Not boycotting those who will not boycott

From time to time little blog spats take place which become heated, personalised disagreements of no interest to anyone outside the blogosphere. I have to say these are the one aspect of the blogging that I have absolutely no time for, and absolutely no interest in. They are tedious in the extreme and only appear political because it is political people who indulge in them. Just this once I'm going to mention one, just to make it clear why I'm not getting involved.

Iain Dale, who is a Tory blogger of some renown, is heavily involved in Total Politics, a magazine that goes out to all sorts of political types. Iain has recently interviewed BNP leader Nick Griffin for the magazine. This gives Griffin a platform and presents him the opportunity to pose as a respectable politician.

This is a bad thing and I wish Iain and Total Politics had not done this, in my view they are playing a dangerous game. However, almost every news source I use has interviewed Griffin and his BNP henchmen at some point so Total Politics is hardly forging new ground here.

However, over at Though Cowards Flinch, they decided this was too much to bear and issued a call for every political blogger to boycott the Total Politics blog awards because the magazine carried the interview. They explicitly do not a call for a boycott of the Guardian, or the BBC or Channel Four News, who have all interviewed Griffin, but target Total Politics because it's small enough to push around and Dale is a Tory.

That's not good enough.

AVPS points out that the boycott achieves the reverse of it's intention; "By advocating action against TP, the TCF comrades have ensured Iain's interview will receive wider circulation than would otherwise be the case. Inadvertently, calling for no platform in this case means Griffin gets a broader platform."

That, in fact, those who issued the call are more interested in emphasising their political differences with a Tory than they are in minimising the amount of publicity the fascists receive. They have ensured that this interview, that they say they wish never happened, is read far more widely than if they had never mentioned it. The success of the boycott call will be judged by how much harm it does a Tory blogger even as it helps the BNP get its message out which, in reality, is a side issue to the call - which is a big part of why I don't trust this initiative.

I don't believe Iain was right to conduct and publish this interview but I've never before heard that it is a principle to no platform or boycott people who don't believe in no platform - I think the idea has always been to try to persuade them they are wrong, something this boycott is not going to do, in fact it will entrench those who oppose no platform in their position.

Blog wars of this kind have nothing to do with real politics even when they work, which this one doesn't. I love Liberal Conspiracy, for example, but its personalised attacks on Iain Dale come across as puerile and tribal, something that I have no interest in and always makes me think less of what is, more generally, an excellent site.

I wont be taking part in the call for boycotting Total Politics. Nor will I be mistaking the fact that I despise Tory ideas for the need to despise individual Tories. The few times I've met Iain Dale I've rather liked him and don't feel the least bit bad about it, I just don't want him running the country is all.

Inventing new principles that we have to boycott people who don't agree with no platform for fascists risks weakening the no platform principle itself. No platform relies upon the idea that we specifically deny a platform to fascists, and only fascists, because of the threat they pose to democratic politics. We do not boycott people because they don't agree with us, at least grown ups don't.

Boycott Israeli Goods

It's my belief that internationalism is the corner stone to progressive politics. People are as important no matter which side of a line on a map they come from, no matter what the colour of their skin or the language that they speak. Whilst often we feel helpless to effect events happening in far flung reaches of the globe there are crucial moments and struggles where we can have an impact on political events many, many miles away.

Nowhere was this clearer than in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa where the international movement put vital pressure upon the regime, and its backers. Nelson Mandela saw international support as a crucial element in the movement for freedom saying that "Sanctions... against Apartheid, had brought South Africa to the point where the transition to democracy had been enshrined in the law of the country."

Desmond Tutu, another Nobel Prize winning leader of the anti-apartheid struggle, said Apartheid would never have been overthrown "without the help of international pressure-- in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s." Tutu compares that, past, struggle to the struggle today against the behaviour of the the Israeli government towards the Palestinians and its neighbours, urging us to act;

"Similar moral and financial pressures on Israel are being mustered one person at a time... If apartheid ended, so can this occupation, but the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction."

So, as part of that international movement to provide solidarity with the Palestinian people I am joining the boycott against Israeli goods and, as far as I can, will be trying to ensure none of my money goes to feed the Israeli economy built, as it is, on the theft of land and the repression of a people. There is a list of companies here which seems frighteningly comprehensive, but I think doable. Obviously, in a globalised economy, with no proper information on sourcing it's impossible to ensure that nothing I ever use or buy has had any connection with Israel - but the purpose of the boycott is not to remain pure but to build up pressure.

