Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Is it just me or is it really fucking weird that this year's Stan Rogers Folk Festival is in bed with Exxon Mobil? They're the presenting sponsor this year.
Exxon has funded several organizations which have lobbied rather vigorously to deny the existence of Global Warming and to keep the US from signing the Kyoto Accord.
What political parties do they fund? Between 85-95 percent of their campaign donations go to Republican candidates.
It's worked out to their advantage. Exxon donated '$1.2 million to the Republican Party in 2000, second only to Enron,' in September of 2002 Exxon signed a $50 million contract to supply fuel to the US Military.
From Animal Welfare to Human Rights Violations to illegal dealings with Sudan, Exxon has done it all! They even became the only Fortune 500 company 'ever to rescind both a non-discrimination policy and domestic partner benefits.'
It's not like Stan Rogers is Phil Ochs or Woody Guthrie, but it does seem a little odd that a Folk Festival is in bed with a hugely conservative war profiteer like Exxon Mobil that is responsible for the world's most devastating oil spill.
Exxon has funded several organizations which have lobbied rather vigorously to deny the existence of Global Warming and to keep the US from signing the Kyoto Accord.
What political parties do they fund? Between 85-95 percent of their campaign donations go to Republican candidates.
It's worked out to their advantage. Exxon donated '$1.2 million to the Republican Party in 2000, second only to Enron,' in September of 2002 Exxon signed a $50 million contract to supply fuel to the US Military.
From Animal Welfare to Human Rights Violations to illegal dealings with Sudan, Exxon has done it all! They even became the only Fortune 500 company 'ever to rescind both a non-discrimination policy and domestic partner benefits.'
ExxonMobil's decision to rescind its non-discrimination policy came as the result of the merger between the two oil giants in late 1999. Prior to the merger, Mobil's equal employment opportunity policy included a provision prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. During merger talks, company executives decided to eliminate Mobil's non-discrimination policy rather than apply it to the newly formed corporation. Mobil's same-sex domestic partner benefits, praised by its CEO only a year before at the company's stockholder meeting, were also revoked. (Unionized ExxonMobil workers are still covered under a pre-existing non-discrimination clause under the terms of their former contract with Mobil.) ExxonMobil executives did this in spite of the fact that its chief competitors - Chevron, Sunoco, BP, and Texaco - all prohibit discrimination against gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers, and several of those competitors grant same-sex DP benefits as well."
It's not like Stan Rogers is Phil Ochs or Woody Guthrie, but it does seem a little odd that a Folk Festival is in bed with a hugely conservative war profiteer like Exxon Mobil that is responsible for the world's most devastating oil spill.
# posted by Die Brucke @ 10:46 AM 
