If you think the Koch Brothers are morally reprehensible, you might want to avoid buying products like Angel Soft, Soft ‘n Gentle, or Quilted Northern toilet paper, Brawny paper towels, Dixie plates and cups, or napkins made by Mardi Gras, Sparkle, Vanity Fair, or Zee. Those are all products made by Georgia-Pacific, which is owned by Koch Industries. If you buy those products, you are putting money in the hands of the Koch Brothers that they will use to fund your political enemies.
Does anyone seriously think there would be something morally questionable about avoiding those products for political reasons? Would anyone argue that avoiding those products amounted to a restriction of the Koch Brothers’ First Amendment rights? Would anyone be taken seriously if they stated that my refusal to buy Brawny paper towels was a form of intolerance?
So, why are so many people questioning the threatened boycott of Firefox by people who don’t want to do business with a company whose CEO donated money to support the passage of Proposition 8?
Are we compelled to buy products from companies that are led by people we think are morally reprehensible? If we raise awareness of the political views of CEOs and ask people to not buy their companies’ products are we restricting free speech or utilizing it?
Chrystal clear. Nicely done.
Very logical and concise, BooMan, but in the words of simon & garfunkel:
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.
Remember BuyBlue.org? I used to use it all the time, but then it went out of business. I think it’s a great idea though – rate companies based on their political donations, and tie the subsidiaries together to the corporate ownership. Is there any equivalent out there now?
Interestingly, this is also behavior that should be encouraged by those who espouse the virtues of a free market. One of the requirements of a well functioning free market is a knowledgeable and discerning consumer base. And I think it is completely legitimate to use the power vested in your wallet both to tell a company it is putting out a bad product, and to tell it that it’s endorsing or enacting policies you view as detrimental to society.
An individual boycott is the closest thing to accountability that any American business will ever face.
I was beginning to think you didn’t have it in you.
Great.
OK…now let’s expand upon this idea. Are ya with me?
Lemme see…how we a boycott of all of the energy companies that hustled the Iraq War into being. Wouldn’t that be special!!!
And while we’re at it, how about boycotting the media that supported the whole scam? We could start with the networks, WAPO, the NY Times and Time mag.
As far as that goes…let’s not support the Democratic and Republican parties that cooperated in the whole boondoggle. In fact…let’s also not bank at the major financial institution
alizedbanks that supported the theft-caused Great Recession.Oh.
What’s that you say?
These things just aren’t
partisan…errr, ahhhh, I mean…practical?Riiiight…
Right off instead of right on!!!
Write off our guilt as simply a product of American exceptionalism.
Just don’t expect the rest of the world to go along with the whole eyes wide closed thing, ‘cuz it ain’t gonna happen.
‘Homeland’ Drills For WMD Attack.
What’s that you say?
Sigh.
Nice.
Here come them chickens. Home to roost. Bet on it.
Nevermind.
Yore freind…
Emily Litella
The CEO from Mozilla gave $1,000 to support the then-majority position in a referendum 8 years ago and for this, he is hounded out of a job.
You equate that to avoiding the products made by the Koch Brothers who are among the most politically active of the super rich.
Seriously?
And you seriously don’t understand the difference between our Constitutional right to free speech and how our ability exercise that Constitutional right can be abridged by legal forms of pressure, i.e., like threatening people with dismissal?
Seriously?
In what way has Eich’s freedom of speech been abridged?
He can still donate to whatever campaigns he wants, and say what he wants. He just doesn’t get to do it as the CEO of Mozilla.
There is no First Amendment principle at work here. None. Zero. Nada.
Seriously.
If that simplistic view is your takeaway from the whole situation, then I’m afraid you haven’t been paying attention.
How was he hounded out of a job?
A group of people publicized his political donation and promised not to use Firefox unless the CEO recanted his support of Prop 8.
Gee, people used their right to free speech to offer their opinion on something and said that they wouldn’t use a product from a company whose CEO had political views they found reprehensible.
You’re right to free speech is a Constitutional right, protected by the First Amendment, the incorporation clause, and your state Constitution. You are protected from government in all forms, not from any consequences in your daily life. His right to speak was not abridged by government, so I have no idea what you are talking about.
Your employer can fire you for saying something that embarrasses them, that alienates customers or clients, or that violates company policy. The Board of Directors can remove a CEO for the same reasons, including that they’ve caused a boycott or bad publicity.
What you don’t like is that a person can lose their job for taking a political position, but that’s always been the case. It has zero to do with the First Amendment.
If you put a God Hates Fags sign up in your cubicle, you can expect to be shown the door. If your political positions cause people to avoid your company’s products, you are at risk of losing your job, especially if you are the face of the company.