These economic sanctions from below are an attempt to make a difference to those denied water, denied free movement, denied the right to live in safety from their neighbours. Yes, to provide solidarity, but also to ensure that the Israeli state is aware that the world is watching and raise the issues too.

The Boycott Israeli Goods campaign describes its mission as fighting to ensure that Israel;

1. withdraws from the occupied areas,
2. respects human rights (including right of refugees to return to their homes and lands),
3. and obeys International law.

These seem good bench marks to me. I'm not expecting Israel to dismantle itself - but I do want a country that claims to be democratic to adhere to basic democratic norms - like not assassinating those whom it regards as political opponents and dishing out a generalised, collective punishment to communities for the crimes of those they have no control over.

Just as South African sanctions made a difference in the past today there are sanctions against Zimbabwe, Iran, and Cuba (among others) and all have had some kind of impact which is supported by many in the international community - although I'm certainly not saying the political purpose is the same or that all are supportable, and groups like the Sudan disinvestment campaign argue that grass roots economic pressure can be an effective tool towards furthering social justice.

But whilst I'll do my best not to fund the Israeli economy I'll also try to provide solidarity with those voices in Israel who are against the oppression of the Palestinian people - in particular the anti-wall activists whose courageous actions demonstrate in deeds that it is not the Israeli citizen that is the enemy - but the nature of the Israeli state.

I had the privilege last year of helping one Israeli refusenik on his Cambridge leg of a mini-speaking tour of the UK. It was inspiring to hear this (very young) Israeli talk of what he'd been through refusing military service - and when I heard that months after returning he was shot in the head with a rubber bullet on a peaceful protest it was both shocking and something he knew he was risking. The movement there is small, but those who are brave enough to speak up are determined and should receive our full support.

I'm sure the discussion will be robust so I'm attempting to make this a brief but a rounded picture of my position. Where there is anti-semitism in the Palestinian solidarity movement I will do my best to counter it and where the tactics are, in my view, mistaken or unhelpful I will do my best to argue the case as I see it - as I hope I do in other areas of political activity.

For instance I thought it was very useful to have pointed out that the use of the blood orange symbol (which I used in this 2006 post) has parallels with the anti-semitic blood libel where Jews were accused of baking blood into their bread. Whilst I'm sure the intent behind this powerful symbol was honest I wont be using it again because of the unintentional offence it can cause, and I'd advise others to do the same.

When push comes to shove though I don't feel defensive about this. Where we see injustice we should try to act, even in a modest way. We need to pull down those walls between peoples, and eradicate those boundaries that divide - opposing those who'd build yet higher barriers, using force to immiserate an entire people.

It's all too easy to feel that we can do nothing - that events are too far away or the politics too complicated - but in a global economy we are all bound together, for good and ill. If we choose to we can try to use that fact in the favour of those who are suffering.

Dear Ronald

Dear Ronald,

I regret to inform you that as of today I will no longer be one of your many oh-so-valued customers. Having put this to a public vote the people have spoken and I am now on a permanent boycott of your products. Not a single fry nor lard-laced shake shall pass my lips again.

There's clearly something that people find distasteful about your corporation, let alone your food. Christ alone knows how you manage to make meals that are both rank and bland simultaneously, I'm sure that takes exceptional skill and years of experience.

As a symbol of the encroachment of a throw away, plastic society your golden arches so often herald not the gateway to culinary bliss but the daunting entrance to Hades itself. Each one of your "restaurants" genuinely affords us a glimpse of hell. Not the gothic fantasies of disturbed youths with pitch forks and lava but the stifling, monotonous uniformity of once fertile brains turning slowly to grey mush, so numb to the process are the staff and patrons that they don't notice as their living flesh becomes saturated with salt and fat.

Many people have issues around animal welfare and your products. However, like you, I hate animals and live for the day that each and everyone of them is reared in a tiny, lightless box before ending up between two baps and a piece of saggy, semi-washed lettuce. It is far better than they deserve. When is the last time you saw a chicken do someone a favour?

