A couple of weeks ago, I received an unusual phone call just before I put the kids to bed.

On the phone was a representative of Fidelity Investments, the company that runs my 401(k) and maybe yours too, along with $1.5 trillion in assets.

Fidelity, to the best of my recollection, has never called me before. It has inundated me with mail, sending me small forests' worth of proxy information, tax fodder and marketing junk, but it's never called, and for that I was grateful -- until the other day.

A big shareholder vote was coming on April 16, I was told. Fidelity wanted me to vote no, right there over the phone on an issue for which it had done a great deal of research. The pitch went on for a minute. Never was I told the issue Fidelity was calling about. When I pressed a little, I was told about a bureaucratic board, higher costs and activists. That's the point in our conversation when I realized what the call was about.
Fidelity wanted me to vote against a resolution making it harder to invest in companies linked to genocide. "Can I put you down for a no?"

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