"Walmart's C.E.O. Joins Group to Rebuke Trump Over Charlottesville":
nyti.ms/2wNE2G3 What kind of crazy fucked-up world do we live in where corporations speak truth to power and artists are silent?
One in which corporations are much more powerful than artists, one in which they incite belief far exceeding that of individuals. Come on, is there a single artist you believe in as much as Nike, Apple, Amazon or Adidas! They enlarged their logos and we went right along. We wanted to advertise where our fealty was paid. Hell, I'll argue fashion is bigger than music, they lowered the price of clothing and no one bitched, allowing everyday people to change their look on a whim, and you'd think these same corporations would play it safe, worry about alienating customers.
And many still do.
But not all.
Yes, it takes a few good men, and women, to lead the way.
Like the CEO of Merck. And now Elon Musk and Bob Iger.
Musk, the new Steve Jobs, whose company depends upon government subsidies. GM killed the electric car, Musk resuscitated it, and in the not too distant future it will be the standard. Musk is an American hero. Musicians? As for Iger, Disney plays to both sides of the aisle. They've got more to lose than anybody.
But they took a stand.
Now it was different in the sixties. We had beatniks and then hippies, and college was cheap and not a trade school, and the Vietnam War had all the young worried about getting their asses shot off.
Now the young are somnambulant. Beaten into submission by economic realities. Either striving to leave the hoi polloi behind or complaining they can't make it here anymore. Trump appealed to the latter, but so far he hasn't delivered on his promises, despite his proclamations and protestations.
So what happens now?
Looks like the pushback is working.
The people stopped the demise of the ACA.
And now business leaders are saying NO MAS! They're afraid to NOT take a stand, they don't want to be aligned with a President who just doubled-down on his defense of the perpetrators on Saturday while blaming the left simultaneously.
Soon he's going to be a party of one.
They've got him on the run.
Who?
The press and the corporations.
The press needles him by speaking the truth.
The corporate titans are people he respects, who he believes are on his side, and when he finds out they're not, he's enraged.
Wasn't Walmart the enemy? Weren't they hollowing out downtowns?
True. But it turns out people are inured to low prices. And convenience. And now Amazon has eaten Walmart's lunch.
America is schizophrenic. It wants the comfort of the past while embracing the advantages of the new. Like that inane opinion piece in yesterday's L.A. "Times" telling Jeff Bezos to raise prices on books to save bookstores. Yeah, when the bookstore has every title in print, when it delivers right away to my house, when the prices are lower so I can read more.
Luddites are on the left and the right. But thank god we have some forward-thinking people pushing our nation into the future.
We love to connect with our devices.
But the Luddites keep telling us the internet will eat our brains.
Right-wingers decry subsidies to Tesla while ignoring subsidies to oil and farms.
And the public is frequently too stupid to know what's going on.
But sunlight illuminates the truth.
I'm not saying we're all gonna get along. I'm not saying either the right or the left is perfect. All I'm saying is elections are not the end of the story, just the beginning. And we have a right to stand up and be heard.
Very exciting times. Who wouldn't rather watch the news than listen to the hit parade?
"A Combative Trump Criticizes 'Alt-Left' Groups in Charlottesville":
nyti.ms/2w85wZN "A bookseller's advice for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos":
lat.ms/2w3jyvM--
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