Others despair at the environmental impact your policies have both on the climate and social justice. I say if these tree hugging hippies like the environment so much why don't they go and live there? See how they like it then.

Some worry that you buy political influence - but what is the point of industrial strength moolah if you can't keep a pet political party or two? I know I would if I had the dough, I even have the party in mind. I've even heard some people come out with extremely piffling concerns, such as encouraging poor diets, but we all know you sell salads now - or you would if anyone ordered them.

I might reconsider this boycott the day of the first all McDonalds strike and the union goes super size but until that day I had best preserve my soul and stay away from your establishments, coated with the foul stench of wasted lives as they are.

yours with love,

Jim

Boycotts: Ten days left to vote

You have just ten days left to vote in my life changing boycott poll. Over two hundred of you have done so far and I thank you.

It's clear that fish was not a big mobiliser, but McDonalds, Israeli goods, meat and religion are all the front runners - with Nestle and aviation wheezing along behind them, but still in sight.

It does seem alcohol is not going to get scrubbed off the menu, which is ironic because I hardly drink at all anymore - making up for rather too much in earlier life, but it's nice to know that I'm not going to have to guzzle that bottle of Port in the cupboard over the next week and can save it for a more festive occasion.

Meanwhile, as I'm unlikely to post tomorrow, I thought I'd tag on to this post a few links I spotted that you might be interested in;

• Progressives for a America have a friendly but critical open letter to Obama
• Ellee Seymour has an interesting post on how Gordon Brown has been received in Suffolk.
• Noel has a polemic against the idea of politics as a science.
• Gill George is rightly irate that business leaders are pleased about Brown's hard line stance with the unions.
• Greenman reports on the Scottish movement against airport expansion.
• And lastly tygerland has intriguing news of John McCain's ability to speak for himself.
  

The Great Boycott Poll

Yep, after just over two years I've finally reached the point where I'm going to the polls. In possibly a first of its kind I'm putting my life in the hands of the great public of the world.

I'm committing myself to boycotting two items from the following list, which was partially determined by readers of the Daily (Maybe). I'm sorry I'm only committing to two but because this is really real I'd be lying to you if I said I was going to do the lot, and I don't want to lie.

There's also the option of not boycotting anything (presumably on the basis that they don't work) in which, if that's the choice you make, I will vow not to partake in consumer boycotts of any kind. At all.

You'll notice some fresh additions like Kettle Crisps and Religion and I'm hoping that readers will make the case for what they think I should boycott as the month progresses. Also feel free to highlight links that will help people make their choice, or even write your own posts on how you think people should vote - I'll link to them if I know about them.

• Nestle
• Alcohol
• Religion
  
• Meat
• Fish
  
• Flights
• Kettle Crisps
  
• Bacardi
• Israeli goods
• Coke
• McDonalds
  
• Do not boycott anything
  

These are the options - you can vote for as many or as few of them as you like in the right hand column and the two options with the most votes will struck from my life forever. Please use your power responsibly. Polls close in one month.

Good news - only 22% of Daily (Maybe) readers are utter fools

And headlines like that are what makes being an independent minded blogger so delicious.

Yes, I am of course referring to the fact that my poll on whether the moon landings were faked has returned its results and we find that 77% say that they were not, 22% say they were and 1% seem to have fallen through the cracks somewhere. I'd say that this proportion of fools is far better than most of the internet - so welcome to this small pocket of sanity to calm the passing blogette.

But on to more important stuff - I'd like to use the occasion of my last post in my celebratory week to launch a far more significant poll - significant in terms of my life anyway. Many moons ago I started a series of posts on boycotts. You see I used to boycott MacDonalds and Coke for bloody years and one day I just had a crisis of confidence and decided enough was enough and caved in.

Emulating some sort of reality TV like experiment I decided to put my boycotts to the public vote and vowed to boycott whichever two items came top of the list. Except it never quite happened. Yes, like those unwritten suggest a topic posts that I'm currently stuck on. So now the great day is finally approaching. Below is a list of links to posts on various consumables to stop consuming and why. In two days I'll launch the poll and I will, genuinely, boycott whatever the public decides for the forseeable future.

