How Do You Boycott Arizona?

Apr 28, 2010

It’s one thing to tweet "boycott arizona" and another to make it happen.

For those of you who want to make it happen: Don’t book a flight on U.S. Airways, get a domain name through Go Daddy or rent a U-Haul truck.

These are all businesses based in Arizona and you can find more by clicking here, courtesy of the Denver group Padres Unidos Jovenes Unidos.

So far, the first real pinch to Arizona’s economy has come from six canceled conferences. The state’s lost between $5,000 for the smaller groups and $45,000 for the larger ones. The Immigration Lawyers Association was one, nixing their meeting scheduled for later this year despite a reported $92,000 cancellation fee.

Everything else remains to be seen.

Yes, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón has said he’s pissed off about the new anti-immigrant law and he will do something. You know, someday. Soon. And yes, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom has barred city officials from traveling to Arizona on business, except for work related to policing and public health, but the impact of that is yet to be seen and he doesn’t know what he can do about city contracts with Arizona businesses. He’s formed a task force to find out. Ditto for the city’s Board of Supervisors and Los Angeles politicans.

All of which means what we’ve always known: it’s up to people on the ground to make it happen. John Amato of CrooksandLiars.com is calling for a boycott of the Diamondbacks game tomorrow against the Cubs at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

Who won’t be boycotting? Prisons.

That’s right. California has a fat contract with Corrections Corp. of American, your friendly private prison corp., to transfer about 4,000 prisoners every year from the Golden State to the Hate State. Schwarzenegger doesn’t support the Arizona immigration law but said yesterday that he won’t cancel the contract with Corrections Corp. "I want to keep our prisoners where they are. I don’t want to get them back…I want to send more out of state." Lovely. Now if only we could ship him out of state, or boycott him.

Image by Rjosef.