GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

28-07-2004, 07:11 PM

In article , wrote:

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 03:15:00 GMT, "Vox Humana"
wrote:

wrote in message
.. .

If I were purely politically oriented, I'd not buy from HD. But when MY
budget is tested on a product or a project, I'll shop for best price (
period).

Shopping for the best price is a political choice, though that may not
be readily apparent. There are lots of folks who'd rather you didn't,
and lots of places where you can't.

I am probably more thrifty than most people. Still, I realize that the
price on the shelf tag or sticker isn't the only consideration. Plants from
a big box store aren't necessarily the bargain that they appear to be.
Often they have wilted over and over again. Items may be dumbed down,
look-alike products that are cheaper than what you might find for a little
more elsewhere. Sometimes the help you get from knowledgeable sales people
adds value to the product. From a political standpoint, you have to
consider if the money you pay for an item will eventually be used against
you or contrary to your values.

Yes, that true and every once in a while I go off on a personal
boycott kick of my own.

I stopped the not buying Chinese, buy American stuff long ago since I
would have had to go out of my way just to find the simplest items.
Its almost like nothing's made in this country anymore, which isn't
true but it sure seems like it sometimes.

I also went off the boycott French wines thing because well, its been
a year, I like French wines, and I don't particularly hate the French
despite their frogginess.

I don't want to buy Nike sneaks since I don't want to subsidize low
wage labor for factory workers and high wages for athletes, but I
can't remember if its better for people to have a low paying job any
job and if Nike has improved conditions any.

It tough to keep up with WMD's, chopping down the rain forest,
dolphins on my restaurant menu (or was it Chilean Sea Bass?), and does
anyone really care about the genocide in the Sudan anyway? Actually I
do, but who do I boycott in response to that, and how would it do any
good?

So eventually I calm down and realize that my boycott for some
perceived reason probably didn't do anyone any good, and just made
things difficult for me. They usually make me feel like I was doing
"something" about something for a while anyway, so they're probably
good just for that reason.

And as Vox and others have pointed out, cheaper is not always better,
and can be more expensive when all is said and done.

Swyck

Good comments from both Vox & Swyck.
I wouldn't personally boycott anyone merely for being Republican or
leaning right. I live in a military town & find most Republicans to be
reasonable people, & a great many of them very disappointed in Bush. Not
all rightwingers are bug-ass psychos just because the president is, & not
all Conservatives are of the Usenutter type (somehow liberals on UseNet
can be reasonable, whereas Conservatives tend to be completely fruitloops
-- out in the real world however, conservatives can be surprisingly
reasonable & DON'T interpret "government out of our lives" as "laws
against queers, laws against stemcell research, laws against obtaining
cheaper prescriptions from Canada" & so many other interferences with our
lives).

But Home Depot has been discovered to be the end-market for redwood
clear-cuts of old growth forests. The trail the illegally taken trees is
difficult to establish "beyond a shadow of a doubt" for criminal
prosecution, but Home Depot is one of the key buyers for these trees.

Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli has done major fundraising for George Bush.
This is preposterously given as Nardelli's private activity rather than
related to Home Depot. But The White House has provided veritable
advertisements for Home Depot, whose founder Bernard Marcus had already
been giving tens of thousands of "soft" dollars to Republican causes. The
White House even issued this advertisement for Home Depot: "Home Depot
represents all those factors that have been keeping the economy going"
[White House spokeswoman quoted in "Bush Lands At Big Donor Home Depot,"
Wall Stree Journal, 12/05/2003].

The Bush WHite House advertisement for Home Depot overlooks the fact that
Home Depot has shunned doing business with the US Government because to
qualify for that largess would require Home Depot first to adhere to
consumer protection laws [as reported by the Associated Press]. From 2000
to 2002, three customers & five employees were killed in Home Depot
accidents, & Home Depot's OSHA violations increased by 45% in 2002 alone.
Bush's response to Home Depot's cavalier disinterest in safety of
customers & workers was to propose cutting OSHA's enforcement budget, so
his chums will not longer be harrassed for killing customers & employees.

Home Depot profits by Bush having reversed Clinton-era & older
conservation policies, permitting huge areas of national forests to be
thinned or even clear-cut -- for cheap lumber sat Home Depot. Whether
Nardelli also supports Bush's anti-civil rights moves, warmongering, &
general psychosis, is unknown; but Bush could videotaped stomping on
puppies & bunnies & Nardelli/Home Depot would remain invested in the Bush
presidency, because of the profits provided by Bush having given away the
national forests, & fear that Kerry might actually protect the national
forests.

On the "plus" side the Home Depot Foundation gives substantial amounts of
money to nonprofit organizations focused on issues of affordable housing &
at-risk youth. Home Depot's own research has shown that restoration of
fixer-uppers is one of their MAJOR sources of profits, so to fund
organizations that help first-time home buyers get cheap houses & for
crumbling housing to be repaired is self-serving, but even so a very good
thing to be doing.

Even this philanthropic arm of Home Depot can be criticized as harmful,
however, because they claim a third area of giving -- to
environmentalists. But in this they lie considerably because their
definition of "environmentalists" turns out to be what others call
"developers" -- they've even defined funding of sawmills as
"environmentalism". At best "conservationists" who get Home Depot
Foundation grants are energy-conservationists who fund home improvement
such as better insulation. Of the types WE would consider
environmentalists (such as those who might stop Home Depot from sourcing
old-growth forests for lumber) they most certainly do not fund that sort
of thing. Still, helping poor people to afford to buy products from Home
Depot to fix up their tumble-downs is a good thing.

The phalanthropy of the Marcus Institute overseen by Home Depot founder
Bernard Marcus seems to be far less self-serving, giving monies to
institutes assisting children with neurological diseases, learning
disorders, underprivileged children, disabled children, & young adults
with developmental problems. When Bush refused adequate funding to the
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Marcus stepped up with nearly
four million dollars.

So the three reasons to avoid Home Depot would be:
1) Home Depot a key market for lumber from old-growth forests.
2) Home Depot going out of its way as a matter of policy to avoid consumer
& worker protection laws.
3) Soft moneys & fundraising activities for Bush by the founder & the CEO,
to insure that #1 & #2 can continue without stumbling blocks for at least
four more years.

Anyone who does want to creatively boycott Home Depot in a manner that
will register, it has been suggested that you use Home Depot's on-line
automated catalog requests to get on their mailing list under such names
as "I Never Buy From U" "Shame On Rightwing Depot," anything that can't be
mechanically filtered out but leaves a message, causing them to have to
hire extra people just to go over the mailing lists with fine-tooth comb
weeding out protestors. Home Depot certainly will assume its CEO's
right-wing fundraising has lost a lot of customers to Lowes or Ace or
elsewhere when they see these requests. It can be done at homedepot.com
and homedepot.ca.

But bare two things in mind: First, that the number of corporations or
their founders or CEOs giving money to Bush is enormous. And second,
antisemites are also boycotting Home Depot because they believe founder
Bernard Marcus is "an evil zionist Jew" attempting to take over the world.
The OSHA violations alone is reason to shop elsewhere, but I tend to worry
a bit when I find myself boycotting the same people neo-nazis hate.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com