Does our "Don't have money to boycott" but boycott anyway work?

[Tucker]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4253923

cboy4  (1000+ posts)      Fri Oct-17-08 06:31 AM
Original message
Poll question: Has the economy ruined your ability to participate in economic boycotts?
 Do you, for instance, shop at Wal-Mart now?

Do you eat at certain restaurants, buy certain food from manufacturers you would otherwise boycott because of their practices?

And do economic boycotts even work?

I started thinking about this subject after reading this:


As McDonald's yields to Christian Right boycott, other side deploys its own boycotts. Do you boycott?






McDonald's Yields to Anti-Gay Boycott


Friday, October 17, 2008 | 5:56 a.m. ET


In the growing culture war battles over same-sex marriage, economic boycotts seem to be the weapon of choice.

Earlier this week, the conservative Christian American Family Association announced that it was calling off its five-month boycott of McDonald's after the fast-food giant ended it relationship with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. AFA has led boycotts against Ford, Disney and Hallmark for similar reasons.

Meanwhile, "Californians Against Hate" has called for a boycott of two San Diego hotels owned by Doug Manchester, a devout Catholic who said his faith inspired him to donate $125,000 to support a ballot issue that would ban gay marriage. CAH says it is considering boycotts against other donors such as Intel and Bolthouse Farms.

(This morning, CAH called off its Bolthouse Farms boycott after the food company announced plans to start a diversity program and extended benefits to same-sex partners of gay employees.)

Do boycotts work? Do you join faith-based boycotts?

Christian Right-led boycotts often get a lot of attention (who can forget the Southern Baptist boycott of Disney?), but economic boycotts are a time-honored tactic of religious groups everywhere. Gandhi led boycotts of British products. King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott. "A boycott is not an end within itself," King wrote. "It is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority."

I'm not sure corporations can experience shame (we're not seeing much evidence of it on Wall Street these days), but I do think they work. Over the years I have joined faith-based calls to boycott Exxon, Taco Bell, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart (not to mention lettuce and grapes when I was a kid, thanks Mom.) I've also engaged in counter-boycotts when I thought they were wrong or just silly. For example, when the SBC announced its Disney boycott, I told my kids we were going to Disney World.

Even if the boycotts I join don't work, I think there are times when my faith -- meaning my understanding of what is right and just -- compels me to try. I'm not looking to awaken shame. I am trying to avoid it.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/200...
 

It' a new thread. It will grow.

Jamastiene  (1000+ posts)        Fri Oct-17-08 06:53 AM
Response to Original message
3. Wal-Mart...I'm sure everyone will start prattling off other store names,
 that are about 100 miles from where I live. We ONLY have a Super Wal Mart in my hometown. There is no Costco. There is no Target. There is no other choice in my hometown. So, people, if you are Wal-Mart snobs who do not know what it is like to live in a rural area where there is no other choice, go ahead and update your ignore list now, hate me, and spare me the condescending bullshit. I'm fine with it because I know the truth. Those of us who live in small towns have no other choices. That's the part you don't get and never will because you've obviously never even lived in a small town if you don't already know that shit. And hell **** no, I am not driving 100 ******* miles to buy a ******* bottle of shampoo or a box of ****ing ******* tampons. No ****ing way. Deal with it.

Sure, I could go pay $90 at Rite Aid for my prescription or pay $28 for the same exact amount of the same exact medicine at Wal-Mart. I despise Wal-Mart more than half of you who have never even set foot in a Wal-Mart, but I'll go there to get the cheaper prescriptions.

Sure, I could pay almost $10 for shampoo at the grocery store, or I can pay about $6 for the same exact shampoo at Wal Mart.

The bottom line is this: I don't see buying enough gas to fill the ******* car just so I can drive around to 10 other stores to pay more when I cannot afford it. Not only that, I do not have that much spare time in life, that I can afford to drive all over the ******* place just to get one thing here and one thing there. **** it. I'll get it at Wal Mart and have enough left over to pay the ******* bills.

And for the record:
Wal-Mart is also our leading major employer in this town, btw, for those of you who live where there actually ARE opportunities and hope in life and have no clue whatso****ingever what it is like to live in a town where ******* Wal-Mart is THE MAJOR employer in your town.