I'm giving two days grace for the simple reason that I want to give you the chance to add to the list before voting begins. If you do want to suggest a boycottable simply leave a comment and briefly outline your reason or leave a link to a relevant site. As long as it isn't silly the public will have the chance to vote on your suggestion.

Boycott list

• Nestle
• Alcohol
• Meat
• Flights
• Bacardi
• Israeli goods
• Coke
• McDonalds
  
• Do not boycott anything
  

I can't tell you how nervous I am about all of this... but a promise is a promise. Voting starts Thursday.

The Tactics of Boycotting Israel

I've been thinking about the boycott of Israel a bit recently and, as UCU are discussing it today, I thought I might as well bring it up. I'm particularly interested in whether *tactically* a boycott is the most effective form of solidarity we can provide to those at the sharp end of Israel's policies.

I say UCU are discussing it, in fact they have a proposal where "colleagues [should] be asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions" which is a long way from the idiotic caricature that Melanie Phillips puts forward in The Spectator.

She says "Today, the Universities and Colleges Union is discussing whether universities should single out Israeli and Jewish scholars for active discrimination... What makes it all the more appalling is that it is Israelis and Jews alone who are being singled out for this treatment." But of course Jews aren't being singled out for anything, a completely dishonest and stupid response - let's look at the actual motion shall we? Then we can judge for ourselves how accurate Melanie's "journalism" is.

25 - Composite: Palestine and the occupation University of Brighton - Eastbourne, University of Brighton - Grand Parade, University of East London Docklands, National Executive Committee

Congress notes the

1. continuation of illegal settlement, killing of civilians and the impossibility of civil life, including education

2. humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza by Israel and the EU

3. apparent complicity of most of the Israeli academy

4. legal attempts to prevent UCU debating boycott of Israeli academic institutions; and legal advice that such debates are lawful

Congress affirms that

5. criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are not, as such, anti-semitic;

6. pursuit and dissemination of knowledge are not uniquely immune from their moral and political consequences;

Congress resolves that

7. colleagues be asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating;

8. UCU widely disseminate the personal testimonies of UCU and PFUUPE delegations to Palestine and the UK, respectively;

9. the testimonies will be used to promote a wide discussion by colleagues of the appropriateness of continued educational links with Israeli academic institutions;

10. UCU facilitate and encourage twinning arrangements and other direct solidarity with Palestinian institutions;

11. Ariel College, an explicitly colonising institution in the West Bank, be investigated under the formal Greylisting Procedure.

25A.1 University College London (amendment)

1. Delete point 3.
2. Point 8: After respectively; Add 'and statements from Israeli academics and British academics who have links with Israel'
3. Point 9: After appropriateness. delete 'of' and add 'for and against'.
4. Add a new final point 12 (will become 11 if 3 is deleted):
'No decision on cutting educational links with Israeli academic institutions will be made without a ballot of all members.'

25A.2 Compositing amendment University of Brighton Eastbourne, University of East London Docklands

Point 3, delete 'apparent'

25A.3 Compositing amendment University of Brighton - Eastbourne

Add new point 6: 'a boycott of all Israeli academic institutions at this time is unlikely to maximize and unify international solidarity.'

25A.4 Compositing amendment University of East London Docklands

Delete point 11, replace with 'Ariel College and similar institutions in the Occupied Territories are illegal, and will be investigated under UCU's Greylisting Procedure'

Now to me the initial motion looks pretty strong - but it also falls well short of a blanket boycott in that it allows for nuance and thoughtful engagement - which is the kind of thing I like. Now in UCU this is a very divisive issue, and to be honest if I was a UCU member I'd be pissed off that conference had to deal with the same issue time and again, but that's by the by and is meant as no slight to the importance of the issues.

To an extent this careful wording is a compromise due to the extreme level of heated wrangling within the teachers' union, but it also seems to be an improvement that does not cut off the ability to engage with progressive Israeli's and the peace movement. In fact it actively encourages it stating that colleagues should "discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating".

Obviously characters like Melanie Phillips make me want to sign up to Hamas, but in my usual, more rational, state I'm looking for the best way to support those who suffer at the hands of the Israeli government whilst going beyond the kind of black and white, pro- and anti- position that seems to be the common fare of this debate. I think asking people to consider "moral and political questions" is as good a starting point as any.

