Ever hear of a partisan cell phone company? Or one that is just for progressives? Neither did I, until I peeked in on the NetRoots conference in Vegas while attending RightOnline and picked up one of their programs. CREDO is the name of the phone company and was founded by Laura Scher. And this company isn’t for Conservatives, that is for sure. Since 1985 Working Assets, the founding company of CREDO has donated $65 million dollars to progressive organizations from a percentage taken from their customers’ long-distance charges. Here is a line from their mission statement:
And then — long before “corporate social responsibility” is a buzzphrase — they develop an innovative long distance service where 1% of your charges goes to progressive nonprofits you vote on, your bill serves as a progressive newsletter and your phone company as a progressive lobby.
A unique concept, for sure. One I don’t believe us Conservatives have gotten around to yet. Some of their recipients are mega-progressive organizations like ACLU, Democracy Now, Planned Parenthood, Go Pink, and Media Matters.
CREDO has an “Action Center” where they inform and encourage a specific action about an event or happening. A few days ago I told you about their team-up with MoveOn.org to help push NPR instead of Fox News into Helen Thomas’ seat at White House pressers. A few of their current campaigns are We want Elizabeth Warren to police Wall Street, Tell Chevron: Don’t donate to the Texas oil companies’ dirty proposition, and Tell Hillary Clinton to stand up to Blackwater. You get the idea. And they also claim political victories such as Momentum for marriage equality, End to the Bush torture tactics, and Justice for Sotomayor. And interestingly enough if you click on their “CREDO blog” on the right hand upper corner of this page you are taken directly to the Huffington Post. Who would have thought.
But it seems we have more hypocrisy on the left. One of CREDO’s “action alerts” last Labor Day was to counteract a rally in West Virginia with known union-busters Massey Energy and Verizon Wireless. But the irony here is CREDO is non-union. H/t to @LaborUnionRpt on twitter.
Nope. Don’t “look for that union label” with CREDO.
Comments