TO THE EDITOR:
Anthony Dent raised an interesting idea in his letter regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement and corporate money in politics.
By noting that “any contribution by a company will offend a certain segment of their customer base,” he implied that since companies make campaign contributions, citizens should simply limit purchases to those companies who contribute to candidates they support.
Unfortunately, most people don’t keep a checklist of companies they must boycott to exercise their political voice. Most people don’t research every product to decide if its purchase is ethical.
Dent mentions a boycott of Target in response to unfavorable campaign contributions. The products sold at Target are accessible elsewhere, so it is easy to boycott the store.
But it is not always so simple. For example, consumers have little choice when choosing utility providers. Utilities, especially electricity providers reliant on coal, lobby intensely against climate change legislation. Climate legislation is unequivocally in the public interest, yet most of us buy electricity even though we know the electric companies lobby against the legislation that we need.
Even with perfect information about companies’ campaign contributions, we cannot always avoid companies we find unfavorable. We must remove money from politics.
The energy focused on corporate money in politics nationwide presents a unique opportunity for students and others to really affect change.
So Occupy UNC, Occupy Chapel Hill or Occupy Wall Street—but occupy with a purpose. We must take money out of politics, and then we can address the issues we care about most.