John Angliss: Nestlé and ethics

People may remember that I am indulging in a reality TV style public vote (or preparing to) where you, my gentle readers, get to decide the two things that I will personally boycott for the foreseeable future. John Angliss kindly agreed to write this piece on the trouble with Nestlé.

Most people, when asked to come up with the evils of corporate marketing, will think of misogynistic Pot Noodles ads in Britain, or children contracted to sell cigarettes to their school friends in South East Asia. The Nestlé boycott has been long-running enough to have an impact on the public imagination, but the subtleties of the problem are sometimes missed.

Nestlé does not kill babies, under a purely criminal law interpretation. Instead, its pursuit of sales in the Third World have led it to adopt, over the course of over 30 years, an incredibly unethical set of infant formula marketing schemes. Sometimes doctors in the Third World have been directly paid by the company to promote infant formula as an alternative to breast milk. Sometimes they will merely dole out free samples to expectant mothers wherever they can find them. Often there will be misleading advertising campaigns promoting infant formula at the expense of breast milk. This is not just a Nestlé tactic in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it hurts the most, but has been sighted in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe as well - all since Nestlé publicly claimed that it would desist from its infamous infant formula marketing strategies.

What are the problems with substituting baby formula for breast milk? Well, in simple economic terms there can be severe problems once the mother gets out of hospital: her breast milk will have dried up and she will have to buy infant formula for herself. Often babies are malnourished because the mother tries to ration it and save money. Even more perfidiously, in many of the areas where this alternative is marketed, tap or well water has not been treated properly, and babies’ immune systems are not designed to cope with untreated water until they are well off the teat. Additionally, there are nutrients in breast milk not present in infant formula which help the development of an infant’s immune system – the marketing of infant formula as a better alternative in countries with more lax marketing laws can lead to less direct fatalities. The Advertising Standards Agency has checked claims by Baby Milk Action, which campaigns on this issue, and found that their figures measure up: the shocking truth is that more than 4,000 babies die each year because they are not breastfed, and many of these could have been prevented if companies like Nestlé decided to act in a way befitting a company run by humans rather than amoral profit-seekers.

So what can we do about this? Joining the boycott is one way to hit Nestlé’s bottom line, but email them or phone them to tell them what you’re doing and why. They’ve lied about stopping these practices before, so there’s a real accountability problem either way. But it cannot be right to allow an amoral company to be so awful in the Third World whilst appearing so unbothered about it in the First.

For more info see;

• Baby Milk Action http://www.babymilkaction.org/,
• Save the Children http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/
• Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott

The case for boycotting alcohol

I've not posted on my potential boycotts for simply ages. Some people may think this is so I can go on swilling coke after coke whilst munching on a never ending stream of Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets. These are the kind of people at whom I shake my head with a world weary resignation. I pity you, I really do.

But now it's the time to make my most controversial suggestion. Perhaps I should become tea total. Entirely. Not allowing another single drop of alcohol to pass my thirsty lips, no matter how hot and tired.

I could argue a case against alcohol that included the social harm it can do. Violent crimes and belligerent behaviour - when taking place outside of boardrooms and cabinet offices - are often linked directly to the consumption of alcohol for example. Except of course *my* alcohol example has never been linked to any such thing. I far prefer to fight sober.

I could mention the physical damage alcohol does to its consumer, which is far greater than that done by those drugs deemed too dangerous to be stocked on supermarket shelves. But that road, alas, leads to the abolition of greasy spoons, late night Double Deckers and/or simple indolence, and this would never do. I shall not be boycotting any of these!

I think the reasons why I'm willing to put it to the public vote that I simply stop drinking alcohol are three fold;

i) I don't need it

As an experiment the other night I went to a party in the full knowledge I was not going to allow any intoxicants to enter my system. I had a better time than I would have had if I'd been drinking, I stayed up later and danced much more.

Whilst others were smashing themselves on the head with mugs (why?) or pouring champagne (of all things) all over the floor in a reckless disregard for all and sundry I was simply having a good time.

This is not a one off.

ii) It's too expensive

For the poverty stricken getting wasted is a big deal. By opting out of the alcohol system and sticking to water, coke and coffee I have both a cheaper evening and a far more civilised one. All well and good.

iii) All my stupidities will be my fault

There will not be a single occasion when I can blame the booze. If I feel like dancing like a mad man it's because i want to - not because I'm pissed. If I want to get in a fist fight or proclaim undying love it's because it's my option to behave like a prat not because I was forced into it.

