Will You Boycott the Russian Olympics?
Boycotting sponsors is as Capitalist an act as any. It’s about consumers voting with their feet and pocketbooks. It’s not about free speech even if the plan is to boycott sponsors of some offensive radio talker. It’s about not paying to have them spew their vitriol because corporations are buying their ability to do it in the media. Crying interference with freedom of speech is a laugh. Sponsored speech isn’t free; it’s bought and paid for, it’s about providing their speech with a microphone. But boycotts have to be carefully thought out if they’re going to do any good, even symbolically. They have to target what really matters to their target: its income stream. It’s hardly possible today to boycott a nation by refusing to buy an internationally distributed product identified with it. International corporations have little loyalty to any country they’re in beyond making money off of them. Coors and Miller are owned by a South African company, Budweiser by a Belgian/Brazili...