Boycott Goods From [Insert country's name here]
Following George W. Bush's recent press conference in which he vowed that the U.S. and Great Britain would disarm Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power, with or without International support, Grassroots campaigns to boycott countries that have refused to help have become explosively popular.
In the past week, I have received dozens of copies of different chain letters. So many, in fact, that I'm having trouble sorting them all out. Some focus only on the French. Some target any nation that has been reluctant to sign the U.N. resolution. Many include lists of products and companies owned by powers in those nations. Checking them all out will be time-consuming, but I felt I should say something about them in the meantime.
BreakTheChain.org recommends against forwarding or participating in any e-mail based boycott campaign. They are generally failures because they fail to garner sufficient support. Also, as with any chain letter, they offer no privacy protections to those who send or receive them. Participating in them may make you feel good, but real activism is never that easy.
If you receive one of these e-mails, help the cause by putting it to the tests of Armchair Activism before deciding whether to forward or delete.