The power of boycotts; The Ink, March 31, 2025

Anand Giridharadas, The Ink; The power of boycotts

"Elon Musk’s feelings are hurt. His companies are suffering.

Weird, coming from the guy who denounced empathy as Western civilization’s “fundamental weakness.” While a little needling by Tim Walz about Tesla’s plummeting share price may have set him off, the real pain point is the #teslatakedown movement, which this past Saturday put on a worldwide day of action.

Folks on the right like to complain about boycotts. They’ve called them illegal. They’ve tried to intimidate those who’d dare use their economic power. They’ve threatened to criminalize the very idea. They’ve commingled peaceful calls for investors and shoppers to withhold their hard-earned dollars with acts of vandalism, and have tried to paint the entire movement as terrorism. But, as you might expect, accusations are confessions: what far-right political figures mean when they denounce boycotts is that they want to decide who gets boycotted.

So what is it that scares the guy who wants to privatize everything? Members of the public, exercising their private power to decide, and doing it collectively (Musk famously hates that whole collective thing). Because when that power is clearly targeted and well organized, it gets results. Maybe it’s the sheer gumption of speaking truth to power in its native language — money — that pains Musk. But that’s the free market, isn’t it?"

Fred Rogers’s Life in 5 Artifacts; The New York Times, June 5, 2018

Robert Ito, The New York Times; Fred Rogers’s Life in 5 Artifacts

"“I needed artifacts to figure out who [Fred Rogers] was as a man,” [Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville] said. With the help of the archivist Emily Uhrin, Mr. Neville looked at fan letters, interviews, annotated scripts and more housed at the Fred Rogers Center in Latrobe, Pa. Then there were all those episodes from the show that began in 1968: the host arguing against isolationism during the height of the Vietnam War, or explaining the word “assassination” to children after the death of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

Now Rogers, who died in 2003, is the subject of two film projects, one starring Tom Hanks and due next year, and the other, Mr. Neville’s documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” opening June 8. Here are five of Mr. Neville’s favorite items from the center...

Senate Testimony 

On May 1, 1969, Rogers went before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications to argue against a proposed funding cut to PBS. Sen. John O. Pastore, the subcommittee chairman, had clearly never heard of the host or seen any of his shows, but after only six minutes of testimony by Rogers (including one song, recited from memory, about anger management), the politician went from a gruff, dismissive foe to a lifelong fan. “Many people would call Fred a wimp, but what you realize in that moment is that Fred was the most iron-willed person out there,” Mr. Neville said. “It’s Mister Rogers goes to Washington. It’s the perfect example of somebody speaking truth to power, and winning.” (Pastore blocked the proposed cut.)"