MR. CULLEN - Your claim that "this thread started as a call to Mpls residents to boycott business if one does not agree with the owner's politics" is absolutely false.
I never used the word boycott, and never suggested that anyone should boycott anything. I only said that I will not do business with Simon Delivers because of former republican candidate for governor Brian Sullivan's association with that company because I find Mr. Sullivan's politics poisonous. Jim Bernstein Fulton -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bill Cullen Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 5:31 PM To: Mpls Forum Subject: [Mpls] Doing business with those who disagree with you David Shove wrote: I never buy from Wal-Mart and urge everyone to boycott this big-box anti-union absentee-owner mega corp. SNIP. Bust Wal-Mart, FTAA, NAFTA, WTO, all big corporations. Make our city and state a SMALL BUSINESS/CO-OP state. Tell the big corps to take a hike. My response: 61% of wal-mart stock is owned by institutions and mutual funds (1). All my retirement funds are invested in funds like these -- and I suspect most readers also have investments in mutual funds. Therefore, Mr. Shove is recommending that we do not support organizations in which we are likely (very small) owners. We should never prevent a law abiding, self funded company from entering Minneapolis because we don't like their politics. If you want to not patronize their business, that is up to you. Personally, I will reward the best providers with my money. Some are small, some are large. This thread started as a call to Mpls residents to boycott business if one does not agree with the owner's politics. This thread started as a call to Mpls residents to boycott business if one does not agree with the owner's politics. I argued that "If you choose to punish people you don't agree with, then don't complain about a lack of quality candidates." Many people challenged me for making such a claim. However all the challenges seemed to argue that the people they disagree with deserve to be boycotted. I want to thank all of you for proving my argument: making your political beliefs public is dangerous for all successful people. I laughed out loud when Jason Stone justified boycotting businesses because "I see a close relationship between politics and ethics." Is Jason talking about the Bill Clinton/Ted Kennedy party or George Bush/Rush Limbaugh party!? Regards, Bill Cullen Whittier Landlord (1) http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=WMT REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
