“Corporate America will do almost anything to stay on the safe side of public opinion — at least as it’s defined by the media. CEOs will apologize, grovel, resign, settle,” Kimberley A. Strassel reports for The Wall Street Journal. “They will even, as of this month, legitimize and fund an outfit that exists to smear conservatives.”
“The press is still obsessing over President Trump’s incompetent handling of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and that has suited some profiteers just fine. The notorious Southern Poverty Law Center is quietly cashing in on the tragedy, raking in millions on its spun-up reputation as a group that ‘fights hate,'” Strassel reports. “Apple CEO Tim Cook informed employees that his company is giving $1 million to SPLC and matching employee donations. J.P. Morgan Chase is pitching in $500,000, specifically to further the SPLC’s ‘work in tracking, exposing and fighting hate groups and other extremist organizations,’ in the words of Peter Scher, the bank’s head of corporate responsibility.”
“What Mr. Scher is referring to is the SPLC’s ‘Hate Map,’ its online list of 917 American ‘hate groups.’ The SPLC alone decides who goes on the list, but its criteria are purposely vague. Since the SPLC is a far-left activist group, the map comes down to this: If the SPLC doesn’t agree with your views, it tags you as a hater,” Strassel reports. “Let’s not mince words: By funding this list, J.P. Morgan and Apple are saying they support labeling Christian organizations that oppose gay marriage as ‘hate groups.’ That may come as a sour revelation to any bank customers who have donated to the Family Research Council (a mainstream Christian outfit on the SPLC’s list) or whose rights are protected by the Alliance Defending Freedom (which litigates for religious freedom and is also on the list).”
“Had the companies done a bit of homework, they’d have discovered the SPLC isn’t even considered a sound charity. Karl Zinsmeister excoriated the outfit in a recent article for Philanthropy Roundtable: ‘Its two largest expenses are propaganda operations: creating its annual list of ‘haters’ and ‘extremists,’ and running a big effort that pushes ‘tolerance education’ through more than 400,000 public-school teachers,'” Strassel reports. “Apple did not return a call to its media center. J.P. Morgan Chase, in an emailed statement, said only that it has a ‘long history of supporting a range of organizations that are committed to addressing inequality.’ The corporate donations are nonetheless appalling, as they legitimize a group that already exercises inappropriate influence. The SPLC’s list is cited regularly by the media and congressional Democrats, ignorant or uncaring of its falsehoods.”
Read more in the full article here.
“Like every other decent American, I was outraged that the president of the United States equivocated in condemning neo-Nazi activity in this country. Nazism — not to mention white supremacy and racial bigotry — has no place in a civilized society,” Ayaan Hirsi Al writes for The New York Times. “But is donating money to the S.P.L.C. the best way to combat this poison? I think not. If Tim Cook and Jamie Dimon had done their due diligence, they would know that the S.P.L.C. is an organization that has lost its way, smearing people who are fighting for liberty and turning a blind eye to an ideology and political movement that has much in common with Nazism.”
“I am a black woman, a feminist and a former Muslim who has consistently opposed political violence. The price for expressing my beliefs has been high: I must travel with armed security at all times. My friend and collaborator Theo van Gogh was murdered in broad daylight,” Al writes. “Yet the S.P.L.C. has the audacity to label me an ‘extremist,’ including my name in a ‘Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists’that it published on its website last October.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Could Apple CEO Tim Cook really be ignorant of the myriad criticisms leveled against the Southern Poverty Law Center over many years?
Highly doubtful.
It’s also highly doubtful that all Apple employees agree with Tim Cook on every issue or with donating to the SPLC – we know for a fact that they all do not – yet Apple’s CEO continues to use Apple’s name to further his own personal political agenda. Shareholders should demand answers and our Take would be exactly the same if Apple had a CEO who was donating $1,000,000 to, say, the The Heritage Foundation in the name of Apple Inc. rather than under his own name.
Of course, Tim Cook can personally donate wherever he wants. It should go without saying that Tim Cook should not be making political donations in the name of Apple Inc., overtly or implicitly.
Tim Cook is personally worth north of $400 million. Give away your own money to causes and to make political statements under your own name, Tim, not Apple’s.
Furthermore, if Apple Inc. had a responsible Board of Directors, the CEO’s activism in the name of Apple Inc. would have been nipped in the bud long ago and would not be happening today.
I’m going to just stay away from all that political stuff because that was just a personal thing. — Steve Jobs, August 2004
And now for some quotes from George Orwell’s 1984 (you know, the one upon which Steve Jobs’ Apple once based a very famous TV spot heralding the launch of Macintosh):
• Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
• The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.
• Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
• The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.
• And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
One more quote: Think Different.
SEE ALSO:
Apple CEO Tim Cook disagrees with Trump’s response to Charlottesville, donates $2 million to anti-hate organizations – August 17, 2017
Apple CEO Cook: ‘Fake news’ is ‘killing people’s minds’ – February 11, 2017
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]