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No More Donations Without Representation
By using the Internet, people exercised power; activists took the lead, held others accountable, just said no, and exposed wrong.

The days when one can sit safely insulated in a luxurious ivory tower are gone. Superiors are ever increasingly more vulnerable to exposure, and accountability. Subordinates have become bolder and more strategic. They are less likely to keep to their place, do as they're told and keep their opinions to themselves. Although rank dictates they are subordinates, whistleblowers increasingly step out of that role and bring down a superior. Their rank is trumped by their behavior when they expose superiors that are incompetent, law-breakers or immoral. Today's superiors that dismiss or ignore their subordinates do so at their own risk. The Internet has changed the contextual complexities of exercising power, authority and influence. Gone are the days where settings from Auschwitz to Abu Ghraib contaminated in isolation both superiors and subordinates as the Internet is real-time exposure forcing attention, and repercussions.

America, from its beginning has put a premium on individuality and independence. In Tocqueville's words, there "is a general distaste for accepting any man's word as proof of anything." The result has been that to be deemed a submissive blind, deaf and dumb follower is an insult. Due to the Internet, to be timid and docile has been increasingly rejected by the rest of the world. Zbigniew Brzezinski refers to it as a "global political awakening." Zeitgeist struck and the result was the rise of activism with an increase in holding others accountable, just saying no and exposes.

Activists Holding Others Accountable

Franklin Raines, CEO of Fannie Mae, was forced out of his job by activists. In June 2008 The Wall Street Journal reported that Raines was one of several public officials who received below market rates loans at Countrywide he was a "FOA"-"Friends of Angelo (Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo. On December 21, 2004 Raines accepted what he called "early retirement"while U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigators alleged accounting irregularities. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the regulating body of Fannie Mae, accused him of abetting widespread accounting errors. One included the shifting of losses. That resulted in senior executives, such as him, earning large bonuses.

In 2006, the OFHEO announced a suit against Raines in order to recover some or all of the $90 million in payments made to Raines based on the overstated earnings initially estimated to be $9 billion but have been announced as $6.3 billion. In 2003 alone, Raines's compensation was over $20 million.

Chris Albrecht, CEO of Home Box Office, was forced out of his job by activists three days after he was accused of assaulting his girlfriends in a Las Vegas parking lot.

In Home Depot's annual meeting in 2006, a shareholder in a chicken suit got thousands of other Home Depot's shareholders to join with him in his protest of the management team. Their complaint was that Lowes' stock had risen 173 percent while Home Depot's had dropped 42 percent. In response, Robert Nardelli, CEO of Home Depot, allowed neither questions nor votes. In January 2007, Nardelli, who was being paid $39.7 million a year, was forced out of his job by activists. His successor, Frank Blake, was then paid $8.9 million a year, and was described in contrast to the authoritarian, contemptuous Nardelli as a breath of fresh air, a new tone from the top, folksy, disarming, sincere, occasionally funny, and often self-deprecating.

Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, legendary titan of AIG, world's largest insurer, and also the world's largest lessor of airplanes, was forced out of his job by activists in 2005 amid a fraud investigation by then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who was later forced to resign his job after allegations. AIG sold credit-default swaps, instruments that allowed investors to insure securities backed by the same bad mortgages responsible for the ongoing global financial crisis.

Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlitt-Packard, was forced out of her job by activists.

Julie Roehm, marketing executive Wal-Mart, was forced out of her job by activists when it was discovered she had accepted gifts from agencies and she'd had an her affair with a co-worker. New Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott "reached out to his opponents, took polls of opinion leaders and hired political consultants. He also embraced environmentally friendly pollicies, improved employee health-care coverage and begin advocating policies like an increase in the minimum wage." That hasn't stopped Lee Scott from still being paid roughly 2,000 times the average wage paid to Wal-Mart employees.

Todd S. Thompson, head of Citigroup's global wealth management, was forced out of his job by activists for his ``lapses in judgment,'' including ``the inappropriate use of company aircraft,' and his relationship with CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo.

Gray Davis, California governor, was forced out of his job by activists. Politicians noticed that, and when Hillary Clinton announced her run for the U.S. senate, she stated with a "listening tour" asking people what they thought. By the time she ran for the American presidency, she knew she was on to a good thing and invited Americans to participate in a series of live conversations over the Internet. "So, let's talk. Let's chat, let's start a dialogue about your ideas and mine because conversation in Washington has been a little bit one-sided lately, don't you think?" Her rival, Barack Obama, went on to win Democratic Party nomination and then the presidency in part due to his use of a base of several million email accounts where he connected directly with people, their opinions and their pocket books. Forty-eight thousand MySpace members had immediately added Obama as a friend.