It's also possible these occasions may occur less frequently which may also be advantageous.

So that's my proposal - that when (eventually) I come to end of my list of things to boycott and it's put to the public vote it's quite possible it will put paid to my drinking days. Cheers.

The case against boycotts

Talking of Lenin, one of his epigones has been discussing New Year's Resolutions. It's an interesting post which contains a useful discussion on boycotts, prompting me to write one of my final pieces on the matter before it goes to the public vote (if you don't know about my 'reality blogging' experiment click on the boycott label below to see previous posts on this).

Lenin rightly says that "Boycotts should be a determinate political strategy for applying pressure in circumstances where it is likely to have an impact... It is a tool."

I also think he puts it rather well when he says "boycotts are all too often encouraged as moralistic ventures, Beautiful Soul narcissism, keeping one's hands clean - whereas in fact, one's hands are already dirty. How could it be otherwise under capitalism? There is hardly a good to be had that isn't produced under exploitative circumstances, whose underside isn't drenched with blood. There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism."

I guess the hardest argument for me to deal with over boycotts is not simply 'are they effective', but also am I doing more harm than good by giving the appearance of doing something without actually achieving anything? All the potential boycotts on my list are ones where there are genuine campaigns and, hopefully, wouldn't take much explaining to a right on crowd - but there is certainly no consensus on the actually tactic of boycotting itself.

Campaigns of vilification (including but not confined to boycotts) certainly do have an effect on the behaviour of companies, and if the tactic is to make the world better boycotts have their place.

MacDonalds, Starbucks, BP, Nestle, Microsoft and the Tory Party have all responded to their image of being "nasty", sometimes with a PR makeover and sometimes with something slightly more substantial. These responses are victories for our side, but can also lead to taking the pressure off without having achieved the intended goal.

If the tactic is to destroy the company/industry boycotts have a much higher mountain to climb, after all no company will go bust from moral pressure alone, it takes a campaign that will effectively destroy the economic base of the organisation in question. No mean feat to achieve and I can't think of one campaign that has done this. Likewise if the tactic is to achieve a free, equal, sustainable society then boycotts simply cannot make that happen, although like everything they could be part of the solution.

If you think boycotts sow illusions and simply lead to a moral smugness then it's your duty, when the vote comes, to vote against me boycotting anything at all and I'll do my best to shop as unethically as possible - but I can't guarantee it will be easy.

Is it time to boycott meat?

As regular readers will be aware all my boycotts have been set to zero whilst I undergo a process of re-examination. I've determined that I will either boycott two things (on the basis that you can't realistically boycott everything) and leave an option open for not boycotting anything on the basis that they don't work.

Once the definitive list of options is ready, perhaps in time for New Year's Day, it will be put to the public vote and I'll boycott whatever the public decides. Be kind.

As luck would have it, just as I was thinking about whether it was time to go Vegetarian again, Ros Paterson advocates just that in the latest edition of Scottish Socialist Voice.

She argues that "eating meat doesn’t just choke your arteries and condemn captive creatures to a life of lonely agony, it is ravaging the planet too. Rearing cattle produces more CO2 than cars. It also produces nitrous oxide and methane, both of which are significantly more damaging to the earth’s atmosphere than C02."

The ever increasing demand for meat means deepening ever growing global environmental dangers. Not just through CO2 production but also vast swathes of have been forest cut down (e.g. 70% of the Amazon rainforest). Ros states that "This vast expansion is eating up the face of the planet. Some 30 per cent of the earth’s surface is given over to livestock rearing, including 33 per cent of all arable land, now dedicated to producing animal feed."

She finishes with the words "if we all ate a vegetarian diet, there would be enough food in the world to feed every human being without destroying the earth we grow it on. If we don’t, there isn’t, simple as that. All we are saying is give chick peas a chance."

Now obviously I'm not becoming a vegetarian if I have to eat chick peas - but I'm willing to try. I was a veggie for two years about a decade ago and I know I could do it if I tried. I also know I didn't particularly enjoy being vegetarian. I had one of the nicest sandwiches of my life yesterday in Indigo. If someone had replaced the bacon with, say, beetroot I would have spat it across the room so I would.

