Let's face it, as a group we progressives spend billions of dollars a year on products and services. Even slight changes in the way we spend our money can greatly affect the behavior of recipients, as evidenced by the willingness of large corporations to quit subsidizing Glenn Beck's airtime when petitioned by a lot of current or potential customers.
Too often, we try to lock the bank vault retrospectively rather than prospectively. Every advertiser who uses Fox News or the New York Post or the Wall Street Journal is indirectly supporting the head cases who rant about death panels. Our main problem is ignorance. No one individual has the tenacity to watch these TV stations or read these newspapers simply to find out who is supporting them.
The matter goes further than this. My wife and i travel a lot; if we want to spend blue should we favor Hyatt or Starwood or Marriott? I know that Marriott tends to support republicans and Hyatt tends to support democrats,but I also know that Marriott treats its employees very well. I know very little about Starwood. We can generally utilize whichever company we want. How do we know which one a progressive should choose?
Wouldn't it be great if we could establish a "blue rating" for each company in the S&P 500 (and more than the top 500 if possible). Possibly, an index ranging from 100 (perfect) down to 0 (perfectly reprehensible)? The index would take into account how the corporation spends its advertising dollars, how it treats its employees, how environmentally conscious it is, to which parties it contributes funds and every other measurable factor that is meaningful to progressives.
It would not be easy to do this but the results could be enormous. As a retired statistician, I would volunteer to assist in establishing the criteria and methodology for constructing a meaningful index. Reasonable people could disagree on the relative importance of the factors used. But isn't it time to stop supporting the tyranny of the minority fiscally in the same way that we did it with our votes last November?
For any who agree with this approach, I would be interested in hearing comments about the factors that should be considered in establishing a blue index