I'm on the board a Buy Blue and we are working to get retail consumers to support progressive companies and not companies like Wal-Mart. First it was just where the political dollars are going and now it is getting volunteers to help rate them on progressive values. Social responsibility, progressive labor practices, the environment. Check the web site for companies...then spread the word. Our first year has shown a steady increase and conciousness in how people show...even in red states if my family in Utah is any indicator.

I'll respond in full later because you have some great questions I want to think about first.

(I have the flu and am barely awake!)

There are many different directions from which to approach these issues of determining what's important to us and what kind of choices we feel we need to make to uphold those things, and I thought it important thaty we be able to talk about it all.

Philosophically speaking, in a perfect world none of us would ever be faced with decisions that might involve compromising our principles at times in order to prevent a greater harm. and tragically, our human history is far too full of examples where this sort of delicate and far reaching calculus has resulted in unmitigated catastrophe for millions of our forebearers.

But, we are not living in a perfect world, not by a long shot, and because of this, we are faced with choices that are often not easy, not clearly defined, and certainly not free of compromise. In Buddhism, it is often said that "Life is Suffering", and while I'm not a practising Buddhist, I think this "life is suffering" concept refers in part to exactly this sort of thing; that we are faced with decisions we'd prefer not to have to make sometimes. We are faced with choices that may require us to enable harm to one in order to prevent harm to many. And these sorts of choices are not always avoidable and never bring pleasure.

I've learned relatively late in life that doing the right thing is not always synonymous with doing the happy thing. I realize there are times when supporting a small bum in order to deny power to a bigger and more malevolent bum is called for. I dread those decisions; I get angry when I find myself in the position of seeing such a choice as necessary because I want a world where such decisions don't need to be made. I weas angry when I felt I should vote for Kerry as a way of stopping Bush. I had no faith in Kerry, I had no respect for him and felt he'd be a terrible president who'd only worsen and weaken the principled foundation of the country and of the party by his endless equivocating and his hollow, ambiguous rhetoric. But I voted for him anyway, despite my anger and disenchantment, because I had just a few months before literally come back from the dead and felt I had to make my mark in opposition to the Bush gang on the off chance they'd be defeated.

Another thing is that I don't see this stuff in terms of good vs. evil. the term "lesser of two evils" is a useful metaphor for describing the relation between two unpalatable alternatives, but I'm a "cause and effect" sort of person, not a judgment-based, "good vs. evil" type. I believe that the more you compromise the more likely it is you'll wind up surounded by things and people you don't want around you at all. (the very arc of the life cycle for so many in our society follows this path of compromise. So many work so hard when they are young and forego the things they want to do and experience for the sake of saving it all for a retirement which for so many brings nothing but resentment and anger and despondency.) So I'm not an advocate for compromise as a way of life, but I do recognize that there are times when it's necessary.

I would hope that others might be able to accept the idea that both compromise and standing up for principle have merit and are not mutually exclusive in an absolutist sense. Rather than defending one or the other viewpoint, it seems to me we could be discussing how to better define when one works best for us and the other doesn't, and vice versa.

As for your remarks about corporations, I think one of the biggest mistakes we made here in America and later in the rest of the world was when we accorded fundamental human civil rights to corporate entities. We'll be paying in blood for that massive blunder until the next ice age comes, but that's another story.

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.