Do you remember the horrors of apartheid? Were you alive to hear the stories of how black people had to be out of cities by dark? And do you remember when it fell? When South Africa finally succumbed to world opinion and stopped the racist laws? I do! I remember how hard we worked to convince companies and Universities to divest from South African investments! And we won! We learned that economic boycotts are powerful tools for social justice, for demanding morality! I remember the Montgomery bus boycotts — the reason Rosa Parks is so well known is not just because she refused to move to the back of the bus, but because her refusal and arrest kicked off the successful boycott that finally forced integration of the buses.
Shamefully, California is following the US Congress in trying to punish businesses who use boycotts to demand action! All of this is in an attempt to protect Israel, (yes, led by the same right winger who decided to visit the US Congress and snub our president).
Why would Israel need protection? Because the right wing rulers have engaged in immoral warfare against the indigenous population. Yes, I read all the Leon Uris books, and I mindlessly supported Israel for many years. But finally, the civil rights abuses, the segregated state, made me look again at the rulers, and start to learn more about Benjamin Netanyahu’s state.
But now the US Congress, and the California legislature, has decided that companies that use the most effective way to insist on morality — boycotts and divestiture — will be punished! They’ve started another McCarthy-type enemies list of companies that dare to engage in boycotts (there goes the Flush Rush movement?)
When protesting immorality is grounds to punish companies by policy, we have entered a dark and distressing period, where the government tells companies they must do business with morally repugnant governments.
Shame on the legislators who passed these laws. Trying to punish companies for insisting on morality by their business partners is despicable! Let’s band together to vote them out! When facing government sponsored wrongs, like apartheid, like building settlements in contested regions, like implementing human rights abuses for keeping Palestinians in check… when facing such government policies, we have duty to the future to say NO, to demand change, and to use economic power to insist on change!