Voting with your dollars

How often has this happened to you? You are enthusiastic about a political candidate. You talk him or her up to your friends. Your candidate reflects the liberal, progressive values that you hold. You are convinced that if your candidate could be elected it would be one step, albeit a small one, toward a better nation. You cast your vote for the candidate, and then on election evening as the returns come in you see that your candidate has lost. Another progressive has lost to the forces of conservatism, or fundamentalist religion, or corporatism.

Given the politcal environment of Oklahoma, you have mostly likely witnessed the above several times. However, the votes you cast at your precinct poling location is just one kind of voting. Another kind of voting has to do with where you spend your dollars and what you spend your dollars on.

If you are like me, you would rather purchase items and services from progressives rather than from reactionaries. But how do you know whether the owners of, say, Smith's Widget Company, are using their profits to advance the values you hold dear or are using those profits to undermine your values?

Information on various companies is available at www.buyblue.org.

Their mission statement reads as follows:

"You may have voted blue, 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 compromising our own interests as liberals and progressives.

"BuyBlue.org is a concerted effort to lift the veil of corporate patronage, so consumers can make informed buying decisions that coincide with their principles.

"Currently, we are developing an extensive and interactive website where users will be able to monitor corporate activity in real time. We cannot do this alone; we need an army of Blue buyers to be the eyes and ears of this movement. All we have to do is put our money where our mouth is to make it profitable to be ethical.

"Our collective buying power WILL make a difference, and we WILL be heard."

I encourage you to check out the Buy Blue website. We should all pay more attention to what values we are supporting by where and on what we spend (or vote) our dollars.