Left Brain/Right Brain: Why boycott the Bush inauguration?

By James Gillen and Lisa Coffey

James: So this guy David Livingston has organized a boycott of all businesses for Bush's inaugural Jan. 20. And for the life of me, I can't see the point. If Democrats couldn't achieve a substantial change or get a majority when people actually voted Nov. 2, why would they hope to achieve real results with a totally symbolic gesture?

Lisa: In 1880 a group of oppressed Irish tenants banded together to give the cold shoulder to their villain land agent Charles C. Boycott, who found himself isolated--without servants, farmhands, service in stores or mail delivery. So effective was this symbolic gesture that Boycott's name has attached to the concept in numerous languages besides English.

The American Heritage Dictionary says that to boycott is "to act together in abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with as an expression of protest or disfavor or as a means of coercion." Nonviolent, otherwise-powerless people usually employ the expression-of-protest-type boycott. British subjects in the Colonies expressed their dissatisfaction with the king's oppression by boycotting British goods prior to the American Revolution. Civil rights advocates in the '60s boycotted the public transportation systems that brutalized and dehumanized Southern blacks. The boycott of grapes and lettuce on behalf of the downtrodden United Farm Workers was a long but finally effective haul.

Self-serving oppressors, on the other hand, tend to prefer the coercion-type boycott. The Nazis included boycotts of Jewish merchants as part of their warm-up strategy for the Holocaust. And let's not forget the right-wing "Christian" conservatives who boycotted Disneyland to advance their cause of systematic corporate gay-bashing.

James: Good history lesson there. But what distinguishes the "oppressed" from the "self-serving oppressors," especially since (for example) the Christians boycotting Disney didn't accomplish anything either? It seems that the only distinction is what you think about the target.

Lisa: Holocaust survivors might take issue with the notion that it's entirely subjective. But that's one of the things I find so intriguing about the conservative "Christians," including our president. Have you tuned in to "The 700 Club" lately? In between sales pitches for the vitamins, exercise videos and financial planning programs endorsed by the Lord, "Reverend" Pat frequently complains about the "oppression" of "Christians" who are just trying to exercise their God-given right to turn the United States of America into the theocracy he believes God intended it to be. (By the way, won't you join me in keeping those quotation marks in place around the word "Christian" to distinguish the right-wing zealots from those decent people who practice the principles actually espoused by Jesus, such as tolerance, generosity and contempt for hypocrisy?)

James: My point exactly. Just because the "Christians" think they're oppressed doesn't mean they are. And if the Democrats consider themselves "downtrodden" just because they didn't win, it doesn't mean they are. And in either case, I don't see how boycotting achieves a real result.

Lisa: I don't know if Mr. Livingston considers himself downtrodden, but apparently he is deeply concerned about the war in Iraq. He has noticed that a majority of his fellow citizens share his concern, and he thinks it would be appropriate for the president to acknowledge as much. "I view the inauguration of Bush as a black Thursday for this country," he has said. "We've tried marching in the streets to stop the war; we tried writing letters; we tried initiatives on the web, but Bush doesn't listen. It seems to us the only thing Bush and the Republicans will listen to is money." I admire Livingston's motives, and only wonder if he's naive to think that Bush listens to just any old money without being picky about who it belongs to.

James: Iraq is a pretty big subject in itself, but if Vietnam taught us anything it's that being "concerned" and trying to stop the war isn't going to be nearly as helpful to the region as winning it. I don't think too many Cambodians and South Vietnamese were happy that we abandoned them. And if Livingston is na•ve in thinking that Bush listens to anybody's money, he's got a lot of company in those who think that that's all Republicans care about.

Lisa: I don't know if anybody stopped on that embassy rooftop to take a poll. I do remember it looking suspiciously like lots of Vietnamese hoped the U.S. military wouldn't let the door hit them in the ass on their way out. And one last thought on the value of boycotts: Whether boycotts are successful or not, the personal satisfaction of the participants can constitute a very real result. For instance, I've been conducting a private, one-woman boycott of Wal-Mart ever since right-wing "Christian" Mr. Walton decided that women whose doctors prescribe RU486 should not be able to have those prescriptions filled (and even before we found out about his sex discrimination and immigration policies.) So far, Walton hasn't acknowledged the impact, but I find it highly gratifying.