boy·cott verb To withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest. synonyms: spurn, snub, shun, avoid, abstain from, wash one's hands of, turn one's back on, reject, veto "they boycotted the elections" antonyms: support refuse to buy or handle (goods) as a punishment or protest. refuse to cooperate with or participate in (a policy or event). =========================================== Do you boycott any companies, shops, stores, organizations in your life? Have you banned certain places, people, or things from your life? What or who do you boycott/ban, and why? I boycott Chick-fil-a, WalMart, and Cheddars. Chick-fil-a is a highly, self-proclaimed religious organization that spreads hate, intolerance, and bigotry with the money they make. Not only that, their food is disgusting. They are only in the business to make money, to spread their hate, bigotry, and lies....not to make decent food or to just be in the food business. One of the true faces of evil on this planet! WalMart. This company was great while Sam Walton was alive. But when he died and his kids took over, they sold themselves to Satan and the almighty dollar. Since then, they do not promote the USA as Sam did, sell only American made products, or give a damn about their employees. Since these spawns of pure evil have taken over this company, they have been using the money they make to change laws to benefit companies (especially theirs). They spend millions if not billions per year, trying to change employment laws to their way of wanting things done. Here are just SOME of the laws they have been trying to change over the past 20 years or so.... *Erasing overtime in favor of "standard hours" - where there is no such thing as overtime, so you get regular pay, no matter how many hours you work. *Erasing paid holidays. *Erasing benefits for for all employees, unless the employee wants to pay for those benefits in full. (none of us wold have any money in our paychecks if this happened) (this includes medical benefits as well) Your helping to cut your own throat by working or shopping there. Because WalMart's only goal is to make the workforce as much of a truly free slave market (to companies) as they possibly can. There are a LOT more things they are trying to get rid of, in relation to totally and completely fucking over employees all over the planet...not just theirs, but employees all over. Cheddars Restaurant/Cheddars company. Went with some friends to eat there once, and we were completely ignored. I don't put up with this kind of shit from anybody, but my friends wanted to stay and wait.....so we did, for almost an hour......while several wait staff members passed our table, including the manager, and even when one of my friends flagged these people down for menus, they ran off never to be seen again. I will NEVER set foot in any kind of business this company has! EVER!
It is, but it's notoriously difficult to do to an effective level. For one, some folks don't have much choice, if they live in a certain area, as to what is available. Online shopping is an option, I suppose. Secondly, trying to get enough people to effectively boycott something, is very similar to voting in politics: "I can't vote for who I actually believe in, they would lose, so I would rather go with the lesser of two evils." The irony here is, if everybody who thought that actually voted, it might change things. But not many like to take that risk, and many more don't like to go outside of their comfort zone. Wal-Mart is hard to take action against. There's never enough people to put a noticeable dent in their profits, so they don't care. Having worked at Wal-Mart, I can confirm they (at least the one in my area) don't care a whole lot. During our training sessions they used to stress: There is a difference between a 'customer' and a 'consumer'. The consumer is more important, because they're buying. Not in those exact words, but they liked to tell us, know who is a customer and who is a consumer. When given a choice between the two, go with the latter.
I should make it clear that I am not imposing a duty on anyone to proceed this way. I am sensitive to class issues and how people might be limited. My praise for the tactic is confined to its place as one of the very few legal ways to apply force. I also notice that sometimes people try to claim that boycotting amounts to censorship, so it sometimes requires philosophical defense.
I agree that sometimes it's hard to make boycotting effective, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't do it. I also boycott Chick-fil-A. Aside form the fact that I'm just not that into chicken, I won't have my money potentially go to anti-gay organizations like those abominable "Family" organizations that support anti-gay bills in Africa. It's all a trickle effect. I also avoid Wal-Mart, but I never made a real effort to boycott it. If I did boycott it, it would be for the reasons you stated, not because it "destroys small businesses". I happen to be pretty pro-capitalist in that sense and I love Amazon.com.
I boycott Nestle, because Greenpeace persuaded me with a leaflet. Then it became a thing which was really difficult to stop. So I didn't.
I recall a time when the chick-fil-a issues arose and my family and I went to eat there to promote traditional family values. Holy shit, in retrospect I pretty much hate myself.
I do not see the point in boycotting. At some point or another in one way or another, you will end up aided said boycott. So a pointless waste of effort.
Chick Fil A is actually not on my boycott list. Although the corporate founder's family has used their money to evil purposes, the local franchise owner here has actually been good to gay people. First the local franchise owner has gay children. 2nd he employed at least 2 out gay people, one of which was my husband. When my father passed away, he granted my husband a leave of absence to go with me while being able to keep his job. This was in a state that at the time did not recognize our marriage. While corporate may have evil views, I do support our local CFA franchise.
