Google’s motto is “Don’t Be Evil,” but apparently that doesn’t mean don’t give it money. The tech giant is hosting a fundraiser for Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican. Just in case you’re unfamiliar with Inhofe, here are some of his greatest hits:
- He has said he doesn’t hire openly gay staffers ” “due to the possibility of a conflict of agenda.”
- He has boasted that he is proud that ” in the recorded history of our family, we’ve never had a divorce or any kind of a homosexual relationship.”
- He was a loud opponent of repealing DADT and wondered whether straight soldiers would be willing to die for gay comrades if the policy fell.
- He wrote a letter to the Pentagon demanding an explanation as to why military personnel were allowed to wear their uniforms at a gay pride event.
- He’s been a big-booster of the antigay Family Research Council and was one of the signers of a letter condemning the Southern Poverty Law Center for designating it a hate group.
Yep, nothing evil there.
And this is just the antigay stuff. Inhofe is also a big climate-denier, which is why an environmental group called Forecast the Facts is protesting the fundraiser. Of course, Inhofe’s history is easy to find. All you have to do is Google it.
Ottoman
A company putting up a false front of concern and support while stabbing American citizens in the back? Lol, next you’ll be telling us Google doesn’t pay taxes.
viveutvivas
…or that it collaborates with the NSA to spy on us. Oh wait…
Polaro
There might be more to this story. Google is pretty commonly known to be an inclusive company with gay friendly policies.
jwrappaport
Another reminder that corporations are not our friends: they are in the game to make money and nothing more. Sometimes, that happens to coincide with our interests, sometimes not.
Cam
Google allows any censorship/spying that any country wants to do on it’s site as well.
They lie to us and pretend concern and then hope that they won’t get got funneling in money to people opposed to civil rights.
Polaro
Google does what every other company is forced to do: cooperate with the government. If there is a problem, in this case, with spying, blame the government. I’m sure Google would much rather not turn anything over to the government. What is their alternative?
Kangol
Digusting.
2eo
Considering Google have being complicit in working with the NSA and GCHQ, creating API’s to give them direct access to everything you’ve ever done through their sites it should come as no surprise they’re aiding people who’ll let the status quo remain.
Google’s motto is “Do know evil” and has been for a number of years.
Charli Girl
I bet it’s hard to talk out of both mouths…might get a lil confusing at times.
wakeupscreaming
I’m trying to take small steps to ‘de-google’ my life, but it is hard. I use startpage for my searches. Just add a dot com to the end, you can find it and there’s also a plugin for it for Firefox. And I’ve started using Firefox on both my android tablet and iPad. YouTube, owned by google, however, is my big addiction, and there really is no comparable alternative. So I’m trying to visit other sites like Vimeo every now and then.
manjoguy
To be fair, you really should list some of the good things Inhofe has done/believes. The five negatives about Inhofe you bulleted I would agree with you make him not appealing. But, for myself, I’m certainly no fan of that awful Southern Poverty Law Center.
queerty1958
Don’t give a damn about Sen. Jim In-hole…umm…I meant Inhofe.
1EqualityUSA
Bing?
Alan down in Florida
Seems to me it’s up to Google’s gay staffers (and there are thousands of them) and gay Googlers to put up a fuss and make behavior like supporting Sen. Inhofe bad for the corporate bottom line.
2eo
@Alan down in Florida: Sadly with Google that is impossible. They already have the information they need, and they are not only sharing it willingly, without warrant to the NSA and GCHQ.
People have forgotten that to Google we are a product, we’re not people, we are only worth what our advertising indexing is worth, and Google get massive tax subsidies and are outright allowed to commit fraud on a ginormous scale because they’re willingly co-operative.
@1EqualityUSA: Bing won’t help.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data
Microsoft have handed over the keys to Skype and IE already, they’ve opened back doors that completely bypass encryption, and allows for recording of all Skype conversations and messages.
With the release of the new Xbox, requiring Kinect falling into the same corporate culture I dread to think how much information they’ll have.
Will L
Yeah, welcome to Oklahoma. Both of our senators are living in the worst part of the 20th century.
1EqualityUSA
Google is untouchable? How could they fund a hater such as Inhofe? Nobody respects him. Damn, Google, I though you would have been progressive, not regressive.
2eo
@1EqualityUSA: Google are untouchable, the last person to exercise their conscience was fired when they caved completely to China and their monitoring demands.
Eric Schmidt is on record as saying he doesn’t value personal information.