Buy Blue?

One of the things that I've thought about that would be extremely cool is to create a fair trade/sweatshop-free/pro-union version of Amazon.com. Just like how you can go to Amazon and buy just about anything, you could go to this website and could access stores all around the country or world that sell fair trade, sweat-free, union-made items, from clothes to books to whatever else you can imagine.

I just found this website called BuyBlue.org that looks like the beginning of an attempt at a much more moderate version of the same thing. They pitch it as a progressive alternative to Amazon that points you towards products produced by companies that give to Democrats and not Republicans. I say "much more moderate" because this ends up including companies like J Crew, Starbucks and Shell Oil. Hardly model citizens and neither fair trade, sweat-free or pro-union.

But still, it's an interesting idea and it's kind of fun to see who all the "Red" companies are and how certain industries tend to be more consistently red than others. For example, Toyota is the only "Blue" car company. What's really annoying are the groups of privatized utility monopolies like, in my city, Qwest phone and Time Warner cable. They're all extremely "Red" companies, yet they're protected from competition so you have to buy from them.

Right now, it's not much more than just a big directory of "Red" or "Blue" companies, but they make it sound like they're trying to make it a more interactive site, possibly as a place to shop like Amazon (a "Red" company, by the way).

Update: No Sweat Apparel online store.