The movement makes the Washington Post!

[Lorien]

(snip)
Raven Brooks is making his Christmas list, but he is less concerned with what to buy than where to shop.

Brooks is one of a small group of frustrated Democrats who met while commiserating online after President Bush defeated Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). Disenchanted and desperate for a voice, they started BuyBlue.org. The two-week-old Web site lists the political contributions of major companies to encourage people to shop at stores and buy products from businesses that supported Democratic candidates.

"If you are a progressive or a liberal, you won't be represented adequately by this administration, or this Congress," Martha Ture, a co-founder of BuyBlue.org, said. As for what Democrats do have, she said, "We have our wallets."

Ann Duvall and her husband, Bill, had the same idea. The semi-retired Silicon Valley couple started ChoosetheBlue.com. The bare-bones Web site lists companies and urges people to vote with their pocketbooks when they buy gifts, shop for groceries or fill up at the gas station.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10714-20...

From this LBN thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1083755#1086653

[JaneDoughnut]

1. Related item in NYT today

About eating local food and the problems with our current methods of food production and distribution. I like this snip:

"But is it possible for farmers' markets to feed a growing country and provide the range of produce we demand? The answer is yes. With some exceptions, like coffee and chocolate, American farmers can easily meet demand. They've also had great success in marketing directly to the consumer: the number of farmers' markets has increased to 3,100 in 2002 from approximately 1,700 in 1994."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/18/opinion/18wilkins.html?oref=login&th

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. Yeah baby!

Sapphie and I both worked like dogs adding new stuff to the P Pages this weekend. It's really starting to fill out with good material.

And the linkups are really starting to get interesting. I love seeing where people are coming in from.

All these sites complement each other so well. We're all doing good stuff.

FSC

[robbedvoter]

3. Freeper in Tampa Tribune preaches "tolerance":

Beware Advice To Shop Your Politics

V ote with your pocketbook, a widely distributed e-mail advises. It includes a long list of companies and how much each supposedly gave to Democrats or Republicans.

The mass mailing cited the Center for Responsive Politics, a highly regarded nonpartisan research group that keeps track of campaign contributions.

We found this particular advice not at all in keeping with the spirit of Christmas fellowship. For democracy to work during the year, a tolerance of opposing views is essential. It would be idiotic to avoid a good store just because its owner doesn't support your candidate.

snip
If you want to support a party, send a check or volunteer your time. Don't be tricked into making your Christmas shopping harder by wrapping it in politics.
This story can be found at: http://www.tampatrib.com/News/MGBVHH55V2E.html

[Glenda]

4. "the spirit of Christmas fellowship"

is not about buying and spending. Is it?

[Lorien]

5. Good point!

The Freeper who wrote that letter is probably not having a very good year at his/ her retail establishment.

[JaneDoughnut]

6. Moron

Let's pretend that the money we spend does only good work! Let's ignore corporate control of politics, the rape of the environment, and the fact that Americans get way more than our fair share of the Earth's resources! Hey, I know, let's have the corporations regulate themselves! Oh, wait, that's how it works now. And it doesn't work at all.

[WolverineDG]

7. here's my ltte

You commented in a story yesterday that we should not complicate our Christmas shopping by worrying about which political candidate a particular store owner or chain might support. I'm surprised at this. Are you saying that the main reason for Christmas is shopping & spending money you don't have? Funny, I thought it was a celebration of the birth of Christ, but then I'm a Democrat who believes Christ taught us to take care of the poor, love our neighbors, and act in a peaceful manner.

As for a "blue boycott" being too "complicated," I have found it to be quite easy to phase in & had no problems whatsoever with the little shopping I did. While I can't say for certain that my vote was counted accurately, I can still choose where I spend my money. I now choose to spend it in stores & on services where my values are appreciated.

heh
dg

[crispini]

8. Oh, dude, I love your letter!

"While I can't say for certain that my vote was counted accurately..."

snerk! :P Very nice.....

[WolverineDG]

9. heh

i love yanking chains..... :evilgrin:

dg

[Lorien]

10. Great response!

:thumbsup:

[buycottJoe]

11. Here's another article about our buy blue movement.

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/10466827.htm
It says "In Texas, state Democratic Party chairman Charles Soechting mentioned the movement in a mass e-mail."

Maybe we should urge our state Democratic chairpersons to do a similar mass e-mail.

I'm a member of MoveOn.org and TrueMajority.org. Together they have about two and a half million members. I am urging them both to take up the buy blue movement. They each are asking their members, thru a forum, what issues they should take up in the coming year. You have to have been a previous member to participate, so if you already are a member, you can express your opinions there.

[buycottJoe]

12. Two more articles

This is a hard hitting article about buying blue. I like his colorful language.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/12/22/notes122204.DTL

The new thing in this next article is that it says there are tens of thousands of visitors a day:
"Buy Blue, online for just three weeks at www.buyblue.org, gets tens of thousands of visitors a day. Michael Moore, the activist filmmaker from Flint, is featuring Buy Blue as his Web site's "link of the week" and countless other sites have been directing their visitors to Buy Blue and Choose the Blue"
http://www.detnews.com/2004/business/0412/23/C01-40677.htm

It seems like the "experts" that they interview, are skeptical about the movement lasting, but then the Detroit News is a conservative newspaper, and we never had such a RW president before, and we never had the internet before.

[buycottJoe]

13. Article in the San Francisco Chronicle

It says "Wal-Mart will be the target of a fresh campaign in the next couple of months, when the Organic Consumers Association will band together with labor and environmental groups to promote a "buy local" crusade. The organization's Web site -- which lists several anti-corporate campaigns -- has fielded 3 to 4 million hits a weekend since the November election. Before then, the site had that many hits in a month"

It also says that BuyBlue.org will later "include information about a company's record on the environment, minority hiring and other social barometers in addition to its political contributions."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/15/MNGTKBB73K1.DTL

[CitySky]

14. Thanks for the links, buycottJoe!

Some good reading.

I like this:

"We need to have a cathedral builder's mentality when we're doing these campaigns," Mark said. "We may not see the building completed in our lifetime, but if we finish the foundation, the next generation can build on that."