Anarchists in the Aisles? Stores Provide a Stage

Stocked with messages - Artists, would-be advertisers use unsuspecting stores as medium



The New York Times reports:

This is the season of frenetic shopping, but for a devious few people it’s also the season of spirited shopdropping.

Otherwise known as reverse shoplifting, shopdropping involves surreptitiously putting things in stores, rather than illegally taking them out, and the motivations vary.

Anti-consumerist artists slip replica products packaged with political messages onto shelves while religious proselytizers insert pamphlets between the pages of gay-and-lesbian readings at book stores.

Self-published authors sneak their works into the “new releases” section, while personal trainers put their business cards into weight-loss books, and aspiring professional photographers make homemade cards — their Web site address included, of course — and covertly plant them into stationery-store racks.

“Everyone else is pushing their product, so why shouldn’t we?” said Jeff Eyrich, a producer for several independent bands, who puts stacks of his bands’ CDs — marked “free” — on music racks at Starbucks whenever the cashiers look away.

Though not new, shopdropping has grown in popularity in recent years, especially as artists have gathered to swap tactics at Web sites like Shopdropping.net, and groups like the Anti-Advertising Agency, a political art collective, do training workshops open to the public.

Retailers fear the practice may annoy shoppers and raise legal or safety concerns, particularly when it involves children’s toys or trademarked products.

“Our goal at all times is to provide comfortable and distraction-free shopping,” said Bethany Zucco, a spokeswoman for Target. “We think this type of activity would certainly not contribute to that goal.” She said she did not know of any shopdropping at Target stores.

But Packard Jennings does. An artist who lives in Oakland, Calif., he said that for the last seven months he had been working on a new batch of his Anarchist action figure that he began shopdropping this week at Target and Wal-Mart stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“When better than Christmas to make a point about hyper-consumerism?” asked Mr. Jennings, 37, whose action figure comes with tiny accessories including a gas mask, bolt cutter, and two Molotov cocktails, and looks convincingly like any other doll on most toy-store shelves. Putting it in stores and filming people as they try to buy it as they interact with store clerks, Mr. Jennings said he hoped to show that even radical ideology gets commercialized. He said for safety reasons he retrieves the figures before customers take them home.

Jason Brody, lead singer for an independent pop-rock band in the East Village, said his group recently altered its shopdropping tactics to cater to the holiday rush.

Normally the band, the Death of Jason Brody, slips promotional CD singles between the pages of The Village Voice newspaper and into the racks at large music stores. But lately, band members have been slipping into department stores and putting stickers with logos for trendy designers like Diesel, John Varvatos and 7 for All Mankind on their CDs, which they then slip into the pockets of designer jeans or place on counters.

“Bloomingdale’s and 7 for All Mankind present the Death of Jason Brody, our pick for New York band to watch in 2008,” read a sticker on one of the CDs placed near a register at Bloomingdales. “As thanks for trying us on, we’re giving you this special holiday gift.” Bloomingdales and 7 for All Mankind declined to comment.

For pet store owners, the holidays usher in a form of shopdropping with a touch of buyer’s remorse. What seemed like a cute gift idea at the time can end up being dumped back at a store, left discretely to roam the aisles.

“After Easter, there’s a wave of bunnies; after Halloween, it’s black cats; after Christmas, it’s puppies,” said Don Cowan, a spokesman for the store chain Petco, which in the month after each of those holidays sees 100 to 150 pets abandoned in its aisles or left after hours in cages in front of stores. Snakes have been left in crates, mice and hamsters surreptitiously dropped in dry aquariums, even a donkey left behind after a store’s annual pet talent show, Mr. Cowan said.

Bookstores are especially popular for self-promotion and religious types of shopdropping.

At BookPeople in Austin, Tex., local authors have been putting bookmarks advertising their own works in books on similar topics. At Mac’s Backs Paperbacks, a used bookstore in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, employees are dealing with the influx of shopdropped works by local poets and playwrights by putting a price tag on them and leaving them on the shelves.

At Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore., religious groups have been hitting the magazines in the science section with fliers featuring Christian cartoons, while their adversaries have been moving Bibles from the religion section to the fantasy/science-fiction section.

This week an arts group in Oakland, the Center for Tactical Magic, began shopdropping neatly folded stacks of homemade T-shirts into Wal-Mart and Target stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. The shirts feature radical images and slogans like one with the faces of Karl Marx, Che Guevara and Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian anarchist. It says, “Peace on Earth. After we overthrow capitalism.”

“Our point is to put a message, not a price tag, on them,” said Aaron Gach, 33, a spokesman for the group.

Mr. Jennings’s anarchist action figure met with a befuddled reaction from a Target store manager on Wednesday in El Cerrito, Calif.

“I don’t think this is a product that we sell,” the manager said as Mr. Jennings pretended to be a customer trying to buy it. “It’s definitely antifamily, which is not what Target is about.”

One of the first reports of shopdropping was in 1989, when a group called the Barbie Liberation Organization sought to make a point about sexism in children’s toys by swapping the voice hardware of Barbie dolls with those in GI Joe figures before putting the dolls back on store shelves.

Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, said he was not sure if shopdropping was illegal but that some forms of it could raise safety concerns because the items left on store shelves might not abide by labeling requirements and federal safety standards.

Ryan Watkins-Hughes, 28, a photographer from Brooklyn, teamed up with four other artists to shopdrop canned goods with altered labels at Whole Foods stores in New York City this week. “In the holidays, people get into this head-down, plow-through-the-shopping autopilot mode,” Mr. Watkins-Hughes said “‘I got to get a dress for Cindy, get a stereo for Uncle John, go buy canned goods for the charity drive and get back home.’”

“Warhol took the can into the gallery. We bring the art to the can,” he said, adding that the labels consisted of photographs of places he had traveled combined with the can’s original bar code so that people could still buy them.

“What we do is try to inject a brief moment of wonder that helps wake them up from that rushed stupor,” he said, pausing to add, “That’s the true holiday spirit, isn’t it?”

Transcript of 'Democracy Now!' For August 1, 2007

Salvadorans Face Terror Charges For Opposing Water Privatization

Transcript from Democracy Now!:

AMY GOODMAN: We turn to El Salvador, where protests against water privatization early last month ended with the arrest of fourteen protesters, thirteen of whom were subsequently charged with committing acts of terrorism.

On July 2, hundreds of people had gathered in the Suchitoto municipality to protest President Antonio Saca’s plan to decentralize water distribution. They saw the plan as an attempt to privatize municipal water resources as stipulated in a 1998 World Bank loan. The protesters were met with heavily armed riot police, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas on the crowd and detained fourteen people. Among those arrested was a journalist covering the protest and members of CRIPDES, the Association of Rural Communities for the Development of El Salvador. They were on their way to attend the rally in Suchitoto.

Last week, the prisoners were released on bail as a result of national and international pressure. But the charges of terrorism remain, and if found guilty, they could face up to sixty years of prison time. El Salvador's antiterrorism law came into effect last year and is modeled on the USA PATRIOT Act. Human rights groups have condemned the government’s response and application of this draconian law. Human Rights Watch said yesterday the law criminalizes a wide variety of acts most of which “do not fall within any reasonable definition of terrorism.”

Today, Krista Hanson joins us, also from Boston, to tell us more. She's the program director at CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Krista. Explain what's happening in El Salvador.

KRISTA HANSON: Well, I think that what's really important to know about that event on July 2 in Suchitoto is that it comes from -- I mean, the resistance that was happening there comes from a long history in El Salvador of -- first, of this implementation of privatization. People in El Salvador know what privatization of public resources looks like. The telecommunications, electricity, other industries have been privatized, and the rates go up so much that people have no access anymore to those. And so, you can't have that with water, right?

