Drinking Liberally's home in Minneapolis - 331 Club
by Steve Timmer
Jun 28, 2012, 11:30 AM

Bring your Cheerios, yearning to breathe free

Tonight is the Thanks, General Mills! food collection to acknowledge and thank the company for speaking out against the Minnesota For Marriage protest and — failed — boycott at the company’s headquarter’s this week. More information about MFM’s action can be found here.

It isn’t too late to tell us you’re coming at the event site on Facebook. But even if you don’t, come anyway.

We’re asking that you bring a fresh, unopened, and non-perishable food product (or two!) from General Mills; we will donate it to a food shelf.

When the MFM organizers conceived of their event, they wanted protesters to bring their General Mills products “from home” to “dump” into a trailer, evidently to show disgust with the company in kind of a “get thee behind me Satan” demonstration.

But it occurred to somebody (us) that the plan would backfire, because most of the General Mills products that people have at home are open: the flour, the cereal, etc. Heck, kids have the boxes of Lucky Charms open practically before they are out of the grocery bag. So clearly, protesters were going to have to go out and buy products to cast away in disfavor. And based on observations on Tuesday, the first day of the event, that is exactly what is happening. Several people were seen bring grocery bags, pretty obviously fresh from a trip to the store.

The MFM spokesters have now changed their tune, saying it’s not a boycott. Well, pretty obviously it isn’t — at least as it is working out — but it surely started out as one. “Get your General Mills products out of your house,” was clearly the message.

But it was, as we observed earlier, “genius.”

Update: Here is an example of the phenomenon I was describing earlier: people buying General Mills products in order to “dump” General Mills. This was taken just today (by me).

As was this one. Interesting in view of the disclaimers by Minnesota For Marriage about using the Leviticus language.

KJV Leviticus 20:13:

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

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