Buy Blue, Boycott Red Companies

Sent by Ken.

Here are parts of two posts from two different websites concerning companies you might consider rewarding for backing progressive politicians and companies you might consider punishing for supporting George W Bush and his cronies. -K

Buying Blue, Boycotting Red Companies
True blue Dems have a great resource over at www.buyblue.org, which is loaded with information about which companies are supporting Democrats and Republicans. Check out, for example, "The Top Ten Bluest and Reddest Corporations." Here's their ranking list of companies, based on "amounts given by their C-level executives in 2003-2004" in both dollars and percentage terms:

Ten Bluest Corporations

Time Warner, $1,713,621, 77% Blue
Viacom, $892,513, 78% Blue
News Corp, $689,549, 61% *
Walt Disney, $606,504, 70% Blue
IBM, $397,936, 68% Blue
Cablevision, $326,842, 68% Blue
Torchmark Insurance Cos., $314,441, 88% Blue
Sony Corp. of America, $287,535, 69% Blue
Working Assets, $234,255, 100% Blue
Costco, $224,803, 99% Blue

Ten Reddest Corporations

United Parcel Service, $2,361,922, 71%
SBC Communications, $2,028,031, 67% Red
Merrill Lynch, $1,900,326, 72%, Red
Pfizer, $1,465,317, 67% Red
MBNA Corp., $1,453,497, 73% Red
Union Pacific, $1,428,663, 79% Red
Southern Co., $1,041,025, 80% Red
Wachovia Corp, $998,997, 75% Red
Clear Channel Communications, $764,318, 67% Red
General Electric, $747,386, 67% Red

There are other ways of ranking companies according to their financial support for both parties (See "MORE:" below.) The beauty of selective patronage and boycotts is that it is a way that rank and file Dems can get involved in supporting their party on a daily basis and their success does not depend in any way on politicians. Reducing a company's profits by even 1 percent can start stockholders howling for reform.

MORE:
From PoliticalMoneyLine.com, here's a list of those corporations [PAC'S] that exclusively, or nearly so(90-100%), support only the Republican Party over the Democratic Party in financial contributions:
Phillips Int'l. (100%),
Cooper Industries (100%),
Flowers Industries (100%),
Harris Corp. (98%),
Illinois Toolworks (97%),
Outback Steakhouse (96%),
ExxonMobil (96%),
National City Corp. (95%),
Wendy's Int' l. (93%),
Anadarko Petroleum (92%),
Timken Corp. (91%),
Halliburton (91%),
Meadwestvaco Corp (90%),
Darden Restaurants Inc. (90%),
Branch Banking & Trust Co (90%), and
Int'l Paper (90%).
Here's a few more in the 80-90% range:
CATERPILLAR 89%
J.C.PENNEY CORP. INC. 89%
GOODYEAR TIRE 89%
CONOCOPHILLIPS SPIRIT 89%
SMITHFIELD FOODS INC 88%
CHEVRONTEXACO 87%
FORD MOTOR COMPANY 84%
CIGNA CORPORATION 83%
OWENS CORNING 83%
CONAGRA FOODS 83%
HOME DEPOT INC. 81%
BAXTER HEALTHCARE CORPORATION 81%
3M COMPANY 80%

See, if we had a Democratic Party leadership with some steel for action to change the status quo, they'd come out with a PR asking Democratic Party voters to stop going to Wendy's if they are going to only contribute to Republicans. Instead, we get the likes that are grateful for the 7% in crumbs, which is good enough to buy off their silence.

Overall, the list of Corporations that give more than 50% of their contributions to the Republican Party numbers 254. On the Democratic side? There is only one Corp. that gives above 60% to the Democratic Party, CableVisions Systems at 78%, and 22 others in the 50-59% range. It's a 10:1 ratio in the number of corporations favoring Republicans over Democrats, but for the actual money, it's much higher, 25:1 or greater.

The GOP has the corporations in their pockets writing the laws. The only way the Democratic Party can possibly counter is through having leaders that recognize the power of a million individuals nationwide being a part of a netroots/grassroots effort to reform the political system.