Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

Why business talks politically from both sides of its mouth: Business has managed to become a nurturing home for knee-jerk liberals and knee-jerk conservatives, both parties fraudulent in their own ways. On the left, we have the human resources departments, filled with "soft science" graduates, launching grounds for every bit of PC social experimentation imaginable, especially with their ultimate obsession, gay rights. Then there are the advertising departments, the morons who'll finance anything and everything horrible on television; they have direct lines to the loony-leftists of Hollywood. Then there are the public-affairs offices filled with ex-news hacks and recovering alcoholics which, when faced with a crisis, give one word of advice: CAVE. They're usually responsible for public "outreaches" and charitable funding, further stomping grounds for PC. On the right, we have the sales and marketing departments, homes to the incredible shrinking potato-chip bag and tuna-fish can, and the accounting departments, home of the incredible growing revenues; together they probably boast more indictments and convictions than any other part of business save finance. These are staffed with go-getting business-major Babbitts, most of whom I'd wager are hard-core Republicans.

A look at two companies may prove of interest. Enron, red-country based, was an almost 100% marketing company and combined with its high-pressure business niche was doomed to corruption. Then there's the little known story of Eastman Kodak, in blue country, where a mid-level executive was fired for sending an e-mail complaining about his company's gay-rights celebrations. Kodak, it goes without saying, is a leading supplier to show business. End of discussion.

I'm bringing this up because The Wall Street Journals (themselves an irritating mirror of business's political dichotomy) ran a story today (not publicly available, natch) about those annoying supermarket club cards whose purpose is to limit sale items, gain profits from those people who don't have the cards and thus overpay, and gather privacy-invading information on shoppers. It's just the sort of thing Babbitt Republicans would think of. I wouldn't want to guess how the PC Democrats would handle it.