Hoeing Your Row

There's been a wave over the last two years of companies trying to blankwash their way into our hearts, and more directly our wallets.

Coffee places we're supposed to like because they promise to get rid of plastic lids, straws, stirrers and baristas by the year 2092. 

Hamburger places that plant a weed for every sesame-seed bun they drop on the floor and then sell.

Shoe companies that claim to give one pair of shoes to the needy for every pair of shoes they overcharge you for. 

Ice cream companies that boycott Israel. Candy companies that buy only fair-trade chocolate. Cosmetic companies who have--after centuries--given back to indigenous populations the million-acre palm-oil plantations they stole during the present colonial era.

Then there are the trillion-dollar petrochemical terrorists we're supposed to love because they've spent $52,345 on environmental research. Or trillion-dollar financial institutions that raped people out of their life savings, destroyed broad swaths of the world economy, but since they're sponsoring a local marimba band, we should be thankful for their presence.

Not too many years ago, agencies large, small and dishonest took to buying for themselves a B-corp Certification. I know there are some agencies, like Oberland, who truly abide by the lofty standards of the certification. But for too many others, B-corp status is just another "pay-to-play" award, like one of the thousands of thousands of Cannes trophies (last year and laughably, there were 27 Grand Prix winners alone. That's proof that today, you can have multiple Ne Plus Ultrae) or J.D. Power awards for "best left-handed dry-cleaner, waistcoat division."

A few weeks ago, a dot org called Clean Creatives circulated a piece about all the giant agencies working with petrochemical companies--climate liars and environmental terrorists who brook enormous planetary destruction and then spend liberally to cover up their crimes. You can see their entire "F-List" here.

Some of the agencies on the F-List (there are literally hundreds) spent thousands, maybe millions, of dollars for B-Corp. certification, their way of showing the world that they're holier than thou. They can afford those fees because of the vast sums they earn from filthy and deceptive environmental violence.

It reminds me of the Persilschein process during the so-called de-Nazification years in West Germany. Then and there, billionaires and their giant corporations, like IG Farben (BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa), the Quandts (BMW), Krupp (Steel), Pieche (Porsche and VW), paid for whitewashing affidavits (Persil is an European laundry soap) to cleanse their genocidal pasts of Nazism.

Today the agencies we work for are effecting similar moral sleight-of-hand through both their public efforts to show the world how much they care and dubious and for-sale designations like B-Corp.

It's not really my business to judge what people do. You make your bed, you lie in it. We're all here to make money and do what we can to live in a corrupt world dominated by a few malefactors of great wealth.  (A phrase coined by repubican president Theodore Roosevelt.)

In my view however there's one thing worse than being one of those malefactors. It's being one and pretending you're clean.