My subject line is a tease. Boycott Fiat? Hell, you can't even buy a Fiat in this town.

I was thinking, though, of some friends in the late 70s and early 80s. They all drove Fiats. Because they were considered to be the least heinous, politically. American cars? Nasty capitalists doing business in South Africa. German cars? The legacy of the N*zis. Japanese cars? Whaling. And so on....

Anyhow, my retrospective may not be exactly correct (and I forget why they didn't all drive SAABs) but the fact remains that they bought Fiats for political reasons.

Ah, those were the days! Bunny knows they didn't buy the Fiats for their reliability!

Soooooo, this thread is to ask: What single product are you not buying for political reasons? Or what single company are you not patronizing for political reasons?

If you have a long list, pick number 1.

To make this more challenging, try to respond without specifically mentioning N*zis, B*sh, or ab*rtion!

It seems like I used to have a list a mile long of things I didn't buy or places I refused to shop at. But most of them seem to, at least, not be relevant any more.

Wal-Mart comes to mind, but it's not really hard for me to avoid, and, regardless of my politics, I'd probably avoid it anyway because of the fact that it's such a terrible store.

Carmike Theaters, but that's also mostly because they're terrible, although there's some element of politics, too, though it's more "treating employees badly" than anything else, though they do have a strong (and absurd) anti-union stance.

Exxon, for environmental politics. I know, they're probably not any worse than any other oil company, but they demonstrably showed themselves to be indifferent to environmental concerns, and, these days, it's almost more the fact that they didn't simply clean up after their own mess. The lack of personal (where, in this case, "personal" means "corporate", not that I'm promoting corporate personhood) responsibility really pisses me off lately. I kind of prefer Shell, as they tend to be less politically conservative in their donations than others, but they're somewhat infrequent around here.

On the flip side, I try to frequent locally-owned stores in favor of big chains, from record stores to pharmacists. This has a little to do with politics, but at least as much to do with the fact that while the big chain might have a better selection of stuff (though even that's not usually the case) the locally-owned stores treat me better. That part shows through even in choosing one big chain over another, though.

Oh, and, for what it's worth, Buy Blue Christmas List 2005.

French wine

Actually that isn't political, just 'cos I dislike wine imported from France (I reckon they keep all the good stuff)

I don't buy from Microsoft or Apple except where I absolutely have to (for MS I use the Home User Purchase programme to avoid paying them too much, and I just really dislike Apple's concept of DRM so will never buy an iPod or use iTunes )

(ps - I bought my wife a Fiat Punto...it's pretty good, for a non-Subaru)

I shop at Walmart just to counter all the people that don't shop there. It's out of my way, but I giggle everytime I walk into the store. Not sure if that counts.

I used to boycott Gillette because of animal testing, but I've heard they no longer engage in that.

So, that leaves GE at the top of my list because of some documentary I saw on PBS like 10 years ago saying they were bad people and really poluted some communities with nucluar waste. I should follow up on that and see if it was true. I always got a kick out of how their slogan was "We Bring Good Things to Life" when, at the same time, they made some of the most bad ass weapons in the US arsenal.

I boycott name-brands and designer clothes. I find their high prices offensive!

I remember, and this was probably 20 years ago, when Carter was president, that the US govenment decided never to buy things that profit terrorist countries.

So, they were buying tanks from Allis-Chalmers, which they found to be largely owned by Fiat, which in turn was owned, in part, by the Syrian government.

I drive a Volvo. But I've owned two Fiats, one an electric.

Being of Irish descent, I probably shouldn't own a British car stereo, or that beautiful '86 Jaguar XJ6 to put it in, but what the hell. Both are so cool. I've had a few MGs, a Triumph, and lots of Avent baby bottles.

I boycott Belkin things.

I don't shop at best buy due to their abuse of eminent domain.

Walmart never really bugged me if you want to boycott them I would think target, kmart and all other big chain department stores would fall into the same category.

I rember the general consensus of the bbs being that boycotting business was pointless last time I mentioned this.

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I boycott Belkin things.

What's wrong with Belkin ? I haven't heard anything bad about them.

For a while I refused to buy Marvel comics because they were owned by Revlon, a notable animal rights abuser, who, as a big Christian company, also made them publish the religious screed The Illuminator, which they did, reluctantly, once a year. It did not sell, even to some people who religiously (ha) bought every Marvel comic.

I try not to shop at Wal-Mart, but that's just because I don't like the store. No political convicitions needed!

I can't think of anything that I specifically don't buy at the moment, though I long to boycott Christmas (just the commercialism- I will always have a personal, religious celebration) but I can't get my wife on board with that!

To that last point, I at least boycotted the "Secret Santa" at work this year . . .

