Why I Support SumOfUs Instead of Politics

I vote and if there is a Specific candidate I want elected I might donate a few of my dollars to That Candidate.  But in general I think politics is a bust, bought and paid for.  Of course there are exceptions. But for me the point is they Are Exceptions.

Push Pepsi

Great news!

 After more than 100,000 SumOfUs members demanded that Coca-Cola stop its suppliers

from driving rural communities off their ancestral land to plant sugar,

 Coke is announcing a new zero-tolerance policy for land grabs.

But there’s one big problem -- Pepsi is refusing to do the same.

Coke and Pepsi are locked in a cut-throat, never-ending public relations battle,

so we know that each is extremely vulnerable to being compared unfavorably to its

rival.

Pepsi will be furious if it sees this story spreading across social media

, and our partners at Oxfam will have a better chance of getting them to come around.

Can you share this image so your friends know what Pepsi’s doing? Make sure to tag the company by adding @Pepsi in your comment so Pepsi sees too!

Pepsi: Rise to the challenge!

From now on, Coke will be policing its supply chain to ensure that sugar growers

and other suppliers are respecting small farmers’ land rights. This won’t solve the

problem of land grabs overnight --

 but it does mean that producers who might once have used fraud or armed gangs to

force rural and indigenous people from their land will have to think twice about

doing it again

. Now they know that if they do, they’ll risk losing their business with Coke, the

world’s largest buyer of sugar.

We know we can get under Pepsi’s skin

. After all, it was just last year that we managed to convince the company to speak

out against Uganda’s “kill the gays” laws by challenging it in a major beverage industry

trade publication. The SumOfUs community has already done amazing work to fight back

against land grabs -- and the stakes of this campaign couldn't be higher for rural

communites around the world.

Thanks for all you do,

Rob, Paul, and the team at SumOfUs.org

 SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations

accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

You can support our work by

donating here.

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 to add yourself to SumOfUs.

Why I Believe in SumOfUs Instead of Politics

SumOfUs is now 2 million members strong.

 We couldn't have got this far without you.

We have a small team and operate on a shoestring but look at what we've achieved

together in 2013.

Can you help us to keep winning in 2014 by chipping in just $10 a month?

Donate now

Telecom corporations like AT&T or Vodafone can secretly tack on an administrative

fee

 on its customers' monthly bill and reap hundreds of millions a month to lobby and

scheme.

Global retailers like

Walmart can squeeze its workers’ pay so low that stores have to have donation buckets

 where customers can donate canned food to for employees’ meals.

Financial institutions like Bank of America can, with the stroke of a pen, illegally

foreclose on the houses of millions of Americans who it drove into debt with its

reckless greed.

That’s where the corporations that the SumOfUs community is taking on get their money.

So where do we get our support?

You.

The only way this movement to fight corporate power works is if every single SumOfUs

member chips in every way that we can.

 We sign petitions. We go to rallies. We make phone calls. And together, since SumOfUs

doesn’t take any cash from corporations or governments, we chip in what we can to

help cover the costs of our campaigns.

Can you chip in just $10 a month – or whatever you can afford – and become a SumOfUs Sustainer? If just 2000 of us join as Sustainers, we’ll be able to tackle dozens more corporations around the world in 2014.

SumOfUs is turning two years old next week. Together,

we’ve built a community of consumers, shareholders, workers, and citizens around

the world, coming together to fight back against corporate power.

 And here’s the thing – together, we own these corporations. Together, we’ve already

recruited over 2 million people in just two years – and we’re growing exponentially.

But we’re up against corporations with literally hundreds of billions of dollars.

Together, the two million of us are taking on the big boys – Walmart, Monsanto, Exxon

– you name it.

We’re doing it on a shoestring budget – but we’re winning

. Last month, with just a few thousand dollars, we mobilized 300,000 people to demand

that Coca-cola to fight for gay rights in Russia. Our Canadian community pitched

in tens of thousands of dollars and helped kill a treaty with China that would have

given Chinese corporations control over the climate-destroying tar sands for decades.

With the support of only one full-time campaigner, our community has helped get more

than 90 companies around the world to sign the Bangladesh Safety Accord.

Unlike the corporations we’re fighting, we don’t raise money through trickery or

exploitation. Together,

SumOfUs members like you and me chip in and we fight strategically.

 And here’s the thing: We have to be in it for the long haul. Chevron isn’t going

away tomorrow. Bank of America knows it has the money to fight back against us for

years.

SumOfUs will be vastly stronger if we come together and commit to building the backbone

of a movement for the years ahead.

Can you chip in now and become a SumOfUs Sustainer – and help us expand our work into new countries like Germany and Brazil – where key multinational corporations are headquartered?

And just remember:

SumOfUs can't pollute to get extra money.

SumOfUs can't outsource its way out of paying its bills.

SumOfUs relies on YOU, above all.

Thanks for everything that you do,

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman

Founder, SumOfUs.org

 SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations

accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

Please help keep SumOfUs strong by chipping in $3.