Just a short diary but perhaps a useful point of reference to use, bookmark and come back to again and again. Target has come into view in the past week as a schizophrenic organization which preaches and practices LGBT acceptance and extended workers benefits for LGBT partners on one hand, while on the other making significant political contributions to right-wing supporting groups such as MN Forward, and, by its CEO, Michele Bachmann.
During the discussions this week on DKOS over how to effectively use our power as consumer to influence the political activities of companies we frequent, one question came up - is there a resource somewhere, anywhere that could quickly and easily show us where we should shop if we have a preference for blue vs red corporations.
Luckily, the Center for Responsive Politics come to the rescue with the GoodGuide for Company Political Contributions, a nice and easy to use flash based page which allows you to quickly and easily view in list form companies and where they sit on the political spectrum, based on their political contributions.
http://www.goodguide.com/...
Just go to the link above and click on the rectangle [view republican leaning companies] to view those firms we should be shopping a little less at or perhaps calling and faxing asking that they consider their consumers broader needs than simply their fixation on corporate tax rate lobbying, or click on [view democratic leaning companies] to get a quick list of firms that you can shop at in good conscience that your dollars are being spent in correlation to your ethics and morality.
Once the list of companies is displayed, double click on any company logo to view the details of their political contributions, providing a breakdown by party and distribution by PAC or individual.
Notably, this app is also embeddable, perhaps KOS will add to the front page at some point. Hopefully the CRP updates this data regularly and this proves to be a useful tool for the community.