So, anyone who wants to enter into a long extended snobby assed stuck up condescending ******* flame war with me over Wal-Mart, a store I despise but absolutely have no other ****ing choice but to shop at, kiss my ass and go to Hell and take all your snobby assed stuck up friends with you. You live your posh ******* life in total ignorance of what it is like to live in THE MOST IMPOVERISHED county in your state with no chance of ever escaping and making enough money to be so ******* condescending, stuck up, and snobby toward poor people.

I like you cboy4, but this poll is just a slap in the face to poor people who grew up in and still have to live in small towns down south where Wal-Mart is all we ****ing got. Yeah, I shop at Wal-Mart and I hate it, but I don't have spare cash to drive 100 ******* miles just to make a point that hasn't done any good yet. Have any of you who have the luxury of NOT shopping at Wal-Mart put a single dent in poverty or slave wages? No, you have not. Have you even managed to be able to win a presidential election in the last, oh, 8 years? No, you have not. Why? Because those of us who agree with you on so many other issues, have to live our lives the best we can afford to live it and no matter how many times we try to explain it to you, you still won't leave your comfortable environment and actually go see what middle America is like. You have no clue whatsoever what it is really like no matter how many times we tell you. So, take a tour of this shithole country and see what it is really like out here. Try living out here where there are no social programs, no advocacy groups, no hope, no serenity, no peace, no rights, no freedoms, and no ****ing chance of ever escaping. Even my friends who all moved out of this town back in the 90s had to come back. It's just too ******* expensive to live in even Raleigh for those of us who came from nothing and will always be nothing but just that;

NOTHING.
 

Not the expected response.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Not the expected response.

It seems peculiar that the "progressives" seek to punish those who make a wealth of goods and services available to lower income Americans while employing poor foreigners.

If Wal-Mart were shut down it would increase foreign poverty.

Racist, jingoist ****ers.

[JohnnyReb]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4253923

It' a new thread. It will grow.

Not the expected response.

Well now, there's proof of evolution for you .....A DUmmie with a spine and a mind of it's own.......

[USA4ME]

I continue to find it funny how the DUmmies have to pre-apologize for saying or doing something that might upset the other board members.  They go through life constantly concerned of not meeting the seal of approval of the other primitives.  I can't even imagine trying to live like that.

.

[Texacon]

The next thread topic should be;

HOW MANY OF YOU ARE HELPING TO DESTROY THE PLANET BY DRIVING 100 G-D MILES TO AVOID SHOPPING IN A MORE CONVENIENT LOCATION?!

 

If we don't see this topic then Jamas ain't got a hair on its ass.

LOL

KC

[jukin]

DUchebags don't walk their talk.

HI 5 for the title!!

[Wineslob]

I *******, you ****er, ****ing ******* shop at any muther****in damn friggin shithole Walfart I ****in choose. Stick that tampon up your asshole. *******it.

[Tucker]

I *******, you ****er, ****ing ******* shop at any muther****in damn friggin shithole Walfart I ****in choose. Stick that tampon up your asshole. *******it.

YIKES!!!!

[Chris_]

I *******, you ****er, ****ing ******* shop at any muther****in damn friggin shithole Walfart I ****in choose. Stick that tampon up your asshole. *******it.

When did you learn DUmmietalk? lol

[franksolich]

I boycott many companies because of their liberal ties and attitudes.
Does it do any good?  Probably not.
Does it make me feel better?  You betcha.

Same here.

I informally boycott, although fully realizing it makes about an atomic microscopic bit of difference, if that much.

But I feel better.

Interestingly, because no computer at home--temporarily, I took the chance to clean a certain unused bedroom here.  Not that it was dirty or needed cleaning, but I decided to do it anyway.  In the closet, I found a whole lot of Consumers' Reports magazines from the 1980s and 1990s, and read them before tossing them into the paper recycling place.

(As an aside, I find conventional recycling a joke--the real trick is to not consume things in the first place--and so don't bother, excepting up here near the top of Nebraska, there's some business that makes insulation out of recycled paper, and since it's on my way to the big city, and since it's under Republican ownership and management, I make it a point to drop off high-quality paper I don't need.)

