I no longer bubble with rage when a new outbreak of corporate wokeness erupts across our fruited plain. It’s just another day in the pathetic life of the Land of the Greedy and the Home of the Enslaved. To wit: this week’s parade of U.S. companies ostentatiously trumpeting “health care coverage” for employees who want to travel to Planned Parenthood-beholden states to destroy the lives of their unborn babies in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
You know and I know that these firms aren’t leaping forward to shower “health” benefits (translation: fetal homicide subsidies) on workers out of compassion or principle. It’s not even about straightforward financial calculations. Yes, of course, covering workers’ quickie trips to eliminate inconvenient life is much cheaper than footing the bill for extended maternity leaves. But the bottom line is this: Corporate aborti-mania is driven by abject fear and quivering compliance with cultural authoritarianism.
The woke bullies of American capitalism (LOL) are not really bullies at all. They’re yellow-bellied pimpers of Chinese-made goods and globo-homogenized services who are captives — not captains — of the regime. They are mortified by boycotts and terrified by bad press (see what happened to Pepsi in January after abortifa targeted the company for its donation to the Texas GOP). So they surrender to the violence-threatening wrath of a miserably hideous minority of hysterical harridans online and on the ground.
The CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, Lauren Hobart, announced on her LinkedIn account that the company is “prepared to ensure that all of our teammates have consistent and safe access to the benefits we provide, regardless of the state in which they live.” That means forking over $4,000 per worker, spouse or dependent’s abortion. Outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia followed suit, with a press release filled with gooey rhetoric about “caring” for their employees’ “choices.” Again: LOL.
No one is fooled by Big Business leaders wrapping themselves in “My Body, My Choice” rhetoric. (Hello, Alaska Airlines, Google, Citigroup, Apple, Microsoft, JPMorgan, Columbia Sportswear, Nike, Adidas, Uber, Netflix, Disney, etc., etc., etc.) Everything is performative theater. Never forget: The companies who ruthlessly cracked down on maskless autistic toddlers and senior citizens on respirators — the same ones who threatened, punished and fired vaccine objectors en masse — are now preening loudly about their “culture of care,” “equity” and commitment to sacred health care “rights.” The corporate enforcers of COVID-19 tyranny are now the corporate enforcers of abortion-as-health-care extremism because that is what the Beltway swamp decrees and the TikTok mob demands.
The late dissident playwright and Czech president Vaclav Havel exposed the motivations of today’s woke banner-wavers in his “greengrocer” parable, detailed in his seminal 1978 essay, “The Power of the Powerless”:
A shopkeeper places a sign in his grocery store window proclaiming, “Workers of the world, unite!”
“Why does he do it?” Havel asks. One answer: to avoid conflict. “If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life.” It’s a signal of capitulation and conformity.
“I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace,” Havel decoded the placard’s slogan. “This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above, to the greengrocer’s superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers” (or online snitches and outrage manufacturers in modern day).
Communist ideology, like today’s corporate woke ideology, “is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo,” Havel declared. “It is an excuse that everyone can use, from the greengrocer, who conceals his fear of losing his job behind an alleged interest in the unification of the workers of the world, to the highest functionary, whose interest in staying in power can be cloaked in phrases about service to the working class.”
These corrupt American corporations and their comrades above and below have less might than either they or we think they do. Abortion is murder, not health care. 1+1 = 2. Ignorance is an abyss. If individual citizens conscientiously conduct the business of their own lives in truth, not trepidation, the power of the powerless cannot be suppressed.
Michelle Malkin’s email address is [email protected]. To find out more about Michelle Malkin and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
I personally will Never walk in or buy anything from the disgraceful Dick’s Sporting Goods.
If The CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, Lauren Hobart wants to give away $4,000 for each employee to get an abortion and then expect me to buy their stuff…. Not gonna happen.
I support Chick-fil-A for their honorable business characteristics but I DO NOT support Woke Companies.
Dicks,,,,a proper name for an improperly run Company.,,,who supports Quickie Tricks, for Quickie Treats requiring Quickie Trips to abortion clinics as treats to be paid for by poorly treated Taxpayers, and the self-insured.
Dick’s lost my business long ago when they took their anti-2nd Amendment stance.
AND with this latest idiocy, will never get it back.
They will still have the support of their current Chicks employed with Dick’s. Does the name Bruce Jenner, Pete Buttigeig, Lia THomas ring their bell?
“The companies who ruthlessly cracked down on maskless autistic toddlers and senior citizens on respirators — the same ones who threatened, punished and fired vaccine objectors en masse — are now preening loudly about their “culture of care,” “equity” and commitment to sacred health care “rights.” The corporate enforcers of COVID-19 tyranny are now the corporate enforcers of abortion-as-health-care extremism because that is what the Beltway swamp decrees and the TikTok mob demands.”
It’s all about political correctness.
I wonder, would they be so quick, to pay for the surgery a GUY NEEDS??
The left has insinuated the politics of social behavior into every facit of modern life and that includes religion. Every corporation and every person has to be on one side or another of an issue and must proclaim it publicly, the Elizabethan equivalent of wearing your heart on your sleeve! Businesses can no longer go about doing what they do best be it manufacturing, finance, entertainment, provide services, etc., thay havee to it within the new social norms prescribed by the elites who threaten to break them if they don’t comply. Some in compliance with the diktats ended up going to far like Disney which lost its family friendly reputation, among other things, in the bargain!
as usual michelle is spot on.
i quit dicks sporting goods years a ago.
Dick’s isn’t the only one. Too bad she didn’t list all the companies who are subsidizing the deaths of babies.
Alaska Airlines, Google, Citigroup, Apple, Microsoft, JPMorgan, Columbia Sportswear, Nike, Adidas, Uber, Netflix, Disney, etc., etc., etc.
There are many more. No doubt we are supporting some of them.
These days, it may be easier to list the companies, that are NOT WOKIST nazis…
Hopefully, these policies will be counterproductive to their ability to prosper in the business world and will eventually actually be detrimental.
Every benefit has its cost and someone has to pay for it. These companies will need to come up with the funding for these costs and as they turn to the consumers of their products or services to finance them will result in their losing their market competitiveness.
Consequently, consumers will rebel and eventually go to other more competitive businesses. Also when businesses become embroiled in political and social issues they have lost focus of actually doing business. This goes against the KISS principle, which says, ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ Well, you reap what you sow.