Stonewall urges LGBT people to support M&S!!!

Justice supporter | 10.11.2009 11:42 | Gender | Palestine

When a huge wave of complaints reached the Daily Mail because of Jan Moir's homophobic article on the death of Stephen Gately, top advertisers including BT, M&S and Nestle removed their advertisements from the Daily Mail website.
The November 2009 Bulletin urges LGBT people to support M&S to thank them for that.

Quoting from the Bulletin:
"P.S. There was one encouraging footnote to the Jan Moir incident. Top advertisers including BT, M&S and Nestle led the way removing their advertisements from the Daily Mail website which featured the article in protest. At Stonewall we believe in ethical consumerism, supporting those businesses which support us. So if you have the chance, please switch to BT, pop into M&S or buy a Kit Kat this week!"

Ethical Consumerism? Supporting M&S?

And what about M&S purposely supporting the commercial development of Israel, a state that continues its crimes against the Palestinians? What about buying and importing israeli products produced in illegal settlements on palestinian land?

Shame to Stonewall!

Justice supporter

Comments

Hide the following 14 comments

boycott M&S and Nestle

10.11.2009 12:05

M&S are also investing into Sri-Lanka, supporting the terror and genocide against Tamil people.

http://boycottsrilanka.wordpress.com/

And Nestle is profiting on children death.

http://www.babymilkaction.org/pages/boycott.html

Kit Kat for fuck's sake!

stonewall is a joke

ethical consumerism

10.11.2009 15:20

ethical consumerism? Surely an oxymoron. ( or propoganda to help Grauniad readers feel better about themselves - ( see green consumer, social entrepeneur, and all the other faux not-for-profit institutions /NGOP.'s/PFI-motherfuckas )

Skip

link to the homophobic article

10.11.2009 17:57

I assume this is the article in question?:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death--.html

I use Firefox with AdBlock Plus (

http://adblockplus.org/en/), so I never see adverts anyway. Makes browsing much faster too because you don't download all the crap.

anon

It's always going to be like that

10.11.2009 18:28

We all have primary issues, secondary issues, tertiary issues, etc. If you imagine that your interests are ever going to line up conveniently like ducks in a row you are deluding yourself.

The cry "shame" to Stonewall is wrong. It is right/natural that LGBT folks should give higher priority to what affects their own lives. Notice that I am not saying that these issues should be most important to YOU. By all means oppose M&S if in YOUR ranking of issues Israel-Palestine comes ahead of LGBT issues. It would be equally wrong for the LGBT folks to condemn your choice.

If you are waiting for that grand and glorious day when we all agree on priorities and issues you will wait forever. Need to come to grips with the reality that you will ALWAYS face the situation that your allies in one fight might be on the other side in another and come up with useful strategies for dealing with that --- and expecting to "convert" the other guy to your way of thinking isn not useful.

MDN

as if.....

10.11.2009 19:41

speaking as a gay male sadly I do find that most on the LGBT scene are only really concerned about issues directly related to themselves (if that to be honest) there is so much apathy - you only have to look ay 'gay pride' events up and down the country - most focus on making money, advertising businesses as well as sponsorship by banks, councils, police forces, corporations etc pushing their "fag friendly" false public image. sadly I am not suprised that Stonewall have pushed these companies as "ethical" on the sole basis that they dropped their adverts with the DM - this was quite probably more for PR reasons and not losing "the pink £" than it was for actually denouncing homophobia.

queenie

"ethical consumerism"

10.11.2009 20:23

MDN, what on earth are you talking about? Struggle is struggle - as a LGBT activist I say shame on stonewall.

What created the impression?

10.11.2009 20:42

That I was in any way, shape, or form, denying "struggle is struggle"? I thought I was making it very clear that even when we find our order of priorities might differ, we respect the choices other have made, which fights THEY think deserve the higher priority. All that I was saying is that to imagine that we will ever always agree on priorities is silly, and yes, we can sometimes find we are partisans on opposite sides on issue X while being allies on the same side on issue Y.

I am by no means criticizing your choice. Perhaps even praiseworthy for a gay person to sobordiante their own struggles relative to another fight. But it's also not blameworthy to put one's own interests first. I was responding to an expression of BLAME. Then the charge is made that Stonewall is ONLY about gay issues. So? What is wrong about that? To organize in that fashion means that they recognize that just because they are united (over gay issues) doesn't mean that they have any other issues necessarily in common. To keep an organization "single focus" is ONE possible strategy for dealing with the reality I described, we don't have internal conflicts over other issues becuase we exclude them (from our collective consideration). Not the only approach. But be sure there are positives and negatives with any approach.

MDN

50ft queenie

11.11.2009 03:13

How am I subordinating my own struggles "relative" to another fight? As I said, struggle is struggle. It is all one fight. It is the failure to recognise this that keeps us all divided.

Anti-capitalism is as much part of me as being trans or anti-fascist.