"Al "Chainsaw Al Dunlap, formerly of Sunbeam Corporation, which he ran aground, was forced out. Chainsaw Al Dunlap was known for being mean and nasty with a fierce temper. Sunbeam's board finally fired him, but only as they were falling off the cliff that Chainsaw Al Dunlap's wrong choices had dragged them over.

Howell Raines, executive editor of the New York Times, was forced out of his job by activists when Jayson Blair activates were exposed.

Harry Stonecipher, married CEO of Boeing, was forced out of his job by activists when his adultery was exposed. Jim McNerney, now CEO of Boeing, speaks freely on his having to depend on his "power to persuade."

Hank McKinnell, CEO of Pfizer, was forced out of his job by activists. Pfizer shares fell about 40% on McKinnell's watch.

Leonid Kuchma, president of Ukraine, was forced out of his job by activists who accuse him of misdeeds ranging from corruption to ordering the murder of a journalist.

In 2001, Lawrence Summers became Harvard's president. He was forced to lose his job by his outraged faculty who became activists after he suggested there could be "intrinsic" reasons why women were less successful in science and engineering than men.

Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, previous U.S. deputy secretary of defense under Republican Donald Rumsfeld, was forced out of his job by activists when it was discovered and widely publicized, he was involved in corruption. It was discovered he had a long-term history of questionable promotions and pay hikes for an employee he was having an affair with. Wolfowitz, insular and imperious, clung to his perceived power. His opponents refused to shut up and go away. Six weeks later, Wolfowitz was gone.

Patricia Dunn, chair of the board of Hewlitt-Packard was forced out of her job by activists when it was discovered she had ordered the snooping on board members and newsmen.

Michael Eisner, former CEO of Disney, the "Louse in the Mouse House," was forced out of his job by activists.

Riccardo Muti, former conductor at Milan's La Scala opera house, was forced out of his job by activists.

Activists Just Saying No

In Seabrook, New Hampshire in the 1970s, the newly formed Clamshell Alliance opposed by civil disobedience the construction of a nearby nuclear plant.

Israeli Air Force General Dan Halutz publicly said of his pilots, "Your execution was perfect. Superb . . . you did exactly what you were instructed to." He was commending the deaths in 2002 of fourteen Palestinians - eight were children, from the dropping of a one-ton bomb on a home that killed the targeted man, his family and some neighbors. After a similar incident where innocent civilians were again killed, twenty-seven Israeli Air Force pilots concluded since these targeted bombings were imprecise killing innocent civilians, such attacks are "immoral and illegal." General Halutz's praise of these pilots' bombings was deemed callous and arrogant. The twenty-seven pilots drafted a "moral statement" that "the turning of pilots into controlled machines and criminals" was "blatantly illegal" and they would no longer "harm innocent civilians."

Israeli Adviser Dov Weisglass wrote "We were hit with letters of officers and letters of pilots and letters of commandos." In the fall of 2003, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had come to see Israel as stuck due to Israel's finest young people had reached a breaking point making them stand together in saying no, they went public, and their case was made on moral grounds. This stand reverberated through Israel, the war was causing the Israeli economy to stagnate, and Palestinians relations continued to deteriorate. In the summer of 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the disengagement of Israel form Gaza. The long-term result of that choice by those twenty-seven pilots was that Sharon reversed his long and dearly held policy about Gaza.

In Lordstown, Ohio, in the 1970's General Motors' employees, members of United Auto Workers' Local 1112 slowed production in response to management by terror.

Italian fans of Barbra Streisand revolted at the expensive ticket prices to hear her sing live at a public venue saying public property "cannot be used for immoral deals that are shameful to a civilized country." The concert was moved to private property.

In response to a rise in civil rights awareness, in 1964, students at University of California, Berkeley protested. Columbia's students followed in 1968, Harvard and Cornell in 1969, Yale and Kent State in 1970. During that period, some three hundred universities saw students that just said no to injustices they saw happening. The legacy continued. A survey of the 2006 graduating class at Columbia revealed that more than half had protested while a college student.

Dolce & Gabbana is a high fashion house that ran an ad of a glamour woman pinned to the ground by a bare-chested man, as three other men looked on. An international uproar immediately erupted over the Internet, with American and Italian bloggers particularly incensed. The ad was pulled.

Conseco board members now routinely use tally sheets to determine how much their CEO is really being paid.

A board member at Integral Systems was deeply offended by the high amounts of executive compensation and provided investors with a scathing paper trail of executive greed.

