Teachable Moment Coming...?

There actually might be some burgeoning capitalists coming out of the Occupy movements across the country. The members of these different protest groups are learning that capitalist free markets are necessary for an ordered society. Case(s) in point:

In Portland, Oregon, a member of the Occupy movement filed paperwork to INCORPORATE their group in order to protect their financial assets.

In New York City, the Occupy kitchen staff is withholding the "good" food from people that don't WORK to support their efforts...actually those folks would probably then be in the 1% of the protesters because they will get the best food!

There are also stories of Occupy members, in conjunction with ACORN/New York Communities for Change (NYCC), are seeking VENTURE CAPITAL to purchase supplies and "pay salaries"...now I understand that using the word "venture capital" may be a stretch because they are going door to door and lying to people about the true nature and use of the donations, but regardless, they realize that money is needed to support their efforts and they are "working" for it.

The country may be better after all of this is over because many of these young people will be learning a valuable lesson about life in the real world.

GE and the Left

Making connections between political actors can be fun sometimes. Especially when those connections highlight a hypocritical aspect of their stated beliefs and notions. In this case, the connection is between standard leftist thinking and the actual facts of a modern corporation. The Occupy folks have been railing against corporations, capitalism et al. for weeks now. It has been shown that they are a tad bit disingenuous about their protestations considering they are using Apple iPhones to communicate, wearing Gap clothing and drinking Starbucks coffee as they scream about the corporate takeover of the country.

I want to make another connection and it starts with GE (General Electric). GE's CEO is Jeffrey Immelt, who just so happens to serve as President Obama's informal economic adviser. Obama has spoken out against fat cats and private jet users, so it's curious that he would name the CEO of a multinational conglomerate as his adviser, but whatever. GE's business is pretty broad-based. They are involved in consumer appliances, loans, media, aviation, oil and gas among other things. The particular connection I want to make today has to do with their aviation and media businesses.

GE Aviation builds aircraft engines for civilian and military aircraft. Pretty much all of the military aircraft's engines are made by GE. From the F-16, F15 and F117 to the B-1, B-2 and C-5, GE has pretty well cornered the market on powering our military's aircraft. No problem right? Right. Now, let's go to the media. GE is a 49% holder of NBCUniversal, which has a cable division called MSNBC. MSNBC is a combination of two corporations: Microsoft and NBC. As most people know, MSNBC is a left-leaning news organization that competes with FoxNews, which is a right-leaning news organization. Still no problem.

Here comes the problem: leftist are usually about peace and love and harmony and such right? Well, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has set up a foundation with his wife Melinda. You've probably heard of it. It's goal is to help underdeveloped regions of the world. Noble goal. So, the problem comes when the global conglomerate that makes engines for some of the most advanced killing machines in the history of the world, runs a peace/love/harmony-loving media outfit that is partnered with a billionaire philanthropist helping in some of the regions that those aircraft have or could be dropping bombs. Not to mention that the anti-corporate messages coming out of the White House in support of the Occupy movement belie the fact that one of the largest (actually the 6th) corporations in the country has its hands in some weird, disparate operations.

I'm not saying that any of this is corrupt or illegal, it just struck me as overly hypocritical on the left's part to not see this connection as problematic for their beliefs.