Op Ed:
Corporate Changes
Shape Decisive Year
For State of Oregon Future

Cultural Shift Demands Leadership to End Failures

Oregon’s opening days for 2007 demand forward steps from business and corporate interests to lead --or get out of the way!

(SALEM) - Every New Year presents great potential for real progress --always shadowed by looming dangers of return to the same-old wrenching “recent wrong-ways”.

Year 2007 --in the 21st Century!-- simultaneously “promises and threatens Oregon with no way to know which it will be for many months yet to come.”

The balance-point is precarious, holding exceeding promise for positive change forced by broad social and economic pressures becoming intolerable for many. We are, already and surely, experiencing serious cultural changes, invariably impacting business at all levels, especially in corporate form. (See Editor’s Note at end.)

Disastrous possibilities for corporate control are clearly continuing over key Oregon programs. Many do not now reflect well- demonstrated wit, wisdom and will of our citizens.

Nobody living here during 30 years-past has doubts about what shaped situations and set limitations on critical action within Oregon: “The ‘powers that be’ have been here --that’s very plain-to-see, and voters have seen-it-so, too.”

(Un-ID’d quotes-here are ALWAYS by authoritative specialists, supplied confidentially to strengthen reports for trusting readers.)

The public record of budgets and dollars-devoted for every State-directed effort shows “who manipulated whom” during those decisive 30 years. The record also reveals for what purposes and with what legislation-shaping goals and objectives, as recent negative/ad campaigning clearly characterized.

What many miss is that state-granted corporate charters invariably contain strong requirements and rigorous safeguards for the broad public interest and commonwealth.

That missing/understanding is well known and understood by canny corporate controllers, their costly consultants --and. especially, their “transactional-lobbying” employees in close Legislative contact.

Dollar-driven private-profit motivation is NOT --and never has been-- the only controlling theme for any corporate charter. Strong public protections have always been placed there by the society itself, ever since our 1776 revolt against another form of “royalism”.

Definite demand for well-defined commonwealth concerns has long been paramount...even if placed there, tongue-in-cheek, by some already-lavished legislative committees; OR permitted in some similarly-lax state Ethics Commission rules --with or without tongue in place.

Deepest dangers continue from those preferring 19th-20th Century political pretensions, now known as based on malign distortion of our democratic principles to facilitate easy private profit.

That’s what allows their always-forgiving internal view, when corporate conscience fails; and public interest is despoiled; for “profits uber alles,” as perceptively phrased by one participant.

The plain fact is that the corporate format was originally seen as extremely dangerous Gigantor-pattern provoking careful charter-contained controls. (See www.gigantor.org.)

The plain fact is pretentious political myths have built a dismal, dismaying record of repetitive failures over the years since Nixon/Reagan/Bush I, now Bush II.

The record shows only rejection --and repeated public fury-- wherever manipulated into similar massive impact elsewhere, as in Britain, Europe and the Far East.

Continued national and state observation deeply documents that indisputable display in full destructive detail. (See recent issues of TIME, Washington Monthly, NATION, and the long list of political studies, reports, and pundit-produced books on the era since the ‘70s.)

Significantly, Oregon is one of three national regions included in the just-filed FCC-suit re “neglect of public interest” by TV-news non-coverage of political events. (OREGONIAN Metro-lead, p.B-1, 12/28: “…less than 2 minutes in 100 hours” on Legislative campaigns.)

That pertinent action closely parallels widespread corporate responsibilities established via charter process --entirely removed from returning regulation!!-- now under pervasive review for Supreme Court revision; especially including political “speech-right” as if truly a living person, as in “campaign contributions.”

Outmoded economic and social-theory precedents from the previous century --even when forced by full failure into close contact with rugged realities and necessity of radical change for the 21st Century-- still shape and contort many Oregon corporate management decisions in Oregon.

Far too many Oregon-impacting corporate profit-producers are managed by masters out-of-state, with lack of localized corporate social responsibility here. (See press coverage re heavy out-of Oregon corporate-share of the “tax-payment kicker”.)

That’s despite parallel thirty-year strong growth of the most consequential trend in corporate management: A return to complete and conscientious corporate social and economic responsibilities --often as originally chartered.

That trend is well-known worldwide as “Corporate Social Responsibilities”, with “triple bottom-lines” for economic, environmental and social responsibilities.

The CSR movement has become so strong that major universities worldwide have established not only strong curricula but also operating-centers to assist in the transition now demanded; to promote and produce precisely the return-to-reality clearly needed by many Oregon corporations.

Please note: Some here are already leading this “new flow into the 21st Century” for Corporate Social Responsibility. Nike learned “the hard way” and is now a worldwide convert and civilizing force.

Surely that MUST NOW include clear, open, honest, publicly recorded payment of fair corporate-share for all benefits bestowed at taxpayer costs in-State. (See OCPP documentation on corporate-share of tax burden shifted heavily to individual Oregonians.)

Oregon’s opening days for 2007 demand forward steps from business and corporate interests to: “plausibly and rationally demonstrate conjoint and cooperative determination to either ‘lead --or get out of the way!’”

Three decades-past have presented Oregonians with great promises, but --peculiarly and potently-- all past and current progress was prevented by a concentrated political-cult confrontation, recognized and deplored --even by the latest failed corporate campaign-choice.

Controlling circumstances have surely been well-”mellowed” by munificent “campaign contributions” for some-few vs. the more-responsible majority-elected.

The very existence, and continued impact, of the current corporate tax-burden in this State --lowest in the nation, left-so with a $10-minimum set during the Depression-- further manipulated by many million-dollar tax-breaks pushing limits “still further-out”-- simply sets “the remedy-demanding action” that much deeper.

Given public record of recent months, while public concerns became clear and open testimony to consequences felt by every Oregonian, what comes next in “the Salem Arena” may well set both the democratic direction and pace for progress, in this State, for the foreseeable decade.

Fortunately some corporate chieftains have been “making all the right noises” now for considerable time-spans; and --full credit surely due by citizen kudos-- some few have achieved ongoing leadership to create the New Era we now have some hope to achieve.

Whether those-few can persuade and prevail with “the others involved” surely adds spice-and-mystery, as Year 06 ends and Year 07 --21st Century!-- begins.

Many thinking Oregonians are now devoting mounting interest and strong attention to the morality play just beginning in “the Salem Arena”.

“Stay tuned!” Even if your chosen TV-news station neglects to manage much more than passing comment, while enjoying strong commercial-return from those too-concentrated “campaign ads” reveling in radical venom and vengeance.

That malign misuse of the corporate format will see change very soon --just as others must merge into the New Century, too.

(Editor’s Note: For documentation on cultural change, see “The Triple Bottom Line”; Savitz/Weber; Wiley, 2006; ISBN 0-7879-7907-4; and various issues of FORTUNE, TIME, BUSINESS WEEK, details on request. Our Op Eds on the topic available on request.)