Tag: Rep. Bart Stupak

The first effigy hanging I ever witnessed was during my college years. It did not take place within the progressive bubble of CMU's journalism department but rather hung by the side of M-33 in rural Oscoda County but a few miles from where then Gov. William Milliken had pledged to bury thousands of cattle tainted with PBB.

It was not a popular decision with the locals who feared illness and birth defects if PBB from the rotting carcasses ever leached into the groundwater. Energetic activists took the time to erect a makeshift gallows from which they hung a stuffed life size cloth replica of the governor. A rock and roll band played on in the background.

It was all for naught. The cattle were indeed buried. Thankfully, Milliken was never hanged. The band, I think, played wedding gigs for a couple of years despite how unpopular punk was with the in-laws.

"It's not personal, it's business."

That is not an unfamiliar phrase to anyone who has spent much time around the television or the conference room. It was how, for instance, Tony Soprano could show genuine remorse for the death of someone that he just had whacked.

It was how Ford Motor Company, getting the jump on its domestic competitors, could axe thousands of workers from the payroll in anticipation of even rougher waters ahead.

It is why manufacturers are wont to shut down factories that employ familiar faces so that they can outsource their production to more exotic locales such as Indiana and Alabama.

There is always a time for emotion, but it is best left expressed until after the pink slips have been passed out and the "for sale" sign has been posted on the front door. This is not because emotions are bad or unnecessary, but because viable businesses have to survive profitably. If they lose their ability to make a profit they lose their ability to survive--and emotions can get in the way of that ever existing truth.

Business is business.