Reply #26: I would argue in the case of the Apartheid boycott

[jobycom]

that there was a clear goal to the boycott, and that goal was to improve lives, and that the boycott itself had a chance of success.

With the BP boycott, I see no goal, no improved lives, and no real hope of accomplishing anything. I see mostly people just mad and trying to find someone to punish, without fully considering who is being punished. There is no belief that boycotting BP will speed up the cleanup or containment (quite the opposite, since if it worked, BP could file bankruptcy and leave us with nothing), or will prevent future problems, or will improve anyone's life.

Not really saying I don't understand it. I'm from the coast, and am going back to visit this weekend, and I'm sure I won't stop at a BP station along the way or while I'm there. If they had them here, I wouldn't stop at them. It's not really a boycott, but it's hard to explain the difference. I guess it's like someone hurting your family--you wouldn't be friends with that person afterwards, even if they were decent people, even if you didn't care if others were friends with them.

I'm just struggling here, I guess. I have no real love for BP, but I see a lot of anger, and to me I don't see any focus to it. The victims of the anger are poor working people, while the causes of the anger aren't even going to be touched by it. There's no point where we can say "They've met our demands, the boycott is lifted," so there's no pressure on BP to do anything about it. As far as I can tell, the boycott is indefinite, and the only goal is to hurt BP. And I don't even think BP is the guiltiest party in all of this. Halliburton and Transocean were as guilty, if not more so, and the biggest culprit to me was Bush and Cheney for their negligence of regulations and inspection. And I'm not free from anger at Obama, for not ordering the improvement of those inspections, since he had been in office over a year--he's not high on the list, btw, but he is on it.

There's another factor, being from that area. My father worked on offshore rigs, as did several of my friends and their fathers. I probably would have, too, if I hadn't gone straight to college. I know what those rigs mean to the jobs and economy in that area, and I know about the dangers of spills and explosions. I remember as a kid being scared every time the phone rang when my father was on duty, probably not unlike a police officer's family. I know the attention to safety they paid on those rigs, because my father was constantly talking about the inspections and the regulations, both governmental and company-originated.

Someone wasn't doing their job, and it wasn't just BP. In fact, BP wasn't even high on that list, since Transocean was most responsible for rig safety. Eleven lives were obliterated when that thing exploded. A lot of kids got that call I was so terrified of getting as a kid. That didn't have to happen, but everyone from two presidents on down to the rig managers seemed to have decided those lives and that grief was worth the savings. Now we're trying to punish one culprit, and it just looks arbitrary and pointless from here. I'd love to see that energy and anger directed at those who failed in their jobs, but it seems easier for some around here to target a corporate logo rather than investigating further. A corporation is just a legal structure--no personality, no soul, no way to really hold it responsible, other than financially. But there are real people who made decisions to risk this, and aside from Elizabeth Birnbaum (cudos to Obama for that), no one is being held accountable.

It's like the Coast--where I grew up, where I still wish I lived, where all my family and most of my friends are--got screwed by Bush and Cheney and Transocean and some bigwigs at BP and even by Obama's lax attention to detail, and in response people want to punish the Coast worse by eliminating drilling jobs, boycotting local businesspeople, shunning the seafood and tourism that keeps the area alive, and basically screwing it worse. And no one really sees that.

So that's my point, I guess. What is this boycott about? It's not about solving the problem because it doesn't even address a problem. It's not about punishing the people most responsible, because it doesn't. It's not about punishing people who deserve it because that's not who it affects, either. What is it about? I'm not trying to say "don't do it," I'm really trying to say "make it mean something."