SURRENDER has never been a winning strategy for nations or corporations, but a growing number of American companies are embracing the "raise the white flag" strategy in a futile effort to make peace with attackers who live to make war.
Like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who proudly announced in 1938 that his appeasement of Adolf Hitler brought, "peace for our time" a year before Hitler started World War II, corporate appeasers buy only short-term peace.
In California and New York, governments and utilities appeased radical environmentalists by agreeing to stop building new power plants. As a result, power shortages have brought brownouts and blackouts to California, and threaten New York. California utility regulators voted recently to raise consumer electricity rates by up to 46 percent, and New York families were hit earlier with devastating rate increases. All this could have been avoided if utilities and governments had fought environmental extremists a lot harder years ago.
In another failure of appeasement, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals-dedicated to ending the use of animals for food-called on McDonald's to buy eggs only from farmers who give chickens better living conditions. McDonald's made changes last August, but PETA then demanded that the restaurant chain take far more drastic action to improve treatment of chickens, cows and pigs. PETA warns on its website that if McDonald's fails to make significant progress by September 1, "PETA will launch its campaign blitz against McDonald's." PETA's website continues to attack meat eating as cruel, unhealthy and a cause of impotence.
Unfortunately, corporate surrender is growing more common. Too many corporations are heeding the advice of public relations capitulation counselors and are going to extraordinary lengths to please attackers who do not want to be pleased. In the end, appeasement usually fails to stop attacks. It simply encourages new ones.
Attackers assume that corporations won't fight back. Because they wrap themselves in a mantle of virtue, many attackers believe that almost every tactic is O.K for them-but that lawful self-defense is outrageous for their corporate opponents. Remarkably, many people tolerate lying, spying, stealing and vandalizing by the "good guy" attackers-just as we accept that "good guy" James Bond has a license to kill.
Corporations guarantee their defeat when they let attackers scare them into not fighting back. Without exception, corporations must obey the law and never engage in the illegal tactics of some of their attackers. But there is no reason for corporations to fear a good counterattack if they tell the truth and use legal means. In fact, corporations perform a public service when they make people aware that attackers are advocating costly, unrealistic and harmful positions.
History teaches us that you don't win by surrendering. You win by winning. Instead of trying to turn their enemies into friends, corporations should find genuine friends and form strategic alliances. Appeasement and surrender today will only bring more appeasement and surrender tomorrow.
(Reprinted from the New York Post. Eric Dezenhall, President of Washington crisis management firm Nichols-Dezenhall, is the author of "Nail 'Em: Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses", and served in President Reagan's White House Office of Communications).
Toronto Free Press has launched a bumper sticker campaign as a direct response to Greenpeace activist's presence at violent Seattle World Trade Organization meetings.
Free 'Save the World from Greenpeace' bumper stickers are now available for anyone who wants them.
Besides using them for stocking stuffers, you can stand up for truth and non-violent ways of protesting with a Toronto Free Press 'Save the World from Greenpeace' bumper sticker.
Most everyone knows about the Greenpeace sailing vessel known as Rainbow Warrior. But most people do not know that the Warrior is only the most recognized in the Greenpeace arsenal, which includes Greenpeace's own helicopter.
The environmental pressure group also owns a number of motor boats. While Rainbow Warrior is powered by the wind, most of the Greenpeace boats run on diesel fuel.
Greenpeace sailing vessels, including The Vega, a gift by the organization to their founding father, the late David McTaggart, killed in a car crash last March, have sails made of nylon. While sails used to be fashioned from cotton, the material, which tears too easily, had to be replaced. Most of the sails of today are Ultra Sail. 600 SC is a polyethylene material that is scrim reinforced with three layers of 1000 denier polyester unidirectional fibres to form a diamond pattern, with an additional layer that is spaced every three inches of the length of the material. 600 SC is made of two layers of high-strength polyethylene films bonded together with molten polyethylene. This makes for six-ply laminate that has very good puncture resistance and boasts excellent tear resistance. 600 SC is made with UV inhibitors and is well suited for outdoor use, and of course, comes in brilliant white. Greenpeace activists are against polluting our waters with diesel fuel and the use of polyethylene-- unless it comes to their own arsenal.
From the National Anxiety Centre's 11th Annual "Chicken Little Awards": PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) hopes foot and mouth disease sweeps the U.S. On April 2, Agweb News reported that Ingrid Newkirk, the co-founder and president of PETA let it be known that she hopes that foot and mouth disease sweeps the United States as well. The disease, she said, "wouldn't hurt animals because they're all bound for horrible deaths to feed Americans." "Can these people get any more demented," asks a Centre newsletter.
Greenpeace gave the middle finger salute to U.S. President George W. Bush at the recent Summit of Americas. The environmental giant floated a green hot air balloon with a printed message to Bush that climate change and the Kyoto Protocol should be top priorities for the U.S. government.
The summit was the first foreign visit by Bush since his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change.
"Leaders from the 33 other countries at the summit should tell Bush to get with the program on climate change prevention," said Steven Guilbeault, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Canada. "Why should they negotiate an agreement with the leader of a rogue nation that has reneged on its climate change commitments? Why even bother to sit down at the table with a leader that will change his mind willy nilly depending on the state of the U.S. economy?"
The balloon read, "Stop Global Warming" on one side and "Bush + Big Oil Climate Killers" on the other side.
Greenpeace activists have come up with their own nickname for the American president: the "Toxic Texan".
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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