Boycotting Bush's Supporters

There are a number of different "BoycottBush" and "StopUSA" lists around - but many of them seem to work on the basis that all of the USA supports Bush - and a number of the lists are not very accurate on identifying US vs European controlled companies. It does seem to us that there is a strong case for singling out a few companies that were very large donors to Bush’s election campaign – otherwise we are simply boycotting companies for being American even if they might have been opposed to war. Even sorting this out is quite difficult, for two main reasons:

1. the various sites with info on this subject list different companies and very different amounts for donations – this is partly to do with the many different ways donations can be made, and the habit from some sites of including donations by individuals associated with companies under the company name – sensible if you’re trying to spot people who try to disguise their support by spreading it out, but not always fair to the company
2. many US companies donate regularly to both parties, so can be listed by one site as a Bush supporter when another will record them as having actually given most of their money to Gore.

So, for example on the first one, the Coca Cola company gives no political donations at all, but some of its Directors personally gave to Bush, and so did some of its regional bottling companies, most of which are not associated with the main company despite bearing the same name (and the company did donate $50million to education and HIV/AIDS campaigns in the third world, so should probably be supported, not boycotted).

On the second one, AOL Time Warner and the Disney company are on some boycott lists (eg BoycottBush), but actually gave twice as much to Gore as to Bush, so more to be commiserated with than blamed.

Probably the best site for untangling this is www.opensecrets.org. As far as I can tell from looking through a large number of tables, the key people who actually trade in Australia (and therefore can be meaningfully boycotted), who gave significantly more money to Bush than to Gore, and gave more than a million US dollars to Bush, are:

• Philip Morris (which includes Kraft, which includes Vegemite!)
• UPS and FedEx
• Microsoft
• RJR Nabisco (tobacco and many biscuit & cereal products)
• Chevron Texaco (Caltex) and Exxon Mobil (Esso)
• Pfizer (Warner Lambert), Glaxo SmithKline, Eli Lilly
• General Motors (Holden)
• Amway

(NB Nabisco has now been sold to Kraft - which doesn't alter the list much!)

Because of the number of different brands used by Kraft, Nabisco, Pfizer and GSK, even this short list blows out to a long list of products for people to remember, so may be best to stop there. As it is, Exxon Mobil (which is at the bottom of this list by sheer cash given) gave less than one-fifth of the amount for Philip Morris at the top.

Another NB: BP Amoco appears on the 2000 Bush contributors list, but this was a contribution by Amoco before BP acquired them. Since BP took control, Amoco has made no significant political contributions. It would therefore seem illogical to boycott BP products, as they have done what we would hope a boycott would achieve and stopped supporting Bush.

The brands to avoid

Oil: Caltex, Esso, Mobil
Cars: Holden
Tobacco: Chesterfield, Marlboro, Virginia Slims (Philip Morris), Winston, Camel, Salem (RJReynolds) and many many other cigarette brands - check the packet of your own favourite!
Healthcare/cosmetics: Nicorette/Nicabate, Macleans, Panadol/Panadeine, Contac, Cartia, Eno, Tagamet, Andrews Tums, Lip-Eze, Zantac, Zovirax (Glaxo SmithKline), Prozac (Eli Lilly)
Listerine, Schick, Mylanto, Benadryl, Actifed, Sudafed, Clearblue, Stingose, Sinutab, Visine, Viagra, Zoloft (Pfizer); Artistry, Satinique, Nutriway (Amway)
Foods: Kraft (inc Philadelphia & Vegemite), Milka, Toblerone, Terry's, Cote d'Or, Maxwell House, Nabisco, Ritz, Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Captains Table, Jacobs Coffee, Bonox (Kraft / Nabisco);
Lucozade, Horlicks, Ribena (Glaxo SmithKline)
Other: Microsoft, UPS, FedEx

© NSPD 2004. Last modified 18/1/05.