Anyway, after reading all of those magazines, whereas before I had maybe 6 or 12 companies or products I boycotted, the list is surely longer than 200 now.  Products from the "green" companies, the gay-friendly companies, the socially-conscious companies, &c., &c., &c.

Not that I got anything against being green or socially conscious, but if one wears his virtue on a sleeve, usually his sleeve is the only virtuous thing in him.  And not that I got anything against gays, other than I think it's unfair to be friendly to some groups, and not friendly to others. 

I'd like to find a deaf-friendly telephone company, but unlike gays, no one caters to deafs.

[Texacon]

Same here.

I informally boycott, although fully realizing it makes about an atomic microscopic bit of difference, if that much.

But I feel better.

Interestingly, because no computer at home--temporarily, I took the chance to clean a certain unused bedroom here.  Not that it was dirty or needed cleaning, but I decided to do it anyway.  In the closet, I found a whole lot of Consumers' Reports magazines from the 1980s and 1990s, and read them before tossing them into the paper recycling place.

(As an aside, I find conventional recycling a joke--the real trick is to not consume things in the first place--and so don't bother, excepting up here near the top of Nebraska, there's some business that makes insulation out of recycled paper, and since it's on my way to the big city, and since it's under Republican ownership and management, I make it a point to drop off high-quality paper I don't need.)

Anyway, after reading all of those magazines, whereas before I had maybe 6 or 12 companies or products I boycotted, the list is surely longer than 200 now.  Products from the "green" companies, the gay-friendly companies, the socially-conscious companies, &c., &c., &c.

Not that I got anything against being green or socially conscious, but if one wears his virtue on a sleeve, usually his sleeve is the only virtuous thing in him.  And not that I got anything against gays, other than I think it's unfair to be friendly to some groups, and not friendly to others. 

I'd like to find a deaf-friendly telephone company, but unlike gays, no one caters to deafs.

Frank,

One of the interpreters my wife used to work with went to work for this company and tried like hell to get my wife to go to work with them as well but she would have had to drive into Houston every other day so we nixed the idea.

Check this out;  http://www.sorensonvrs.com/

This may or may not be something you are aware of.

Good Luck!
KC

[BlueStateSaint]

I boycott many companies because of their liberal ties and attitudes.
Does it do any good?  Probably not.
Does it make me feel better?  You betcha.

Bingo!  I won't buy Sam Adams beer for the reason that 100% of their political donations go to Democrats.  I prefer Blue Moon, which is brewed by Coors.

[LC EFA]

Try living out here where there are no social programs, no advocacy groups, no hope, no serenity, no peace, no rights, no freedoms, and no ****ing chance of ever escaping. Even my friends who all moved out of this town back in the 90s had to come back. It's just too ******* expensive to live in even Raleigh for those of us who came from nothing and will always be nothing but just that;

 

With an attitude like that the DUmmie is exactly right. They will be nothing , forever.

I pity them the mistakes they're making, buy the Sympath-o-Meter hasn't budged from the zero peg.

[GOBUCKS]

DUmmy Jamastiene obviously lives in the most godforsaken backwater in the northern hemisphere, the inhabitants of which are so backward, uneducated, inbred, and genetically inferior that escape to a more enlightened world, like Raleigh, is but a dream.

DUmmy Jamastiene's friends and relatives consider the banjo boy in "Deliverance" to be a conceited cosmopolitan.

The people forced to live out their miserable existence in this cesspool have no modern advantages whatever, except internet access.

And, apparently, exposure to every obscenity ever invented for the English language.

[Wineslob]

YIKES!!!!

hehee, it's a secret VRWC class, I done got a D!   


Honestly I don't think I've seen ******* used so many times. It inspired me. 

[Chris_]

I despise Wal-Mart more than half of you who have never even set foot in a Wal-Mart, but I'll go there to get the cheaper prescriptions.

This is what passes for principle at the DUmp.  I will DO ANYTHING to support OUR CAUSE until it inconveniences me.