Daily Dolt: Treason in Defense of Slavery Yankee, Potentially the Stupidest Boycott Ever
We know The New Republic attempted to stonewall their way through obvious, blatant, and grievous breaches of journalistic ethics. In so doing, they have attacked the service, integrity, and honor of an entire company of American soldiers serving in a combat zone to avoid taking responsibility for their own editorial and ethical failures.
I’ve never quite understood the big deal over the Beauchamp story–at worst it told the story of some people stuck in the middle of a civil war being cruel to a dog in the street. Other than by Michael Vick rules of dogs are the most holy thing ever, is that shocking. Anyway, Treason in the Defense of Slavery Yankee is claiming it is stabbing troops in the back and even left a classic over at Yglesias’ place.
The knives are being swung at the back of our soldiers comes from the hand of Franklin Foer.
It is unclear to just about everyone, but Treason in Defense of Slavery Yankee why a pro-war magazine that continues to cheerlead the Iraqi War and a publisher who is all a twitter at the thought of attacking Iran would want to undercut the troops, but a guy who calls himself Treason in Defense of Slavery Yankee is short a few marbles for pretty obvious reasons.
Anyway, he wants to boycott the TNR’s advertisers. Yeah, for those who have actually read TNR, that’s pretty funny. Here’s a sample of the advertisers:
| Alfred A. Knopf | Allstate | Amazon.com | American Gas Station |
| American Petroleum Institute | AstroZeneca | Auto Alliance |
| Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (current issue) | BP (current issue) | Chevron (current issue) | CNN |
| FLAME (current issue) | Federal Express | The Financial Times | Focus Features |
| Ford Motor Company | Freddie Mac | GM | Grove Atlantic |
| HBO | Harvard University Press | History Channel | Hoover Institution (current issue) |
| MetLife | Microsoft | Mortage Bankers | Nuclear Energy Institute |
| The New School | New York Times | Novartis | Palgrave Macmillan (current issue) |
| Simon & Shuster | John Templeton Foundation (current issue) | University of Chicago Press | University Press of Kansas (current issue) |
| U.S. Telecom | Visa (current issue) | The Wall Street Journal | Warner Brothers |
| Warner Brothers Home Video | W.W. Norton | Wyeth Laboratories | Yale University Press (current issue) |
TiDoSY wants to boycott pharmaceutical companies, think tanks, academic presses, and interest groups. Even in the cases of Ford and GM or Chevron and BP their advertising in TNR is oriented towards issues or corporate reputation more than actually selling products. Oh, and insurance companies….like Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
There are virtually no products to boycott unless one is an academic. Most of the advertisers aren’t there to sell things so much as to reach a very particular audience about issues.
But the comments are the best:
tilting at windmills…
the advertisers are there because they’re interested in giving money to a liberal magazine and because they’re interested in the readers.
So….American Gas Station, Chevron, BP, the American Petroleum Institute, the Farging Hoover Institution, FLAME, the Bleeping Nuclear Energy Institute, US Telecom, and Big Pharma are all interested in giving money to a liberal magazine. Of course.
Never mind that the New Republic is not the New Republic of old, but pretty much a neo-con publication on foreign policy and DLC on domestic policy. But whatever, these conservative stalwarts are backing the TNR because it is a ‘liberal’ magazine?
TNR, probably far less than it used to be, is a place to reach very specific policy audience with ideas, not sell televisions or cars and that is why this is probably the dumbest consumer boycott ever.
October 29th, 2007 at
I don’t know ArchPundit, I kinda like the concept of boycotting think tanks – in fact I suspect “Treason in Defense of Slavery Yankee” may have been boycotting their main product for quite a while now….
October 30th, 2007 at
When I read the call for boycotts, and then saw the list, it made me chuckle.
One idiot against some of the most powerful corporations, think tanks, publishers and professional associations in the world. Yeah, good luck with that.
I thought for a second that Bearing Point had conceded to his demands, but the explanation suggests otherwise.
And for what it’s worth, though I’ll admit I have not searched for it on the Google, does anyone know, off hand, what the hell Bearing Point does? I’m guessing it is some sort of Arthur Anderson clone, but all I really know about it is that Phil Mickelson wears their logo on a hat, and they have an office somewhere in the great suburban highway office canyons of suburban Chicago.