Right now I'm boycotting ebuyer, for having the most convoluted systems for administration, I'm on my 14th email/message in six weeks to get a refund on a £30.00 item, at the start I offered to exchange for the one I wanted, but I gave up in the end!
Before that I was boycotting Comet for a "No Hassle" extended warranty, that was just the opposie.
My next target is Sky, for having an impossible call centre and making me have an adult pin code, when I've no-one under 22 in the house. It would be OK, but it doesn't always accept its own pin - and is Michael Palin's pole to pole so obscene that our children need protecting from it? I could only find the naked bit in Finland, diving in to a freezing lake.

The one company I hate most to do business with is Best Buy. Edit: Fry's is a close second, for different reasons.

Two different reasons. edit: well three.

One, they load all sorts of tasks on the cashiers, other than the simple one of taking your money and giving a reciept. It takes forever to get out of the store.

Two, If you are paying by plastic, they insist you put your signature into a digital pad. This I refuse to do. Most stores will produce a printed reciept to sign if you request it. Best Buy won't.

Three, even If you pay CASH, the cashier typically insists on you telling them some bit of personal info. Phone No, Zip Code, or even your full address.

There have been several times when I have simply walked away from the casher out of frustration at their inability to cope with a cash buyer.

I boycott Exxon / Mobile. I'd rather push my car to the nearest BP/Amaco or Shell than pay E/M. Their environmentally destructive history is unimaginable.

Also, they always have THE highest prices for gas everywhere I look. $0.10 to $0.25 cents more, always. An unreliable source said E/M tries to force the gas prices up using this method.

The E/M's near me (and there's at least two for each BP or Amaco or Shell) are always full of people willing to pay the higher price. Blows my mind. Maybe because they have those attached convenience stores. Sorry, I don't want to poison myself with Dunkin Doughnuts, coffee, and crappy food.

So, to be clear, as a conservative, you support laissez faire labor practices that include such things as unpaid, forced overtime and employees being locked inside the stores overnight? My opinion on the matter is that there are some things that cross political barriers and are just wrong.

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nucluar

Is it official Republican policy to include two "u"s in the word "nuclear" these days?

The interesting thing is that you've misspelled it even lf you're intending to affect our Parzident's mispronunciation.

Personally, I've never seen anyone working in a Wal-Mart who appeared to like their job at all, and they certainly don't have any pride in it. That's one of the things that lend it its "terrible place to shop" ambience. Of course, you can't claim that Wal-Mart necessarily engenders that attitude, but I imagine that there's a reason that that sort of person works there. My though is that other retailers are probably interested enough in, at the least, maintaining a professional image to their customers that those employees get fired pretty readily, whereas they stay at the Wal-Mart either because Wal-Mart doesn't care or Wal-Mart doesn't get better applicants, or both.

Well, assuming that you're trying to spell phonetically, "nucular" or "nuculer" would make sense. You know, "newk-ya-ler". What you've spelled ("nucluar") is something like "new-clue-er". Of course, you both could use a new clue, so what am I complaining about?

Sounds the same to me!

Yeah. I remember that problem you had pronouncing "logorrhea". You dyslexic?

I had to think for a while about what I'm boycotting. It's not very interesting to say that I'm boycotting caffeinated beverages. I'm just not drinking them any more. I don't shop at Wal-Mart, but there isn't one anywhere convenient for me and I'm certainly not driving out of my way to get there. I have no problem with Target, which seems like Wal-Mart Lite in many ways and, at the end of the day, is probably just as evil, in the sense of destroying the economy and all that.

I suppose you could say that I'm boycotting BMW, only in the sense that I'll never buy another one after the continuing mechanical problems exhibited by my current one and the dealers' complete inability to fix anything on the first try. More generally, if Consumer Reports doesn't "recommend" a car, I'll never buy it. I'm not sure how I'd feel if they recommended the new 3-series (which is, roughly, where I need to be shopping if/when I replace my Z3). I'd previously been boycotting any though of getting an automatic, slushbox transmission, but if I want a 3-series and I'm boycotting BMW, that tends to point toward the Lexus IS, where there's no manual offered with the beefy engine. Bastards.

You might even say that I'm boycotting RIAA-labeled music, but I've just been too damn busy to buy much of any music at all in the past year, which shocks me most of all, relative to my former hundreds-of-dollars-per-month habit. Maybe it's that I've already got more music than I know what to listen to (1200+ CDs and counting).

Probably the only true boycott: there's a private parking lot near the airport that I used to frequent because it offered reasonably priced car cleaning service. Leave your keys, let them know when you're getting back, and you get a shiny, clean car for about what you'd pay at any other car wash. Then they stole my radar detector and didn't give me the time of day. I now park at one of their competitors (and keep my keys to myself). They've probably lost over $1000 in parking fees, over the years since I stopped using them. Not that they'd notice...