So over the last couple of years people have been out in the streets. And community by community, really, going out, and a common protest tactic is to shut down a street and demand access to water, to demand that it not be decentralized or privatized, or that there even be water. People pay water bills right now, and water comes out one hour a day in their taps, or one day a week or two days as a week, so people have been doing this for the last couple of years.

What was different on July 2 is that we're getting a lot closer to the government pushing forward this general water law that would privatize the currently public water system. So people were out there defending their right to water, defending, trying to stop the announcement of this first step in decentralization.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain the response of the state, of the police, and who the people are who have been arrested.

KRISTA HANSON: So on July 2, the people that went out were the community that lives there in Suchitoto, this fairly rural community, as well as people who are involved nationally in this rural development organization, CRIPDES, the local water union, FMLN representatives. They were all out there trying to stop the announcement of the privatization or what -- the government knows they can't call it “privatization,” so President Saca was there to announce “decentralization,” which, of course, is the first step.

So people were protesting. They were protesting in the street, you know, with signs saying, you know, “Water is a human right.” And the police went in in full, full force, as you were saying, full riot gear, rubber bullets, shooting rubber bullets at close range, shooting tear gas at kids, at old people. And then, actually, four of the people who were arrested were actually in a car a few miles away, driving to the protest. And there's video of this that was shown in court, and it's on our webpage, the CISPES webpage, if people want to see it. And you can really see the police dragging people out of their car who were on their way to the protest. And those are the people that they arrested and are currently charging with terrorism.

AMY GOODMAN: With terrorism.

KRISTA HANSON: They are being charged with terrorism for attempting to go to a peaceful protest against the privatization of water. It's really terrifying, because, as you said, it is exported from the United States. I mean, when this law was passed -- it's not a coincidence, just stepping back a little bit, that CAFTA passed -- CAFTA was implemented, excuse me, in March of 2006. It was September of 2006, last fall, when the rightwing government passed this law called the Antiterrorism Law that would define broadly, broadly define things like occupying a public road as terrorism and allow people to be imprisoned for up to sixty years, which is what these people from Suchitoto are facing. Not coincidentally, the US was behind the passing -- the US government was behind the passage of CAFTA, pushed really hard to get it implemented, because even after it passed, there was resistance. And then in September the US ambassador in El Salvador congratulated the Salvadoran government for passing that law and said, you know, “This is proof that we're partners in the war on terrorism.” So that's the law.

And this is really one of the first times that this law is being used, and it’s being used, not coincidentally, not against any terrorists, but against peaceful protesters. And so, people see this as really precedent-setting, this case that's going to come before the courts in September, of seeing whether or not the government really will move forward in imprisoning people and whether or not they actually -- you know, they're declared guilty of -- you know, supposedly of terrorism. Everyone is really clear that this is about scaring people out of protesting and criminalizing protest to the extent that people are afraid to go out and defend their right to something that's so clearly a human right.

AMY GOODMAN: CAFTA stands for Central American Free Trade Agreement. We only have thirty seconds, but, Krista, what does this have to do with the World Bank? How is the World Bank identified with this so-called “decentralization” program?

KRISTA HANSON: The World Bank gave the loan in 1998 that first pushed decentralization and brought in the element of private corporations having a say in this. And maybe just to conclude, also I think that because the World Bank is a part of this, because the US government is pushing this, that's why as solidarity we're so concerned about accompanying people out there. And the US government is going to continue to be involved through their major elections in 2009 in El Salvador. Whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans in power here, they need to maintain their ally, this rightwing government in El Salvador that's going to push privatization, push the neoliberal model, through repressive policing, through calling protest terrorism and criminal acts.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to have to leave it there. Krista, I want to thank you very much for being with us.

KRISTA HANSON: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Krista Hanson, program director of CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, and Gigi Kellett with the Corporate Accountability International, both speaking to us from Boston. Corporate Accountability International is the incarnation of Infact. Link to the video of the Salvador protest.

