Forum Post: the "contradiction" of using a product while protesting corporations - a specious argument

Was watching CNN as a woman interviewed a protestor using an Apple laptop and confronted her, asking if it wasn't a contradiction to participate while using the product of a major corporation. Was she not supporting the very thing she was protesting?

This is a specious argument, that if taken to its conclusion would preclude the use of any product to those angered by the injustice of its producer. If you disagree with the policy of GE's board, you cannot own a refrigerator, if a major paper conglomerate cooks its books you may not use toilet paper. This protest is against injustice committed by the greedy, not commerce itself or the products of corporations.

The corporations themselves, the components of the companies and their products are often victims themselves of the boards that govern them, suffering cutbacks and outsourcing of labor. This is the product of Wall Street, that anyone with the money to buy in is able to buy control, often without the least regard for the welfare of the company they've bought into, and often with far greater concern for their own profit even at the expense of the company itself. The nature of Wall Street is that the greatest benefit goes to those who had the least to do with end product.

We do not have to sit naked under a tree to recognize injustice, or be a victim of it. We do not have to stop the product of a corporation, or the use of its product to be outraged by wrongdoing in the exploitation of that product. We can recognize the difference between the company and the corporation, the product and the profiteer without being a hypocrite, just as we can recognize the difference between words and acts, direction and misdirection, lies posing as truth.