I can accept stonewall for saying "good on business x for doing the right thing" but not for them to then go and advocate people buying product y from said business. Stonewall are/should be a LBGTQ rights group, imo that doesn't involved hawking products from ethically questionable corporations. Sadly I have to agree with everything queenie says. :/

boom

I find I am in a dilemma

11.11.2009 10:07

I want to reward M&S for standing up against homophobia.

However, I am also conscious that the Hamas government in Gaza persecutes and kills Palestinian gay men.

By contrast, Israel holds gay pride marches and is the only state in the Middle East with a thriving gay cultural life.

However, I do not find M&S's clothes particularly stylish.

Hmm.

Frank
mail e-mail: starsqui@gmail.com

pants...

11.11.2009 13:09

campaigning cannot be all stick and no carrot, so...

today i will buy some m&s socks as i need some anyway.

when they do something positive about israel and gaza i will buy pants.

watcher

But that's the problem, "Boom"

11.11.2009 20:32

"How am I subordinating my own struggles "relative" to another fight? As I said, struggle is struggle. It is all one fight. It is the failure to recognise this that keeps us all divided.
Anti-capitalism is as much part of me as being trans or anti-fascist."

It's as much a part of YOU. But how about him? How about her? They may equally have issues and collectively these issues may represent "all one fight" BUT (a very big but) they may be on the other side than you are in one or more of those other issues.

Precisely this keeps us divided but there is absolutely nothing that can be done about that. I know the thought is disturbing, but there is an exercise you can try help you understand the nature of the problem. Assume in each case where your ally in fight A (over issue A) is on the opposite side in fight B (over issue B). You want to unify that into "all one fight"? Then pretend that the price of that unity is that you have to agree with his or her position over issue B. Can't? But that's exactly what you are asking the other person to do.

I am NOT saying that "single issue orgnaizations/campaigns" with strict rules against bringing in issues foreign to the group purpose (because the group is NOT on the same side over this foreign issue) is the only strategy. It's just one strategy. It has its warts but so do alternatives. What you need to consider is that if you demand your ally in fight A join your side in fight B (because "it's all one fight") then the cost MIGHT be they leave you over A. Everything needs to be wieghed in the balance.

Real politics involves real human beings, not the imaginary ones of your "druthers". Have you ever considered WHY standard "left politics" results in a zillion tiny groups unable to unify over very much? Precisely the insistence that "unifying into a single fight has to be on OUR terms". Note that the fact that you know in your heart of hearts you are right on all your positions is useless. The other guy knows in his heart of hearts that he or she is right.

I am saying need to COPE with this reality, not delude ourselves into imagining it's a problem we can make go away.

MDN

Unity of opposites

13.11.2009 16:34

There is no problem, and if I ever had an "ally" who's position was opposite to my own they would no longer be an ally. They wouldn't get the choice of "leaving" me in position A. This also answers your comment on the fash in AR piece - I don't want the support of the fascists in animal rights; their position makes them against AR, no matter what they say.

Fortunately, LGBT rights is one struggle with all other struggles of exploitation. There are no sides for me to choose.

I'm not unified with fascists either, because I'm opposed to what they stand for. In your comments to this and other articles you seem desperate to create divisions where none exist.

I've no idea what a "druther" is (if you wish to communicate with the British population use phrases that are understood by people who use British English).

As for left politics, I have 0 interest in how "left politics" organise and how they splinter. I'm for social change, not political change.

I'll repeat one more time, it's all one fight. If groups like stonewall want to support the exploitation of a certain section of the worlds population then I will oppose them & encourage others to do the same. I can and do act autonomously, there is no "our terms" - I decide things in concensus with others and my unity is with the people of the world who suffer because of said exploitation.

But then again, why am I arguing this - searching your name in the archives show that your aims and desires are to spread discord in the movement/on indymedia.

Boom

You honestly don't understand (how sweet)

14.11.2009 12:53

"Fortunately, LGBT rights is one struggle with all other struggles of exploitation. There are no sides for me to choose."

Consider it from the other direction. Assume that you are an L person or a G or a B or a T. You are directly connected to the LGBT struggle whether or not you choose to take an active role. It's not a choice. A person doesn't get to choose to be LGBT. But they can be captialist as well as socialist, aligned to the political right as well as the left, be vegans or blood sport enthusiasts, collect stamps or go skiing. Or to bring it back to where this started, they could be partisans on the "Zionist" side or the Palestinian side (you think there aren't LGBT "Zionists" as well as LGBT Palestinians?)

And the problem is broader than in just this example and it does apply to situations where the choices could well be voluntary on the issues as well as involuntary. In the REAL WORLD politics is messy.

I know, it would be comforting to think that it could all be neatly unified into "one struggle" becuase then you wouldn't have to deal with this problem. I am saying that to think that way is self delusion and it's the reason why we fail to effectively unite on issues.

MDN

*

15.11.2009 17:38

I don't need to assume I am L G B T or Q - I AM T, Q and pansexual.

As I have said numerous times, all one struggle. But then you know this, and that is why you try to create divisions on indymedia.

Fortunately you do it very badly, very few people take you seriously. My last comment on the matter, as we all know arguing with stooges and trolls is pointless.

Boom