Hillary Clinton's Previous Life On Wal-Mart's Board Of Directors

The NYT reports:
In 1986, Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, had a problem. He was under growing pressure from shareholders — and his wife, Helen — to appoint a woman to the company’s 15-member board of directors.

So Mr. Walton turned to a young lawyer who just happened to be married to the governor of Arkansas, where Wal-Mart is based: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton’s six-year tenure as a director of Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest company, remains a little known chapter in her closely scrutinized career. And it is little known for a reason. Mrs. Clinton rarely, if ever, discusses it, leaving her board membership out of her speeches and off her campaign Web site.

According to fellow board members and company executives, who have rarely discussed her role in Wal-Mart, Mrs. Clinton used her position to champion personal causes, like the need for more women in management and a comprehensive environmental program, despite being Wal-Mart’s only female director, the youngest and arguably the least experienced in business. On other topics, like Wal-Mart’s vehement anti-unionism, she was largely silent, they said.

Her experience on the Wal-Mart board, from 1986 to 1992, gave her an unusual tutorial in the ways of American business — a credential that could serve as an antidote to Republican efforts to portray her as an enemy of free markets and an advocate for big government.

But that education came via a company that the Democratic Party — and its major ally, organized labor — has turned into a political punching bag, accusing it of offering unaffordable health insurance and mistreating its workers.

So rather than tout her board membership, Mrs. Clinton is now running from it, even returning a $5,000 campaign donation from the giant discount chain in 2005, citing “serious differences” with its practices. But disentangling herself from the company is harder than it may seem.

Despite her criticism, Mrs. Clinton maintains close ties to the Wal-Mart executives through the Democratic Party and the tightly knit Arkansas business community. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, speaks frequently to Wal-Mart’s current chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., about issues like health care and even hosted Mr. Scott at the Clinton’s home in New York in July for a private dinner.

And several months ago, Mrs. Clinton helped broker a secret meeting between a top Wal-Mart executive and former Democratic operative, Leslie Dach, and leaders of the retailer’s longtime adversary at the United Food and Commercial Workers union, according to several people briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so publicly.

The goal of the meeting was to tamp down the rancor between the company and the union, which has set up a group, WakeUpWalmart.com, that has harshly criticized the chain and leaked embarrassing internal documents to the news media, though little progress has been made.

Mrs. Clinton declined to be interviewed for this article. In a statement, her spokesman said, “Wal-Mart is now one of the country’s largest employers, and Mrs. Clinton still believes it is important to try to influence the decisions they make because they can affect so many people.”

In Mrs. Clinton’s complex relationship with Wal-Mart , there are echoes of the familiar themes that have defined much of her career: the trailblazing women, unafraid of challenging the men around her; the idealist pushing for complicated, at times expensive reforms; and the political pragmatist, willing to accept policies she did not agree with to achieve her ends.

“Did Hillary like all of Wal-Mart practices? No,” said Garry Mauro, a longtime friend and political supporter of the Clintons who sat on the Wal-Mart Environmental Advisory Board with Mrs. Clinton in the late 1980s and worked with her on George McGovern’s campaign for president.

“But,” Mr. Mauro added, “was Wal-Mart a better company, with better practices, because Hillary was on the board? Yes.”

Mrs. Clinton was not Mr. Walton’s first choice. That honor belonged to a female executive at Nordstrom, the upscale department store. But Nordstrom opposed the idea of its employees sitting on a competitor’s board, so Wal-Mart turned instead to the 39-year-old Mrs. Clinton. They offered her about $15,000 a year for her time, generally four meetings a year.

She was a logical candidate: the wife of the governor, a Wal-Mart shareholder — with stock worth nearly $100,000 at one point — and a highly regarded lawyer at the Rose Law Firm, which had represented Wal-Mart in several cases.

But if her circumstances made her a natural choice for the board, her often liberal beliefs did not and she struggled to change the rigid, conservative culture at Wal-Mart, achieving modest results.

Early in her tenure, she pressed for information about the number of women in Wal-Mart’s management, worrying aloud that the company’s hiring practices might be discriminatory.

