The Target boycott - "When I throw a brick, I want to know who's going to say 'ouch'"

Everywhere I turn, someone is talking about boycotting Target. Friends on facebook, a coworker in the office, an email from moveon.org (and let's not talk about their last email, which was filled with agenda-pushing misinformation). Here's the story, as I see it:

Supreme Court strikes down limits on corporation spending for campaigns. Target gives money to a big-business PAC to the tune of $150,000. The PAC supports a pro-business, super-conservative, anti-gay candidate in the Midwest. Everybody freaks out.

The first person to bring it up to me was a coworker and my response, in short, was "I'm too far left to care." I'm not saying we shouldn't sweat the small stuff, or that we shouldn't fight something just because we can't fight everything. Boycotts are effective when they build your own political consciousness, when they satisfy your personal morality, when they make a direct, large, and specific hit to corporate profits (including the mass sell-off of BP stock of the last 107 days), or when they are large or loud enough to be heard inside the top-floor corner office of a building with solid-gold walls. I have yet to hear an articulation of why this is the time to boycott Target. What, exactly, are we mad about?

My coworker said he hopes they fix the situation soon because he loves shopping at Target. But when I asked what the "fix" would look like, he didn't know. When the guy loses? When Target asks for the money back? When it's apparent that nothing is going to come of it? When the admin of the facebook group forgets that he's the admin and stops updating it? I get that this is something my coworker and many others care deeply about, and I applaud his proactivity in sending letters, doing the math of how much money Target would lose if all 30,000 facebook supporters really do boycott, etc. If it's about satisfying our morality, that's fine, but let's be clear about that. Let's not confuse masturbation with an orgy. I think there is benefit in political action, even if the outcome is not achieved. But if we put all our energy into a short-sighted issue, we need to recognize that we're maintaining the status quo.

Last week, I had lunch with a local progressive colleague, the Executive Director of Southern Energy Network Stephanie Powell. She mentioned a story about trying to stay focused on a target (no pun intended, I swear) when planning a direct action campaign: "When I throw a brick, I want to know who's going to say 'ouch.'" Who's going to say 'ouch' at Target? And what do we want them to do?

I also asked my coworker why it's this issue that got him so interested. He agrees that the Citizens United case is a big issue, and this is one of the first giant gifts to come after it. I asked why he isn't opposed to giant corporations for the typical crappy pay and benefits, for centralizing profits in an extremely wealthy few, for using exploited labor in other countries, for razing public housing and turning entire towns into single-employer compounds. He didn't really answer, except for saying that he knows those are problems too. My boss has told me that he gets frustrated with his partner because his partner only seems to care about specifically gay issues. When seniors in Atlanta are getting screwed, my boss cares because it's his job and because it's his passion, and he doesn't ask if those seniors are gay (some presumably are). Why do we only care when we're the ones getting screwed, even if it's someone gave money to someone else who gave money to someone else who supports us getting screwed? Low wages, ghost towns, poverty, public housing -- these are all issues that affect queers and trans folks, and probably affect more of us than a single candidate's not-so-unusual views.

Why aren't we worried about the fact that Republicans are blocking legislation that would address the outcome of Citizens United*? Why aren't we boycotting every big-business, anti-healthcare corporation out there? Or every corporation who gives an amount over $2,000 to any candidate? Why aren't we boycotting every corporation that doesn't pay a living wage, or that gives money to local candidates to get zoning variances? Hell, why aren't we against the idea of being pro-big-business at all?

This is capitalism. This is what we've got. Big business and creepy homophobic conservatism are not strange bedfellows. They are the very same bedfellows that go home to each other every night; we just haven't been paying attention.

*Let's remember that the Supreme Court doesn't decide what's moral or ethical or right -- they decide what's law. I don't know the decision as well as some, but my understanding is not that no legislation could get at the same aim, but that the particular way the legislation was figured was unconstitutional.