Change V: Boycott BP

I covered the "Move Your Money" campaign in my first cynical change post. Well, Boycott BP may have the advantage that there's plenty of reliable other gas stations to fuel up. But they're at a disadvantage. Here's an email from some progressive group (Democracy for America) declaring victory in the Boycott BP campaign, quoting from Convenience Store News:

A chain of Convenience Stores in Philipsburg, Pa decided to debrand three of its BP-branded stations:

"We are debranding BP. We will no longer be associated with BP by the end of the month. We are doing this because of the backlash and bad publicity from the handling of BP's catastrophe," Sean Lay, vice president of operations, said in the report. "We don't want to be associated with them anymore. We've had enough."[Convenience Store News]

They are, rightly, declaring that their action is having a positive response because BP gas station operators don't want to be connected to the company. But clearly they're able to adapt. In Los Angeles, there's a big refinery that used to be owned by Arco. It had a massive, three story tall flag over the front that said "ARCO." When it was bought out by BP, they put the name BRITISH PETROLEUM on it -- at the time, they were not called BP. There was some displeasure at that, so they rebranded the factory with a flag that said BP. Then they tried putting up a flag that said "BETTER PETROLEUM" (the 'Kitchen Fresh Chicken' of the oil world). That didn't take. So now the flag is just a gigantic American flag. And people are basically mollified.

Do you know where the name Exxon comes from? It's actually the result of a multi-million dollar consulting project that concluded that the best name for the brand would be a completely neutral name that no one had any associations with. Then Exxon-Valdez happened, and all of a sudden we all had associations with that name, so the tactic was ineffective. But if they'd waited a year and then changed the name, people might not have noticed.

Have you heard of Altria Group? That's the name that they came up with so that you would no longer associate Kraft with Phillip Morris -- even though they're part of the same company. God forbid your disdain of tobacco influence your taste in cheese.

I hope that the American consumer keeps tabs on brand ownership, or they're going to have a hard time figuring out what they're boycotting. Otherwise they might get duped, like the whole CREDO Mobile thing.

CREDO Mobile

I'm on a lot of mailing lists for assorted Democratic groups, and though I dislike most of the propaganda I get, I find it useful to see what Democrats want me to think. One of the groups is Democrats.com, which today sent me a mailing which was simply an advertisement for CREDO Mobile, billing itself as a mobile network alternative to AT&T, because AT&T donates to conservative candidates. Basically, it's the Move Your Money campaign for mobile phones... except it, itself, is the phone company you're supposed to move to.

Also, it says at the bottom, in tiny letters:

Sprint is the network provider only; your service is handled exclusively by CREDO Mobile, and all representations regarding issue advocacy, contributions and donations to nonprofits apply to CREDO Mobile only. Sprint is a trademark of Sprint Nextel.

Hrm. So basically you pay CREDO, and CREDO pays Sprint, who are your real carriers. They also make no guarantees about who the money they get from CREDO goes to. And a quick search shows that Sprint Nextel Corporation has donated to:

• Roy Blunt (R,MO), a former Republican Party Leader (between DeLay and Boehner) and party whip;
• Richard Burr (R,NC), who opposed Health Care after being #2 in recipients in the country from Health Insurance Companies;
• Jim DeMint (R,SC) who wrote a book called Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America's Slide into Socialism.
• Joe Lieberman (I,CT) who is on the list of people CREDO Mobile accuses AT&T opposes.
• Blanche Lincoln (D,LA) who we all remember from the shit list of Democratic Senators who nearly cost us Health Care.
• John McCain (R,AZ) also on the list that CREDO Mobile calls out.
• John Shadegg (R,AZ) who called the Public Option "full on Russian gulag, Soviet-style gulag health care" before saying "I would support single-payer" until someone told him what that meant.
• John Thune (R,SD) who defeated Tom Daschle in 2004, saying "You know, the Second Amendment, gun owners' rights, abortion – those are not wedge issues in South Dakota" and blasting Tom Daschle for opposing a Federal Amendment banning gay marriage.

By the way, I'm being unfair to Sprint -- they also donated to Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, Bart Stupak, Ike Skelton, Barbara Boxer, Clyburn and John Conyers; it looks as though their donations are not so much ideological as they are pro-Incumbent.

I don't know if Sprint dreamed up CREDO Mobile as a way to get gullible progressives to give them money instead of AT&T, or if CREDO Mobile are gullible saps that thought that giving Sprint money would be cleaner than giving Verizon or AT&T money.

I compared with AT&T's donation history, which is admittedly seemingly more right-wing (the only company of the three to donate to Michelle Bachmann, for instance), and with Verizon's. The case against AT&T is compelling, but the case against Verizon is silly. Verizon apparently donates $161,000 across the country, to small candidates of a number of political stripes. AT&T is more in the $2,000,000 range, which is significant money. But still, Sprint (between the two in donation amount) isn't exactly a left-wing saint.

It turns out that if you patronize a major corporation, there's a 2:1 chance some slim part of that money will go to a conservative loon candidate. Even Google gives to Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, Lamar Smith, John Thune, and James DeMint. Basing a business model on avoiding that eventuality reeks to me of opportunism.