohue has used the chamber’s clout to support unpopular Republican candidates and regressive tax and labor laws. He may be the person most responsible for the decline of America’s middle class. The result is a distrust of business by the American people.
I listen to pronouncements from the chamber and support whatever it is against.
Barry Wendell
West Hollywood
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The chamber’s opposition to such populist candidates as John Edwards reminds one of Henry Ford’s vehement opposition to unions. Never mind that when Ford would increase wages, more of his cars appeared in the employee parking lot and his income soared.
Phillip Good
Huntington Beach
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Donohue actually declared what people knew all along -- that corporations buy Republicans. He said that he will flood donations to defeat “anti-business” candidates. And as far as history shows us, the Republicans will gobble those donations up and create even more corporate favoritism. We have quietly become a plutocracy. Democracy is dead, and the working class descends into ruin.
Gary Blinn
Montclair
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Donohue said he is “concerned about anti-corporate and populist” rhetoric from 2008 candidates at all levels, and plans to spend more than $60 million to defeat them. “We have to demonstrate who it is in this society that creates jobs, wealth and benefits,” he said.
Someone should remind Donohue that jobs have been flying out of the U.S. like jets for years, that most of the “created wealth” is enjoyed by a minuscule percentage of elites and that benefits are disappearing like vanilla at an ice cream social. Better that he and the chamber put their multimillions to work reforming corporate ethics and supporting policies that prevent such excesses as the sub-prime mortgage fiasco that really threaten our economy.
Ken Fermoyle
Woodland Hills
