Posted 12/17/2004 05:09:00 PM by Douglas

Nothing warms the cockles of my heart more than silly liberals and their pointless activism. Enter BuyBlue.com. Tired of buying toilet paper and charcoal from corporations that may [gasp!] be helmed by people on the opposite side of the political spectrum than you? Well, suffer this injustice no longer.

You may have voted blue, but were you aware that every day, you unknowingly help dump millions of dollars into the conservative warchest? Simply by buying products and services from companies which heavily donate to conservatives, we have been defeating our own interests as liberals and progressives on a daily basis.

Buy Blue is a concerted effort to educate the public on making informed buying decisions as a consumer. We identify businesses which support our ideals and spotlight their dedication to progressive politics. In turn, we shine that spotlight on unsupportive businesses in the form of massive boycotts and action alerts.

Isn't that just adorable? What's interesting about their list is that it's predominantly red. That's not really a surprise, is it? The evil plutocrat capitalist republican is out there making money off the backs of the proletariat, while the democrats are smoking weed and trying to figure out who's going to go get the pizza, right?

But aside from my brilliantly nuanced political analysis, look at where the money is going. In the red column, you've got Anheuser Busch, Cracker Barrel, Holiday Inn and Fruit of the Loom. The Democrats have E&J Gallo, Hard Rock Cafe, Hyatt Hotels, and Calvin Klein, just to name a few. Doesn't it seem like the political lines are pretty much already drawn? It's not going to take too much convincing to get your average Republican in the MidWest to drink Budweiser instead of a Merlot from Gallo, just like it's not much of a sacrifice for your average liberal DINK couple in San Francisco to cross the Cracker Barrel off their choices for a night on the town.

Also, do the liberals have no children? I saw this article and thought its reasoning was a bit specious, but by looking at the red/blue columns, I'd have to agree that it's the Republicans that are having all the babies in this country.

But in the end, I think the market is going to answer this question and make this brand of silly and pointless activism into the overlooked footnote that it really is. Besides, political contributions by corporations are the biggest hedge funds there are, so most companies give equally (or nearly equally) to both parties. As "Silent" Cal Coolidge said, "The Business of America is business," and that's not likely to be changed by the good intentions of some disappointed liberals.