Bumped up to front. - Andrew

E.J. Graff commented here and here that today’s antiwar demonstrations don’t accomplish much. I agreed with her here. Demonstrations, no matter how massive, just have no leverage over the administration. Remember, these are people who have no problem even ignoring Congress, which does have some leverage. So what would be effective? What could we do that might possibly affect the decisions being made in the Bush White House? Boycott.

When you try to assess the real motivations behind the Bush regime’s invasion of Iraq, it seems to boil down to machismo and money. The macho part is the well-documented neocon disgruntlement with George the First’s decision to stop Desert Storm short of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. George the Lesser’s lifelong quest to outdo his dad probably falls into this category, as well. The money has to do with oil and Bush’s corporate sponsors. There was an ongoing concern about the future of Saudi Arabia and the stability of Saud family rule there. Iraq has the second-largest proven reserve of Arabian crude – cheap to drill, cheap to refine. A docile, compliant Iraqi government (probably, in the neocon fantasies, headed by Ahmed Chalabi) would insure a steady, plentiful supply. Bush and Cheney are oil men, beholden to the oil industry. They consistently act in the oil companies’ interests, as well as in the interests of their other corporate sponsors – Halliburton, Lockheed-Martin and the rest – who reap large profits from their involvement in the war.

That’s where we might have some leverage – through the money men. Bush doesn’t return our phone calls, but he returns theirs. Here’s the idea: boycott an oil company. We can’t boycott all of the oil companies; too many of us have to use cars to get to work, school and shopping. But we could boycott one of them. Just to pick one that’s been particularly repugnant with regard to pollution and global warming, how about Exxon-Mobil? If you’re against the surge, buy gas at some other gas station. Don’t buy anything from Exxon-Mobil, at least until the troops start coming home. If you feel obligated to march holding signs, to bang pots and pans in memory of Molly Ivins, do it near the entrances of Exxon-Mobil gas stations instead of on the Washington Mall.

Yeah, I know. Exxon-Mobil is sitting on profits of $39.5 billion; how much is a boycott going to affect them? Trust me: if Exxon-Mobil started losing most of its U.S. sales for a few months, the CEO would be on the phone to Incurious George. The message to the oil companies, and indirectly to the White House, would be that it’s now going to be more in your financial interest to bring the war to an end than it would be to continue it. If enough of us did it for long enough, it would make a difference. We have to speak to these clowns in terms of what they perceive as their own best interest.