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A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community
About Me :
I'm a grownup nerd living in the Boston burbs. I write computer programs for a living and plays for fun.
I'm married to a wonderful woman, and we share a nice little house with our daughter and our cats.
I'm a humanist, a technologist, an artist, and an idealist. I believe in reason, freedom, love, equality,
and democracy. (Did I mention that I'm
an idealist? I did, OK.)
I'm also a pragmatist and an empiricist. I reject ideology and dogma, especially when they conflict with
practical facts (i.e., pretty much always). I particularly hate willful ignorance, which tends to go hand-in-hand
with ideology and dogma.
Like the alignment of the planets, this blog gets updated as I have the time, inspiration, and inclination to do so.
Like the alignment of the planets, this blog gets updated as I have the time, inspiration, and inclination to do so.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Buying Blue
Contemplating the recent electoral disappointment has crystallized some of my thoughts on money, politics, and effective action. I started to wonder how much of the money I spend in the marketplace goes to support bad candidates and bad causes; and I started to wonder how I could spend my money to help good candidates and good causes. It's nice to know that I wasn't alone in this thinking.
A series of web sites have gone up in the last few weeks which give us a portion of the tools we're going to need in the coming months and years. By using publicly-available records, they have compiled databases of companies' political contributions, allowing you to compare and contrast brands and companies, and make your own decisions about how to spend your money.
Project Blue Christmas
Cobb 24
Buy Blue
Choose The Blue
When you spend your money, you should be taking more into consideration than just the price. Think about the real cost of doing business with companies which are actively lobbying to destroy Social Security, worker rights, environmental protections, and an equitable tax system. Every dollar you give Wal-Mart, for example, is a dollar they are going to use as a club against you.
The buy blue movement is a reaction to the reality that the corporations have essentially taken over politics in America. They call the tune. They set the agenda. Sure, we "voters" get our say, sort of, assuming the voting machines are reliable, but we only get to vote once every other year, for slates of candidates and issues already vetted by the corporations, campaigning on corporate money. Where do these corporations get all their money? Largely from you and me, their customers. We should at least look at what sort of candidates and issues our dollars are going to support, and try to steer those dollars in a more effective direction. We can vote with our dollars, and those votes definitely get counted.
After we wait for the moral outrage of the Republicans to subside ("Wal-Mart has a perfect right to support whatever it wants!", which boils down to, "how dare you try to tell me how you should spend your money!"), the single vulnerability I see to the buy blue idea is the fact that the contribution records are all public, as required by law. If the Buy Blue Movement really does start to get traction, I fear that the corporations will respond mainly by working out ways of hiding their donations, or removing the provisions of the law which require public disclosure of donations.
Perusing the databases on the sites provided a small number of amusing surprises. Amazon, for example, is a huge Republican contributor. I will in future be steering my business towards Barnes and Noble, which contributes 100% to Democrats, or Powell's, which does not have any contributions on record.
H.J. Heinz, earlier in the year a target of a boycott by idiot Republicans for having some connection to John Kerry -- i.e., he's married to a prominent stockholder -- gives 98% of its money to Republicans.
Dunkin Donuts gives 74% of its contributions to Republicans, whereas Starbucks gives 100% of its contributions to Democrats. Unfortunately, I still despise Starbucks coffee, and I will still buy Dunkin coffee, but there are ways to cut back just the same. I have become used to picking up a couple of pounds of coffee at Dunkin, but I think I will go back to buying it from the local Whole Foods Market (100% D) instead.
We have also moved all of our banking business away from Fleet, which is now Bank of America, and to a local credit union. Bank of America split its donations, but actively supported George W. Bush and Dennis Hastert. (And here I was thinking bankers, of all people, could read a balance sheet!) We were happily surprised that the credit union gives us great service, great hours, and great rates.
I actually believe in the power of giving your business to local companies more than I believe in the power of giving your business to "democratic" companies. For example, all of the computers I have bought in the past seven years have come from a local vendor (PCs for Everyone) rather than from the likes of Dell, HP, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. More on the virtues of spending locally later.
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Contemplating the recent electoral disappointment has crystallized some of my thoughts on money, politics, and effective action. I started to wonder how much of the money I spend in the marketplace goes to support bad candidates and bad causes; and I started to wonder how I could spend my money to help good candidates and good causes. It's nice to know that I wasn't alone in this thinking.
A series of web sites have gone up in the last few weeks which give us a portion of the tools we're going to need in the coming months and years. By using publicly-available records, they have compiled databases of companies' political contributions, allowing you to compare and contrast brands and companies, and make your own decisions about how to spend your money.
Project Blue Christmas
Cobb 24
Buy Blue
Choose The Blue
When you spend your money, you should be taking more into consideration than just the price. Think about the real cost of doing business with companies which are actively lobbying to destroy Social Security, worker rights, environmental protections, and an equitable tax system. Every dollar you give Wal-Mart, for example, is a dollar they are going to use as a club against you.
The buy blue movement is a reaction to the reality that the corporations have essentially taken over politics in America. They call the tune. They set the agenda. Sure, we "voters" get our say, sort of, assuming the voting machines are reliable, but we only get to vote once every other year, for slates of candidates and issues already vetted by the corporations, campaigning on corporate money. Where do these corporations get all their money? Largely from you and me, their customers. We should at least look at what sort of candidates and issues our dollars are going to support, and try to steer those dollars in a more effective direction. We can vote with our dollars, and those votes definitely get counted.
After we wait for the moral outrage of the Republicans to subside ("Wal-Mart has a perfect right to support whatever it wants!", which boils down to, "how dare you try to tell me how you should spend your money!"), the single vulnerability I see to the buy blue idea is the fact that the contribution records are all public, as required by law. If the Buy Blue Movement really does start to get traction, I fear that the corporations will respond mainly by working out ways of hiding their donations, or removing the provisions of the law which require public disclosure of donations.
Perusing the databases on the sites provided a small number of amusing surprises. Amazon, for example, is a huge Republican contributor. I will in future be steering my business towards Barnes and Noble, which contributes 100% to Democrats, or Powell's, which does not have any contributions on record.
H.J. Heinz, earlier in the year a target of a boycott by idiot Republicans for having some connection to John Kerry -- i.e., he's married to a prominent stockholder -- gives 98% of its money to Republicans.
Dunkin Donuts gives 74% of its contributions to Republicans, whereas Starbucks gives 100% of its contributions to Democrats. Unfortunately, I still despise Starbucks coffee, and I will still buy Dunkin coffee, but there are ways to cut back just the same. I have become used to picking up a couple of pounds of coffee at Dunkin, but I think I will go back to buying it from the local Whole Foods Market (100% D) instead.
We have also moved all of our banking business away from Fleet, which is now Bank of America, and to a local credit union. Bank of America split its donations, but actively supported George W. Bush and Dennis Hastert. (And here I was thinking bankers, of all people, could read a balance sheet!) We were happily surprised that the credit union gives us great service, great hours, and great rates.
I actually believe in the power of giving your business to local companies more than I believe in the power of giving your business to "democratic" companies. For example, all of the computers I have bought in the past seven years have come from a local vendor (PCs for Everyone) rather than from the likes of Dell, HP, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. More on the virtues of spending locally later.