[dogscoff]

I tend to boycott companies rather than countries- for example, I won't shop at Asda (Walmart-owned) or buy Nestle products or get petrol from Shell. I don't touch Mcdonald's any more, and if I did smoke I'd have real trouble finding someone I was prepared to buy tobacco from. It's kind of haphazard since I don't go and inform myself on every single supplier's ethical history, so I'm probably taking money away from one bastard corporation and just feeding it into another, but it gives me that lovely smug feeling and where possible I do aim for companies that go out of their way to be good.

I always buy free range and biodegradable, and I do like to go for locally produced stuff (especially food) for environmental reasons, but then at the same time I'm also kind of rebelling against the blind stupidity of "Buy British Beef", so I'll sometimes buy foriegn meat just to be awkward. People here seem to think that British meat must be BSE free because... well... because it has our flag stamped on the packet. Morons. The BSE outbreak here was handled extremely badly, and seemed to rely on rallying patriotism rather than, say, getting rid of the disease. I hope you yanks deal with it better than we did. We're now looking at yet another food scare with salmon and- guess what- it all stems from the fact that these animals are being fed ground-up offal from members of their own species. When we we learn that forcing cannibalism on these creatures might cut costs but in the long run it isn't doing anyone any favours?

I'd like to boycott US products until GWB is out of office because of the Iraq war, but if I did that I'd have to boycott UK products until Blair was out of office as well, but since I live in the UK that would be difficult. That said I never buy american beer but that's only because it's crap.

[ January 14, 2004, 07:38: Message edited by: dogscoff ]