And what about the free market? No corporation has any right to our patronage, they have to earn it. And it can be freely withdrawn at any time, for any reason. If you don’t like it, you’re free to start selling a product that people actually want.
but GAY MAFIA!!!
It’s not free speech if it costs a oligarch money.
Try to keep up.
Did not said CEO resign as soon as his relationship became public?
What must Mozilla, the organization that manages Firefox, which is open-source free software for most users, do to end the boycott?
It’s very clear to me what the Koch brothers must do–stop buying politicians.
Koch Industries is a closely held private corporation that is virtually identical in its interests with the Koch brothers personal interests.
Is Mozilla the same way? Are the positions of the now-resigned CEO and Mozilla aligned as tightly as those of the Kochs?
Who benefits from boycott of the Koch’s products?
Who benefits from the boycott of Mozilla?
And what are the privacy implications, if any, of weakening Mozilla’s presence in the ecology of the internet?
The free speech implications run both ways in my opinion. The CEO has the right to speak; he does not have the right to contribute money as speech in an unlimited fashion to buy a megaphone. Corporations do not have inherent rights of free speech, and routinely deny it internally to everyone except the CEO.
Critics of CEO actions have a right to criticize what he is doing and to attempt to organize power through assembly and private actions in the same way that corporate officers as private individuals have the power to organized political action through Chambers of Commerce.
Corporations should understand that the identification of their people from the CEO to the least employee with their corporation has consequences for their brand. A boycott is an attack on Mozilla’s brand that is easier to carry out because of free alternatives. A boycott on Koch Industries is much harder to carry out because the consumer sector is a much smaller part of their operations and even within the consumer sector, they can hide behind retailer private label merchandise. Who makes those “Distributed by…” products?
I can see Mozilla’s former CEO being blacklisted by certain other corporations for his actions, but the case for continuing to boycott Mozilla no longer makes sense.
In some respects, boycotting Mozilla has become popular because it is much easier to do than effectively boycotting Koch Industries.
Of course we are not compelled to buy stuff from corporations led by people we think are morally reprehensible–unless we are not the ones doing the buying. And especially if the product in fungible, like oil or grain or even produce.
But monitoring all of these relationships for moral purity becomes more than a full time job.
Wait. Is anybody actually talking about continuing to boycott Mozilla? That’s a serious question because I didn’t know. I thought the talk of boycotts was over now that he has resigned.
That seemed to be assumed in the post. I dunno. I thought is was over.
I thought Booman was just retroactively explaining the reasoning behind the boycott. Why it happened, why it was valid, why it’s not restricting anybody’s 1st Amendment rights and so on. There are still people whining about it now.
you are correct.
I’m going to continue my life long boycott of mozilla. And I am also committing to continue my life long boycott of OKcupid because…
“But there’s a hitch: OkCupid’s co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan once donated to an anti-gay candidate. (Yagan is also CEO of Match.com.) Specifically, Yagan donated $500 to Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) in 2004, reports Uncrunched. During his time as congressman from 1997 to 2009, Cannon voted for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, against a ban on sexual-orientation based job discrimination, and for prohibition of gay adoptions.”
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/04/okcupid-ceo-donate-anti-gay-firefox
It’s over.
Did I miss something? Is anyone promoting a boycott of Mozilla now, even after the CEO stepped down?
Boycott is fine. People always have the ability to choose with their wallets. And conversely if the company feels like that’s hurting their bottom line or they can’t fit into the work culture of the company, then those are legitimate grounds.
However, the principle is analogous to if someone is a racist but can work professionally with people of all races, I don’t think it’s okay to fire them for being racist.
How do we know that this person is a racist? Do his or her colleagues know that they are a racist? How do they know?
To further the analogy, they know because the person contributes money earned from the job to and volunteers for David Duke style politicians in the hypothetical.
I’ve never known a racist who can work professionally with people of all races. Maybe you have, but I bet it’s a very rare breed. More importantly, I’ve never known a racist who could fairly supervise people of all races, including making fair hiring, promotion, and disciplinary decisions.
Thanks for the list. I will stop buying those products and any others related to the evil brothers koch.
I would just point out that I personally (as a gay man!) find them far more reprehensible than the mozilla guy. But whatever… boycott what you like. Sometimes I think some straight people care more about this than I do. And thanks for that; but there’s no need to go too crazy on my behalf.
Now let’s get those koch boys put in prison. That’s a worthy goal!
The Firefox guy donated $5,000. The Koch brothers donated north of $50,000,000. All those zeros make the difference.