I became a veggie after attending the Brightlingsea live animal export protests. I came because it was a case of the local capitalist shitting on the entire community to make a fast buck, I became a veggie after seeing the conditions the animals were transported in. Of all the suggestions so far giving up meat would be the hardest one to stick to - but what is life if it doesn't contain challenges?

Previous posts on boycotts include: Flights of fancy, 729 means made in Israel, Taste of Bacardi, Killer Coke (out sourced to Red Mantis), and it all began with Mea culpa: I drank Coke.

Suggestions, and even guest posts, on other possible boycotts are more than welcome.

Flights of fancy

Those of you with longer memories will recall I'm in the process of deciding what to boycott.

The process began with this post where I explained all boycotts were off until I decided whether to replace my previous persona non gratas of Coke and MacDonalds. I've discussed boycotting Israeli goods and Bacardi and Red Mantis has just blogged on Killer Coke. It's about time I added air travel to my list of possibles.

Even the government is thinking about taxing air travel specifically and I think it's well documented that flights account for a large proportion of the CO2 emisions and therefore should be a prime target for those of us who want to save the world. What with the national climate march coming up on Saturday perhaps I should get out the hypocracy corner and start my boycott on this - shouldn't I?

One thing to be said against this is that I hardly ever fly so a boycott might not make a HUGE amount of difference. There are also people arguing for sustainable aviation rather than simply chopping it away. When the Guardian asked itself "is it okay to fly?" they basically said yes. Now who am I to argue with the Guardian?

Well Plane stupid might disgree, and are organising for their day of action on November 6th, two days after the big climate demo. They think that aviation is problematic from word one and attempts to make it nicer can never offset the massive damage it is currently doing. Perhaps they're right.

The thing is I like the fact that ordinary working class people can go further than Great Yarmouth for their holidays and that mind broadening travel is easier than ever. I remember as a kid meeting someone who'd been to Italy and being in awe. I've now met actual Italians!

Ultimately it will be you that decides, reality show style, whether air travel becomes one of the two things I'll boycott. In summary:

Pro: Climate change is the biggest single threat to the continued existence of humanity.
Pro: Aviation is the single largest growing contributor to green house gasses.
Con: I very rarely fly so would that really be a boycott?
Con: I don't want to boycott aviation.

I think it's about that simple.

A taste of

As part of my on going exploration of where my boycotting policy is going (here) I've been talking to Derek Wall, National Exec member of the Green Party and author of Beyond Babylon, a discussion of anti-capitalist economics, about the boycott of Bacardi.



Why are you for a boycott of Bacardi?

Because they are anti-Cuba and pro-the Miami Mafia, although they market themselves as if they were Che's drink of choice. On a planet run, for and by corporations, they sadly stand out for their huge and negative influence. Unlike most other companies nationalised in the 1950s they never reached a mutually satisfactory agreement with the Cuban government and have been at war with them ever since. In the 1960s, their head of Bacardi, Jose Pepin Bosch, bought a plane to bomb Cuba's oil refineries. The company paided for a CIA plot to try to kill Castro in 1964.

In 1981 Bacardi helped create the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) which has worked to get rid of Castro and was a conduit of funds from the US to the contras who attacked Sandanista Nicaragua.

Their rum is pretty crap and they like many big alcohol corps use their power to monopolise the market.

The boycott campaign notes, 'A key figure in the Bacardi-CIA-CANF network for many years has been Otto Reich, now the first choice of the current Bush administration as policy supreme for Latin America. Florida governor Jed Bush, brother of President George W Bush, has long had close ties with the network as well. The truth about Bacardi has been further exposed in a new book by radical Colombian journalist Hernando Calvo, 'Bacardi - the hidden war. The book shows that the multinationals are not just entities with commercial interests, but political ones as well. Bacardi may not be a US firm, but it controls US legislators, creates US legislation to defend its interests and promotes US terrorist activities.'

