Word: reformations
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Still, it is unclear whether ethical consumerism is an effective means of reform. For it to be successful, it must take the form of collective action—while individual protest may do little to affect a corporation’s practices, an organized, widespread boycott can have a major impact, as shown by the public campaign that triggered Starbucks’ shift to “fair trade” coffee...
There is, however, an upper limit on the degree of reform this course of action can bring about. Pulling our money from an individual corporation may have serious repercussions for that corporation. Such actions, however, generally benefit that corporation’s competitors, whose actions are frequently just as exploitative. Take, for example, the “effective” boycott of Shell in the late 1990s, which probably benefited Chevron more than anyone else...
...suddenly controversial system by which the House and Senate Appropriations Committees dish out tens of billions of dollars in pork from the $843 billion a year in discretionary spending they doled out for this year. President Bush and new House Majority Leader John Boehner are now calling for reform of the clubby earmark game. But Appropriations Committee members and the many other pork enthusiasts in Congress have long staved off such change-partly because constituents have seldom got mad at their own representatives for bringing home the bacon...
...Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; House panel members Patrick Kennedy and John Murtha, who would later lambast President Bush over the Iraq war; and Senator Diane Feinstein-along with the many more thousands he showered on GOP members. "This ethically challenged behavior should speak volumes about the need for earmark reform," says Naomi Steiner of Citizens for Responsiblity and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group...
...probably, if we'd fast-forwarded to the current time, would have done that" a year ago, Oldaker said, referring to the ethics climate fostered by the Abramoff scandal. What remains to be seen is whether the new attention on the world of lobbying and earmarks leads to lasting reform or just a new p.r. strategy...