7gen Bloc

It's been a rough few weeks for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Once a leading business organization and lobbying force, the Chamber has been hit from all quarters over its opposition to climate crisis action and its aggressive work to undermine current efforts to create new consumer protections, and stronger business and financial regulations.

High-profile Chamber members like Apple, Pacific Gas and Electric, and Levi Strauss & Co. have resigned in well-deserved disgust over the group's climate policies. A feud with the White House over proposed business regulations has subjected the group to withering criticism. And last week, the Yes Men, a group of activist pranksters, punked the Chamber by holding a fake Chamber press conference to announce that the organization was dropping its opposition to global warming legislation.

You almost have to feel sorry for the Chamber. Almost, but not quite, all of this comes in response to official positions that are either absurd, hypocritical, or both.

The organization's stance on the climate crisis, for example, though recently revised to appear more reasonable, still staunchly opposes current federal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and declares that America's "economic well-being will depend on the sustainability" of energy sources like coal and petroleum "for the foreseeable future."

When it comes to protecting long-suffering consumers from businesses running amuck and financial markets and firms wagering our collective future on dubious high-risk bets, the Chamber says that low corporate taxes, loose regulations, and unfettered free markets are all we need.

Such positions are so ridiculous they read like a Saturday Night Live sketch. (No wonder the Yes Men found the Chamber ripe for parody!) Years of research and overwhelming scientific consensus long ago declared global warming a serious threat. And the group's prescription for economic salvation consists of exactly what got us into the current mess in the first place. Even if it didn't, a group that supported unprecedented public bailouts of private companies and then turned right around to trumpet a hands-off approach to the marketplace is impossible to take seriously.

And that's the point. The Chamber is risking irrelevancy by spouting the same old lines we've all heard before and supporting outdated and largely discredited positions the world is quickly moving beyond. It's chosen to represent the obstructionist views of a handful of powerful industries notorious for keeping their heads in the sand, disputing the obvious, and placing their own narrow interests above everything else.

My advice to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is to wake up and smell the fair trade coffee. Stop denying and decrying, and start helping the rest of us get something done. By sticking to old school positions in a new school world, you're dismally failing to serve the ultimate needs and interests of the vast majority of your members who, at the end of the day, believe that we shouldn't compromise long term prosperity and sustainability for the short term profits of a small group of huge multi-national companies.

These things can't be achieved in a world with an unhinged climate or a mortally damaged environment. They won't be found in a society in which everything from wealth and health to justice and opportunity are distributed with alarming inequality. They won't happen in a ruined economy filled with bankrupt consumers. They'll only come when we solve the enormous game-changing challenges the country now faces. You can either get on that bus or get out of the way. Right now, you're just siding with the dinosaurs, and we all know what happened to them.