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Wednesday 1 August 2012
Chick-fil-A is Bad For Your Political Health

If it baffles Merritt that people expect the corporations that live off their support to reflect their political views, it baffles me that a religious person would be admonishing people to submit to a system that works aggressively to suppress any realization that economic transactions have profound implications on human values. Even if the corporatization of our society is so complete that it is objectively impossible to avoid giving money to entities that are at that very moment working to undermine our political freedoms, every religious and ethically-minded institution should be urging those under its influence to be aware and resist wherever possible. You can agree or disagree with Chick-fil-A’s stance on the rights of gay citizens to get married, but you cannot pretend it is irrelevant.

In sum, you should absolutely be supporting corporations that put human values ahead of profit, and doing your best to keep your dollars away from ones that exploit workers and try to obstruct democracy, whether directly by stripping workers of their rights or indirectly by supporting the exclusionary social fantasies of religious reactionaries. The market-ideology-generators in the media will always be there to pooh-pooh genuine political efforts, to remind Americans how powerless their protests and boycotts are to stop the almighty economy. They will call you angry and partisan and disaffected and closed-minded and illiberal. Above all, remember that when they tell you to “keep politics out of it,” they are telling you to throw away your selfhood as a citizen. When they whiningly demand if really, you have to make even this little thing political? The answer is yes.

21 notes

  1. unverifiableclaims reblogged this from azspot and added:
    Common sense ain’t so common no mo’…
  2. sexyboywantsyou reblogged this from azspot
  3. jonprins reblogged this from azspot and added:
    Every dollar I spend is a vote for the future I want.
  4. leftistnaija reblogged this from trotskitty
  5. trotskitty reblogged this from questionall
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