The data she received would have been troubling: by 1985, there was not a single woman among the company’s top 42 officers, according to “In Sam We Trust,” the 1998 book about Wal-Mart by Bob Ortega.

John E. Tate, who served as a director with Mrs. Clinton from 1988 to 1992, recalled that by the third board meeting Mrs. Clinton had announced “that you can expect me to push on issues for women. You know that. I have a reputation of trying to improve the status of women generally, and I will do it here.”

Mr. Walton appeared relieved to have a woman on the board to deflect criticism, telling shareholders during the annual meeting in 1987 that “we have a strong willed young lady on the board who has already told the board it should do more to ensure the advancement of women.”

Still, the board’s discussions did not translate into significant progress. By the late 1990s, after Mrs. Clinton had left the board, Wal-Mart had added a second female director, but the number of women in senior management remained paltry, according to company records. (Today, 23 percent of Wal-Mart’s top 300 corporate officers are women, but the company is fighting a lawsuit claiming sex discrimination by 1.6 million current and former female employees.)

Mrs. Clinton had greater success on environmental issues. At her request, Mr. Walton set up an environmental advisory group, which sent a series of recommendations to the company’s board.

When it came time to pick members, Mrs. Clinton, who led the advisory board, reached out to at least two colleagues from the 1972 McGovern presidential campaign — Mr. Mauro and Roy Spence, who headed an advertising firm in Texas that did extensive work for Wal-Mart.

Under her watch, the advisory group drew up elaborate plans. Consumers would bring in used motor oil and batteries for recycling. Suppliers would reduce the size of their packaging. And Wal-Mart would build stores with energy-saving features.

Wal-Mart executives put much of the program into place. In 1993, for example, they opened an experimental “eco-store” in Kansas, with dozens of skylights and wooden beams from forests that were not clear cut.

One executive derided it as “Hillary’s store” because it was more expensive to build than the average Wal-Mart, but several of its features, like the skylights that cut energy bills by the need for artificial lighting, were widely copied across the industry.

“We were on the leading edge of something that is being mandated now,” said Bill Fields, the head of merchandise at Wal-Mart in the early 1990s who worked closely with Mrs. Clinton on the environmental project.

For Wal-Mart, the largest employer in Arkansas, Mrs. Clinton’s presence had obvious advantages: on matters big and small, the company had the ear of the governor’s wife.

For Mrs. Clinton, being a director at Wal-Mart gave her access to several of the state’s most powerful business executives. In the early 1980s, for example, Mr. Waltonhad been instrumental in building support for a corporate tax program, pushed by Mrs. Clinton, that financed a major education reform plan in Arkansas, a signal achievement of her husband’s governorship.

Though she was passionate about issues like gender and sustainability, Mrs. Clinton largely sat on the sidelines when it came to Wal-Mart and unions, according to board members. Since its founding in 1962, Wal-Mart has aggressively fought unionization efforts at its stores and warehouses, employing hard-nosed tactics — like firing union supporters and allegedly spying on employees — that have become the subject of legal complaints against the company.

A special team at Wal-Mart handled those activities, but Mr. Walton was vocal in his opposition to unions. Indeed, he appointed the lawyer who oversaw the company’s union monitoring, Mr. Tate, to the board, where he served with Mrs. Clinton.

During their meetings and private conversations, Mrs. Clinton never voiced objections to Wal-Mart’s stance on unions, according to Mr. Tate and John A. Cooper, another board member.

“She was not an outspoken person on labor, because I think she was smart enough to know that if she favored labor, she was the only one,” Mr. Tate said. “It would only lesson her own position on the board if she took that position.”

Mr. Tate, a prominent management lawyer who helped stop union drives at many major companies, said he worked closely with Mr. Walton to convince workers that a union would be bad for the company, personally telling employees when he visited stores that “the only people who need unions are those who do not work hard.”

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said, “Wal-Mart workers should be able to unionize and bargain collectively.”