"It's going to be a Blue Christmas" -- and a busy new year -- for a three-week-old website that urges "blue state" voters to "buy blue," too. "You may have voted blue," the website warns liberals, "but every day you unknowingly help dump millions of dollars into the conservative war chest. By purchasing products and services from companies that donate heavily to conservatives, we have been defeating our own interests as liberals and progressives." BuyBlue.org describes its mission as a "concerted effort to lift the veil of corporate patronage so consumers can make informed buying decisions that coincide with their principles." The website identifies what percentage of a company's political donations go to which political party -- and it urges liberals to "shop accordingly." | Gee, I'll bet if "Red voters" did something like this, the "Blues" would scream that Bush and Rove were violating the companies rights or something. |
Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Dollar General and Coors Brewing make the website's relatively long list of "red" companies -- those with political action committees and/or officers that donated heavily to Republicans. The list of "blue" companies is much smaller at the moment. It includes Costco, Barnes & Noble, J. Crew, and the Gallo winery, to name a few. | If I was a company on the "blue" list, I'd be very nervous about this getting too much play |
The data comes from the Center for Responsive Politics and the Federal Election Commission, the website says. According to its organizers, the idea for BuyBlue.org dawned on the morning after the 2004 election -- when "half the country woke up in disbelief and disgust...It didn't take long for all of us to collectively realize that we had lost our country to the other side, and we wanted, no needed, to do something about it." Individuals can't have much impact on their own, BuyBlue says -- "but if we are part of an army of Blue buyers, through the power of the free market we can create the changes we desire. All we have to do is make it profitable to be ethical." | I see, if you boycott products it's ethical. If conservatives do it, it's supressing free speech. |
The website's co-founder, Raven Brooks, said the "Buy Blue" Christmas campaign has been a big success -- "not because I can quantify how much it did or didn't effect (sic) retailers this Christmas season but because of the overwhelming response to the idea." In fact, the website has received extensive media coverage in the few weeks since its inception (much of it documented on the group's website); and it has an interview lined up on CNN on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. | No wonder I haven't heard about it. |
Brooks is a computer systems analyst in San Francisco who co-founded the website with a fellow Democratic activist he met online, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. A similar website, launched independently of BuyBlue.org, also offers consumer a blue/red shopping directory, but ChoosetheBlue.org, despite its name, does not offer any ideology with its data. BuyBlue.org, on the other hand, has grand plans. According to its vision statement, "BuyBlue.org will become a powerful tool used by a community of millions dissatisfied with the ineffectiveness of our elected and appointed leaders." The fledgling organization said it plans to form "strong coalitions" with stockholders, shareholders, corporations, small businesses and communities that "share our values." | And destroy anyone who doesn't |
"We will influence the political landscape, stimulate economic growth among participating businesses and industries and use the American dollar as an incentive for corporate transparency and responsibility," the vision statement concludes. |