In advance of annual meetings in 2007, and especially targeting Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Northrop Grumman, shareholders at 140 companies suddenly stood up in defiance to executive compensation and at sixty companies submitted proposals to vote on executive pay.

With the breaking of the clergy sex abuse scandal, heart-broken Catholic laypeople decided no more being seen but not heard, and the watchdog Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) was born. "No more donation without representation" was the new way. The eighteen-year period of supreme clerical authority of the Boston Archdiocese by Cardinal Bernard Law was called into question. Law had been responsible for the Boston Archdiocese's 2 million members, 1,100 priests, 408 parishes, and $7.5 million in annual donations. Previously secret church documents were revealed with horrifying stories that Law had "paid no heed," and that the church's irresponsible handling of sex abuse was "standard procedure." Cardinal Law stonewalled, then later reacted casually, and then went silent. The Activists refused to let up. Three months after VOTF (www.votf.org started, they had more than four thousand members in thirty-six states and nineteen countries. Cardinal Law then asked the public for forgiveness for his "assigning sexual molesters to their parishes." Massachusetts Attorney General Reilly opened criminal investigations. The Boston Globe declared the Cardinal must go. In one of the court cases, Judge Constance M. Sweeney, herself a devout Catholic, complained church records contradicted Law's sworn testimony. On December 13, 2002, it was reported that Pope John Paul II had accepted Law's resignation. It was less than a year since the "Year of the Pedophile" scandal had broken.

Activists' Exposes

With only a laptop and a connection to the Internet, Amit Srivastava of El Cerrito, California started Global Resistance. He got twenty thousand visitors a month by exposing Coca-Cola's degradation of the Indian environment, and particularly Coca-Cola's negative impact on its water.

Marin County, California lawyer Steven Schoonover's false documents exposed in BrooWaha's Gun Controllers Among Us, Marin County California Courts.

A retired Marin County, California teacher's twisted tale of misconduct, bigamy, forgery and insurance fraud exposed in BrooWaha's Flip Flop Rers Among Us, James K. Olson.

The bizarre behavior of Northern, Nevada realtors exposed in BrooWaha's Bizarre Among Us, Realtor Newman, Retards Among Us, Realtors and Contempt Among Us, Hopson.

A Reno, Nevada bank manager exposed in BrooWaha's Zeroes Among Us, Bank Of America.

A Reno, Nevada doctor refusing to accept VA vouchers exposed in BrooWaha's Troop Haters Among Us, Dr. Angelini.

A couple of Reno, Northern lawyers are exposed in BrooWaha's Drama Queens Among Us, Wright & Hanson.

Several mortgage fraudsters are exposed in BrooWaha's Cheaters Among Us, Riley, Heroes Among Us, Broch, Greedheads Among Us, Gledhill, Culprits Among Us, Clark, Cheaters Among Us, Barry, Bullies Among Us, Mapes, Cheaters Among Us, Homier, Outlaws Among Us, Zane, Cheaters Among Us, Kings, Cheaters Among Us, Maree, Cheaters Among Us, Sickler, and Cheaters Among Us, Gledhill.

A Reno, Nevada real estate teacher that doesn't support a real estate degree and his resulting conflicts of interest in the BrooWaha expose Zeroes Among Us, Scheible.

In 2005, BusinessWeek described these changes as the age of the corporate monarch is over due to shareholders increasing activism forcing the reversal of corporate managers past disdain and imperviousness to the shareholders. CEO and all executive manager turnovers are at an all time high. In 2006, "more than 28,000 top executives lost, left or changed jobs. Up 68% from 2006." The estimate in 2007 was that by 2011, half of America's corporations would have new CEOs as the existing ones are forced out. Executives in business and government are relentlessly interviewed, closely monitored, increasingly resisted, constantly scrutinized, and easily threatened by terrorists to bloggers. BusinessWeek pointed out the unpreparedness to deal with the online exposes and nastiness as the realization sinks in that not only is the Internet an advertising medium, but also a real time conduit of ones' reputation. 120,000 blogs are created each day and there are now more than 70 million blogs putting their opinions and conclusions easily available to everyone with Internet access.

Other Sources: "Finally, Shareholders Start Acting Like Owners," Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times, June 11, 2006; Audi of America's "Never Follow" campaign; http://www.labour.org.ok/;eade rship/tony_blair_resigns; "To: Professor@University.ed Subject: Why It's All About Me," Jonathan D. Glater; "A New Force in Advertising Protest by Email," Christina Passariello, Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2007; "Breaking the Cod eof Silence," Phyliss Plitch, Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2006.

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