Occupy Your Mind - Vital Resources For Educating Yourself

Today's blog, will have less original content in it than anything I have posted so far. Instead, I will be posting a list of resources and a brief guide on how to use them. It's my hope, that you will be able to use these resources in order to better educate yourselves about the various elements The Occupy Movement has been questioning for what is now over a month.

Open Secrets - This website is a great resource for finding out who politicians are taking campaign contributions from, and to see which politicians are supported by companies who make products you use the most. While we are striving to get corporate dollars out of politics, at the moment our best recourse against the way things are is to be intelligent with our spending. In addition to that, we should also write our politicians and ask them what legislation and committees they are members of that have political influence over the industries their contributors operate in.

Example of Use: 2012 Presidential Candidate Fundraising Summary (All information from Center For Responsive Politics)

Top 5 Fundraisers In 2012 Presidential Elections (Financial Q1, Q2, and Q3 Combined)17

Obama, Barack (D) - 86.2 Million Dollars
Romney, Mitt (R) - 32.2 Million Dollars
Perry, Rick (R) - 17.2 Million Dollars
Paul, Ron (R) - 12.6 Million Dollars
Bachmann, Michelle (R) - 7.5 Million Dollars

Percentage of Funds From Small Individuals* Among Top 5 Fundraisers in 2012 Presidential Elections (Ending September 30, 2011)

Obama, Barack (D) - 46%
Romney, Mitt (R) - 10%
Perry, Rick (R) - 4%
Paul, Ron (R) - 48%
Bachmann, Michelle (R) - 52%

* - Open Secrets considers a Small Donor to be anyone who makes a contribution of $200 or less. They make this distinction, because campaigns do not have to disclose personal information of small donors. It should be noted that based on this definition, a donation over $200 does not equate with a corporate donation.



KnowMore - This website is a wiki based resource that allows consumers to look up companies and look at how they treat their employees, the environment, where they spend their money, and the like. While this does not have as much of a role in terms of the political arena, remember you vote with your wallet. See if the five products you buy most frequently are doing things you disagree with, if so write a letter. The great thing about this site, is they offer critique and praise for companies ... allowing you to decide if the good outweighs the bad. It also gives you other brands under a company's umbrella to allow you to make further informed choices when making purchases.

Example of Use:

Company Query: Urban Outfitters (All info from KnowMore.org)

Company Profile: Urban Outfitters, Inc. is a clothing chain headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The company's 140-plus namesake stores -- mainly in the U.S., but also in Canada and Europe - sell casual clothes, accessories, gifts, housewares, and shoes. The retailer also courts women 30- to 45-year-olds at about 120 Anthropologie shops. Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie also distribute catalogs and operate e-commerce sites. Its wholesale division makes and distributes clothing under the Free People label to its own and about 1,800 department and specialty stores worldwide. Chairman and president Richard Hayne, who founded Urban Outfitters as The Free People's Store in 1970, owns about 30% of the company.

Criticisms

Worker's Rights: 

• Chief Executive Officer Glen T. Senk had total pay of $4,013,380 in 2008 according to the AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch Database.[2]
• Denying Collective Bargaining Rights, November 27, 2009. Urban Outfitters drew the attention of the Swedish press for denying collective bargaining rights to employees at their Stockholm store by making all 48 workers redundant and re-hiring them through employment agency Academic Work. In response to the move, ombudsman Jimmy Ekman called for tougher laws to prevent other firms denying collective bargaining rights in this way.

Praise

Business Ethics:

• Urban Outfitters Goes Fur-Free Following PETA Plea, March 23, 2009. In response to PETA's (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) letter and nearly 4,000 e-mails from PETA supporters, Urban Outfitters has agreed to stop selling fur in its stores. In an e-mail to PETA, Urban Outfitters Senior Public Relations Manager Andrea Cuscik wrote, "I can confirm that there is no fur in our stores and this will continue to be the case." PETA goes on to say - Why are caring people concerned about the sale of fur? Animals trapped in the wild may suffer for days before dying from exposure, frostbite, shock, or infection or by being strangled, stomped, or bludgeoned to death by trappers. Animals on fur farms are confined to tiny, filthy cages where they often go insane before they are gassed, poisoned, or electrocuted or have their necks broken.[3]
  
• Urban Outfitters Partners With NonProfitShoppingMall.com, May 4, 2009. NonProfitShoppingMall.com works with consumers, retailers, and charities to turn every day shopping into every day giving. Shoppers choose from more than 300 brand-name retailers featuring clothing and accessories, home and garden decor, travel deals, health and beauty products, pet supplies, action sports gear and more. Retail partners include Home Depot, Target, Macys, Urban Outfitters, Staples, PetCo and many others, including a wide range of green and eco-friendly merchants. E-commerce, or online shopping, can help reduce the environmental impact of shopping by using about a third less energy than traditional retail. A recent study by the Carnegie Mellon Green Design Institute found that the carbon footprint from e-commerce is a third smaller than bricks-and-mortar retail. Avoiding express airmail and reusing and recycling shipping boxes further reduces impact.

Brands and Subsidiaries:
Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, Terrain, and Leifsdottir