Reader of the Week- Some Dirty Liberal

My favorite post, the "Reader of the Week," has made its triumphant return after a few weeks of inactivity. This week's recipient is Kim Feraday. He responded to this post, in which I urged readers to buy union made vehicles. I come from a union town and I've witnessed first hand the drastic effects that plant closures have on communities. While a 'union-only auto' policy is reactionary, as it does nothing to address ownership over the means of production and distribution, it does ensure that unionized auto workers in my community have a job. Kim remarked...

Just wondering, do you buy only union made clothing? Or shoes? Or technology? Or food? Or Coffee? Dos the CAW-UAW do the same or require that their members do this?

My response is that I buy union whenever possible. It's easy to bring up examples like shoes, clothes, and coffee, which, in most cases, likely aren't union made. No, the UAW-CAW doesn't require it's members to do only buy union, though the unions, like myself, encourage people to buy union whenever possible. In the auto industry, we have no excuse not to. That being said, I do all my grocery shopping at union shops (and increasingly I've been purchasing other household type items from unionized grocery stores), drive a union vehicle, ensure that any hotel I stay at is unionized, and make sure that any products that my local buys (ie/ tee-shirts, pens etc.) are made in a union shop. On campus, I buy all food from the unionized places, as opposed to the near-by, non-union shops. It's nearly impossible to only buy union, but whenever possible, it's something we should strive to do.

That being said, one of Kim's favorite books is by Adam Smith, so I assume that his political outlook is pretty disgusting to begin with.