Saturday, November 1, 2014

Tim Cook's no activist.

The Robber Barons
"I don't consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I've benefited from the sacrifices of others.", Tim Cook, the Apple CEO tells Bloomberg Business Week in this weeks edition.

Tim is talking about gay rights activists of the past, people who did sacrifice a lot so people like him could come out in to the open. But there are others that have suffered extreme hardship and sacrificed even more so that Tim can earn millions of dollars a year.  He received a $378 million pay package in 2011 in order to entice him to stay and fill Steve Job's shoes, another ruthless sort. Cook took home $4.2 million in actual pay in 2012, I can't say earned because he didn't earn it. One doesn't get rich working, one gets rich by having other people work and appropriating the wealth they create. I am talking about the thousands of Chinese and other factory workers on whose backs his wealth was born. My guess is that Tim will offer no thanks to these people. I am sure he won't even mention them.

I have not even read the article in BusinessWeek yet but I'm already sickened by the first couple of sentences where he quotes Martin Luther King  saying he believes "deeply" in his words. How Nice.  He's the antithesis of what Martin Luther King was.  And we can be sure that without those genuine LGBT activists that did sacrifice their lives and well being in the face of the most extreme discrimination and violence, Tim would have put his bank account first and kept his mouth shut.  I haven't heard much praise for Chelsea Manning from Cook either. Manning is a heroic figure to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for revealing what was being done in our name and without our knowledge.

Tim's right. He's certainly no activist.

No comments: