Want to Boycott Monsanto and Koch Industries? You Can. There’s an App.
Millions of shoppers are patronizing Koch Industries, Monsanto and other shadowy corporate conglomerates, without even knowing it. You won’t find too many items on the shelf with “Koch Brothers” or “Monsanto” stamped in big letters.
Those two companies (and others) have more tentacles than all the squid and octopi in the seven seas. Their products are everywhere.
And now there’s a phone app — Buycott — enabling everyone to boycott companies whose ethics they hate.
The app is nonpartisan. It allows the user to scan the barcode to determine the ownership background of a product. There’s been such a huge demand that the developer of the app, Ivan Pardo, is frantically trying to keep up. He said:
“The workload is a bit overwhelming now. Our Android app was just recently released and the surge of new users today has highlighted a serious bug on certain devices that needs to be fixed immediately. So all other development tasks I was working on get put on hold until I can get this bug fixed.”
The app also allows the user to take part in online campaigns to boycott companies they don’t like, OR to support those companies whose ethics they agree with. Buycott’s users are also encouraged to keep its database updated by adding products not yet recognized by Buycott. Ivan Pardo said:
“It was critical to allow users to create campaigns. I don’t think it’s Buycott’s role to tell people what to buy. We simply want to provide a platform that empowers consumers to make well-informed purchasing decisions.”
YES.
Talk about “find a need and fill it” — this is a need that’s gone unmet for decades. Back in the ‘60s, Dick Gregory did a speech making fun of anti-war protesters who would shower up with Dial Soap (made by Dow Chemical Company) and then go out to protest against Dow Chemical for making Napalm.
45 years later — Problem solved.
Labels: Buycott, Ivan Pardo
posted by Tom Harper @ 4:12 PM
5 Comments:
Buy Blue is another site I go to when I am going about purchases.
I try, hard, to grow a lot of my own food, with seeds saved off from previous gardens. I buy my clothes in thrift stores. I wish I could find a way to not need a %$@#$ bank account anymore.
JR. Credit union or local banks in your area are excellent choices. We got our money out of Wells, BofA and put it into credit unions.
My worse time was in the 1980's, when not was the CEO of my company a heavy Reagan Supporter, not only did my company make electronic components for Nuclear Weapons, but they were also heavy investors in the Praetorian South African Regime and were among the last to divest
Erik
Jess: I remember reading about Buy Blue. I'd forgotten about them.
JR: I'm afraid those %$@#$ bank accounts are an unfortunate fact of life. Like Jess said, a credit or locally-owned bank is at least an improvement, the lesser of 2 evils.
Jess: We did the same thing, took everything out of BofA and moved it into a local bank, which actually had better deals than the nearest credit unions.
Erik: I hate those awkward work-related conflicts. I had several temporary assignments with Bechtel back in the mid '80s. Most of my coworkers and supervisors were very nice, which wasn't what I would have expected. But this one assignment was a joint venture with PG&E, working on the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor.
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