Are we headed to an economy where most of our purchases are driven by political, philosophical and religious philosophies? Consumers in the US have been protesting corporations who they do not like by boycotting their products. This has been done either for labor practices, to protest apatheid, and to protest non-US manufactured goods.

However, in a separate thread an article was posted ( http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...;;page=unread#unread ) where a few consumers state they won't buy goods from companies based on the politics of the company (Ben and Jerry's and Starbucks in this one instance).

Should companies avoid having affiliations that consumers might disagree with? Is it just another example of how the free market is consumers "voting" with their dollars? Should MORE companies be doing this? If so, do we run the risk of having liberal and conservative super markets etc?

People seem to take the differences we all share in our political views so fiercely these days that group A might consider never shopping at a certain national chain they feel is sympathetic to group B's cause. Am I nuts for having a small fear this may eventually happen? People already "boycott" certain news outlets and television networks because of biases (real or not).