SERPENT IN THE GARDEN:
Earth Day Goes Corporate

The same thinking led Tucson Earth Day 2003 to make Raytheon Missile Systems, the largest private employer in southern Arizona, its main sponsor for the ninth year in a row. The festival is also backed by the local electric company, Home Depot and Texas Instruments, which donated between $500 and $2,000 each.

And

In 2001, several advocacy groups pulled out of Chicago's Earth Day Festival because it was partly backed by corporations that owned nuclear and coal-fired power plants. In Hong Kong, Sony, Shell and Epson helped bankroll Earth Day 2001 when government funding for the day fell through. And in Louisville, Ky., in 2000, environmentalists protesting sponsorship by Louisville Gas & Electric Co. held an alternative festival. Last year, the event was funded by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky.

Corporations keep their friends close and their enemies closer. This is the same kind of strategy used by Enron when they spread the money around to both Democrats and Republicans back during the roaring 90s--they preferred the GOP, but wanted leverage with the donkey butts and they managed to buy it rather easily. Corporate sponsorship has also made such liberal bastions as NPR start to slowly shift right. Earth Day is playing with fire.

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