Casey at the Bat vs. Progressives in the Boardroom

            Casey at the Bat vs. Progressives in the Boardroom

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/18/18

            The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day / The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play / And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same / A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

            A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest / Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast / They thought, “If only Casey could but get a whack at that / We’d put up even money with Casey at the bat.

            Surprisingly, this classic poem ends with  mighty Casey striking out.  It appears, however, that a non-fiction Casey, Lt. Governor Casey Cagle, has not only not struck out, but has hit a homer.  His opposing team?  Delta Airlines.  Casey won.

            Before rehearsing the familiar details about the real-life Casey’s turn at bat, let’s raise a few questions that lie at the heart of the Lt. Governor’s concerns.  Since progressives generally loathe corporations, why do corporations defend them, thereby supporting practically everything social conservatives morally oppose?  Things like same-sex marriage, abortion “rights,” common bathrooms, and Planned Parenthood funding.  Why are corporations dismissive of their many employees and customers who proudly qualify as Hillary Clinton’s deplorables? 

Consider whose side the corporations typically land on.  They land with the LGBTQ community and transgender activists.  Disney, no longer the standard bearer of all things wholesome, has been a leader on homosexual rights.  The positions of two other companies, Wal-Mart and Koch Brothers, are also mystifying.  Neither company is loved by progressives, yet Wal-Mart has barred Confederate merchandise from its shelves, and the Koch brothers are pro-choice, pro-homosexual, and pro-amnesty.

Another question.  Why must corporations announce their position on social/cultural issues in the first place?  Why can’t they just hush and sell their product?

Preening like a peacock and trying to look diverse, inclusive, and all of that, Delta Airlines got its comeuppance from a real Casey.  Seems that Delta wanted to “reach out” (their own tweeted words) to the NRA to let them know “we will be ending their contract for discounted rates through our group travel plan.  We will be requesting that the NRA remove our information from their website.”

It further seems that the real Casey, a candidate for governor, brought attention to the fact that Delta receives from the state of Georgia a big chunk of corporate welfare: a jet fuel sales-tax exemption worth $50 million. Tweeted Cagle, who is also president of the state senate, “I will kill any tax legislation that benefits @Delta unless the company changes its position and fully reinstates its relationship with @NRA.  Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back.”

According to the anti-Trump magazine, The Weekly Standard, “Cagle’s bluster was off-putting.  Using the power of the law to threaten a private company is the sort of behavior one expects from a raging dictatorship.”  But if Cagle was blustery, Delta was sanctimonious, trying to make sure it stood with Hollywood elites, not those rural types or crazy gun owners.  Where was public relations expert Dick Yarbrough when Delta needed him? 

Other corporations have been just as sanctimonious.  To corporations, inclusion doesn’t include social conservatives. Corporations view social conservatives as does columnist Kevin Foley who, in opposing Cagle’s action, put it this way: “… the reality is, outside the Perimeter, this state is as provincial and parochial as they come.”

Now that’s elitism.  Shows what my new friend Foley thinks about the good people from such places as Kennesaw, Sylvester, Hahira, and Mr. Yarbrough’s beloved Pooler.  

Corporate Man is craven.  For protection, which he thinks always lies in numbers, he will cater to those who don’t even like him.  He’s not a rugged capitalist after all, but a robber baron / J.P. Morgan model of “corporate management.”

True, corporations were granted “personhood” as far back as 1809.  By law they are citizens or “artificial persons” with the same free speech rights as individuals.  Consequently, corporations exercise their rightful power, but they do not always exercise it rightly.  If self-protection (gun ownership) isn’t a life and death issue, what is?  But corporate types condescendingly view guns (religious liberty, too) as concerns of working stiffs, not of thinking people.

To Corporate Man, social issues don’t matter, except when they get in Corporate Man’s way.  

Casey Cagle’s action was the right one.  When corporations take money from the public trough, they are beholden at some point.  Besides, there are no empirical studies showing that incentives given to specific corporations foster significant economic growth.

Roger Hines

3/15/18