Your logical reasoning is quite poor. The poster is obviously aware of the various contrarian posts, he simply chooses not to link to them. So your "ostrich mentality" line, which implies a deliberate choice of ignorance, is a wrong conclusion on your part. Also, the OP never once says that the opposing view points must be ignored. He himself did not ignore them. He's simply giving the responsibility of finding & reading them over to the reader. Abe_Lincoln seems to feel that if other people don't do his work for him, then they are somehow suppressing him. This type of hubris, arrogance, childish foot-stomping and stunted reasoning is legion among conservatives. If you want to indulge in reading right-wing group-think, no one will prevent you. Mocking your attitude & calling you on your lack of intellectual ability is not the same thing as censorship. Conservatives people overwhelmingly have a hard time understaning this.

and that the boycotters you describe are "useless armchair activist[s] trying to make [themselves] feel good for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING."  Does writing those words make you feel good even though it arguably does absolutely nothing but describe your opinion?  Does your armchair recline or rock?  Mine does both...and it spins too.

I think the impossibility of boycotting our own country has been pointed out in a previous thread.  If I were to attempt to boycott US made products, I technically would have to stop eating the vegetables growing in my own yard because I (an American!) grew them!

Your inference that (because we're not boycotting the products of our own hands) local activists are doing nothing to resist US oppression of other peoples is obnoxious, incorrect, and tiring.  War tax resistance, home-based production, the direct provision of aid to people oppressed by our government, voting and lobbying, civil disobedience and direct action, membership in co-ops/credit unions/other economic alternatives, and voluntary poverty are all effective (and not uncommon) tools for resistance and social change.

How 'bout YOU tell us which of these YOU practice most?  

Bread & Roses

Yesterday, I wrote about an idea called the Principle of Charity (http://www.divestthis.com/2010/07/principle-of-charity.html), a philosophical concept that translates into two sides being generous with each other when engaging in a debate over even the most heated subjects.

For example, it would be child’s play to make my way through the 500 some-odd comments that have appeared on just Oly news sites and blogs to find accusations of Jews controlling the global financial markets or other comments that would clearly be anti-Semitic and turn around and accuse the entire pro-boycott side of bigotry.  Similarly, “listening” no doubt had little difficulty finding ugly things being said about the Co-op on one or more blogs that could be used to characterize opponents of the boycott as violent, reactionary loons.

But the Principle of Charity requires us to actually assume the other side has something of substance to say on a matter, not to simply try to discredit opponents by searching out the most excessive voices among them and claiming (inaccurately) that a vulgar minority represents the whole.

I have, on no occasion, declared those pushing the boycott to be guilty of any form of hatred and don’t plan to, even if I find another handful of anti-Jewish nastygrams hidden among more substantive arguments to engage with and (hopefully) defeat. 

Perhaps those pushing the current storyline that says everyone who does not accept the boycotter’s position is a threatening, right-wing maniac would return the favor?

There are a nearly a thousand signatures suporting the boycott at www.olympiabds.org. Other endorsers include Naomi Klein, Nomy Lamm, Cindy Shehan.

This is a big deal to people all around the world AND co-op members.

Plenty of folks locally who have sent in supportive letters, notes to the board and thanked the staff. 45 people where there tooday supporting the co-op in their decision!

This is an exciting time to live in Olympia, unfortunately others are attacking the co-op and trying to make it look bad to our community.