Ian Williams's Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776, a great book on the subject also observers: "...rum aficionados almost universally deplore the company for the effect it has had on rum. Gresham's law observes that bad money drives out good; Bacardi has achieved this with rum. Its bland ubiquity has been driving the distinctive rums of the world from the mass consumer market. It is the equivalent of American cheddar driving out the 300 cheeses of France. Its monopoly power has been used to keep much better, genuinely local Caribbean brands from reaching takeoff. The islands cannot compete with subsidized and tariff protected high fructose corn syrup and Floridian sugar grown by former Cuban barons, so their one chance to market a value-added branded commodity is frustrated by the transglobal black bat.

"Republicans used to inveigh against the Democrats as the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion," but now Bacardi has the GOP in its pocket, it symbolizes the complete turnaround of political positions. "


How successful do you think this boycott been - and what does it hope to achieve?

Well they are big but shrinking and the boycott is an important part of the campaign to stop the US invading Cuba.


What products would I have to boycott if I go for Bacardi?

Havana Club is the Cuban alternative its market share is fast growing and it tastes better, so pretty easy boycott to support, they have only a ninth of the market share of Barcardi but are 44 on the list of top 100 brands of Rum or 'Ron' as Cubans call it.

Here are some tips to help you support the boycott, Read Bacardi, the Hidden War by Hernando Calvo Ospina, translated by Stephen Wilkinson and Alasdair Holden and published by Pluto Press, can be ordered at www.plutobooks.com

Contact for more information, Rock around the Blockade c/o BCM Box 5909 London WC1N 3XX phone: 020 7837 1688 fax: 020 7837 1743 email: office@ratb.org.uk. www.ratb.org.uk/

Go vist Hector's Bar in Brighton, he is a Cuban and will mix you a mean mojito without Bacardi.. 36 Preston Street, Brighton (between Western Road and the sea front)

729 means made in Israel

I've not forgotten that we're meant to be discussing what to boycott (see here) and now seems an appropriate time to discuss the reasons for boycotting Israeli goods, particularly as I'm currently engaged in sticking up "Boycott Israeli Goods" stickers all over town.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (here) states that;

"Israel has committed war crimes that should be more than sufficient to invite at least unequivocal condemnation from the United Nations and world powers and their stern backing for an immediate cease-fire. Instead, the UN Security Council, toeing the US line, decided to give Israel ample time to “finish the job,” destroying Lebanon’s infrastructure and killing and maiming its civilians to a degree that would turn the Lebanese public against the resistance movement and bolster Israel’s designs for pushing this resistance outside of southern Lebanon."

If there is a case for boycotts working then there seems few boycotts more apporpriate at the current time than that of Israeli goods. In the absence of pressure from the institutions of international government our only recourse is to try to exert pressure from the base as part of a strategy to meet the following demands;

"1. Ending [Israel's] occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
"2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
"3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194."

Palestine Solidarity Campaign (here) and the Liverpool dockers (here) support the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign (here) who's stickers I've been putting up. You can tell a product is from Israel by the bar code - if it starts with 729 then don't buy it.

Mea Culpa - I drank Coke

I have a major confession to make - I drank a bottle of Coke a few days ago. The guilt has been killing me.

You can't boycott everything, so about seven years ago I decided I'd limit myself to two things. Coke because of things like this, this and this - and MacDonalds as the most public face of US corporate hegmony.

My Coke boycott got off to a slow start because I hadn't realised that Coke own everything. You go to a fridge in a shop and its ALL Coke products because they own the fridge as well. It can get pretty difficult sometimes.

I have a friend that was telling me about his personal boycott of Sainsburys over some obscure issue to do with France. He then said "Of course it's quite easy to boycott them because Tescos is nearer."

Well I'm sorry that's not a boycott that's shopping as usual. Unlike him my boycott hurts. I like Coke. I like that stupid gherkin in your burger. I miss them, even now.

Anyway - I thought I'd take this opportunity to reassess who I should be boycotting, if anyone. The MacDonalds boycott seems particularly tokenistic frankly, so maybe its time to move on, even after all these years.

I'm open to suggestions as to who I should boycott and why (feel free to include links). Or if you think I should boycott everything, or nothing, I'm open to persuasion too.

In the best modern tradition of reality shows I will then put the results to a public vote and ruthlessly obey the outcome.

Additional link: Baby Milk Action
Additional link: Ethical consumer

Additional link: Boycott Israeli Goods

more links for this list? Let me know by email