I hate to say this but sometimes boycotts can be a little, well, dull. They’re just so very predictable. We’ve all experienced the overly hyped sign carrier spouting politic views, or worse wanting you to donate to their cause. Whenever I am approached by one of these people I can’t help but think that I am taking part in a poorly executed Saturday Night Live skit, complete with the clichéd angry activist and random everyday citizens. It’s just not as funny.
It seems that I always come across protesters when I am in some sort of rush, too, like the time I forgot to pack extra tampons before a very long lecture and had to hightail it into the grocery story minutes before class. Just my luck, there were dozens of well-intentioned people with pictures of puppies. PUPPIES for shit’s sake! Ones with open wounds, and skinny torsos — the kind of stuff that you never want to see. One of them handed my a flier with heartbreaking photos and asked, “Can I have a minute of your time?” And I had to say: “No, sorry, I’m in a rush, not now.” In the end I ended up feeling like a soulless puppy killer, complete with blood on my hands. Nasty, I know.
I think it’s great that there are people who are passionate about bringing these issues to light, and while I applaud most activism, I have always wondered if the picketers, protesters, and petitioners make an impact or are they just viewed as nuisances to the general public.
Recently I came across this video of one of the most awesome protests of all time. It took place at a local Seattle Target store. It was genius. The activists were gathering to send the message to Target that their recent donation of $150,000 to Minnesota Forward, a political action group that supports known anti-gay politician Tom Emmer, was not cool and they want the world to know it.
The protest was witty and campy and altogether awesome. It featured a group of signing activists and a live band right in the aisles of target. Shoppers stood looking on with their mouths gaping open, some dancing and singing along. The protesters used umbrellas and rewrote the lyrics to a hilariously cheesy Depeche Mode song. And you know what? I love the idea of an entertaining and engaging boycott; why not make it less dismal and drab and way more approachable to the general public? Take a leaf out of this book, PETA.
PETA fucking piss me off with their holier-than-thou message. Urgh.
And they are totally ok with objectifying the hell out of women as long as you save teh bunnies! Honestly, do they have any ads with naked men, or is it just the idiot female celebrities who think that throwing their tits around will somehow save the critters?
I hate PETA.
http://www.blog.abersparky.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/jamiebamberuk300.jpg
^ This picture makes me a-okay with peta.
While I thought the boycott was entertaining, the rhetoric is ridiculous.
The words are “Target is playing games with our political system,” and “why should [Target] be allowed to play around with our Democracy?”
How is Target doing either one of those by making legal contributions to the candidate of their board’s choice?
If people want to boycott the company because they do not agree with the board’s choice of contributions, so be it, but the company itself is not doing anything negative to our political system by doing so. In fact, legal contributions that do not constitute some form of “quid-pro-quo” are a form of free speech and free association, both of which are concepts that I assume the protesters would claim to support.
Kzinti – you are joking, right?
What is right about this scenario?
Corporations now can give UNLIMITED amounts of cash to political candidates. That’s right – unlimited.
Now, you and I can give a couple of hundred bucks, perhaps a couple of thousand before we break the family’s budget – but corporations can hand out MILLIONS.
Do you suppose this might just sway a politician to vote a certain way when a bill comes up that affects one of his contributors?
Oh, HELL yeah.
This has far reaching implications.
Welcome to serfdom.
The most nauseating thing about all of this? Target isn’t even an American company. The good ‘ol US of A is now officially for sale.
Agreed.
Blurry,
No, I’m not joking at all.
According to the article, “[t]he activists were gathering to send the message to Target that their recent donation of $150,000 to Minnesota Forward, a political action group that supports known anti-gay politician Tom Emmer, was not cool and they want the world to know it.”
If I’m to believe that the article is correct, the protesters would not have been demonstrating against Target making a $150,000 contribution to a group / politician that they supported.
While your point about corporate contributions may indeed be valid, I did not see anything about that issue in the article. The article specifies that the protesters were upset about a donation to an organization that they did not support, not about the ability of corporations to use contributions to “sway a politician a certain way.” The corporation was not accused of swaying anyone, but supporting an organization that supported a specific candidate.
Regards,
Shannon
kzinti – the entire protest was based on the fact that a corporation was supporting a candidate that espoused hate. Google Tom Emmer.
If you watch the video, it makes it very clear that this group is upset that Target or any corporation, is able to do this.
That girl dos not shave her armpits
Blurry,
This is a different argument than your first, and it supports what I assumed – that the protests are because “a corporation was supporting a candidate that espoused hate,” rather than “[c]orporations now can give UNLIMITED amounts of cash to political candidates.”
It is obvious that there would be no protest if the corporation were to give unlimited amounts of cash to their candidate, rather than to one who disagreed with them.
Hence my original comment:
“If people want to boycott the company because they do not agree with the board’s choice of contributions, so be it, but the company itself is not doing anything negative to our political system by doing so. In fact, legal contributions that do not constitute some form of “quid-pro-quo” are a form of free speech and free association, both of which are concepts that I assume the protesters would claim to support.”
Regards,
Kzinti
No, Kzinti – I stand by MY original objection, I was simply pointing out that this particular group was upset by who the beneficiary of Target’s donations was. People have that tendency, they’ll stand quiey if they approve, protest if they don’t.
I am most definitely not in either category.
I still feel that this is horribly wrong and will simply erode this country further..
sigh
*quietly
Blurry,
If I understand you correctly, we are basically saying the same thing. The protesters were protesting a particular donation rather than some policy that allows unlimited donations (which I’ve not researched, btw). If they disagree with such donations, they should be boycotting the donors to recipients with whom they agree, as well as those with whom they do not.
Regards,
Kzinti
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