bsr110305

bsr110305: "After being forced out of BSR, Hammel continued to organize local BSR chapters around the country.

Back then, the local chapters still had a voice in the national.

“But in 2000, the national BSR sent us a letter. There was no discussion. They just said – we are eliminating all local chapters,” Hammel said. “They told us that BSR was going to spend all of its time on big corporations.”

Hammel has gone on help jump start a new organization – the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (www.livingeconomies.org).

The message – buy local, buy independent. “When I first formed BSR, I thought all businesses had the same interests in common,” Hammel said. “Then I realized that big corporations didn’t want to be with us. And we realized that our interests were different.”

“The first allegiance of big public companies is to their stockholders,” Hammel said. “Most of these big companies have to cater to the whims of the stockholders. That puts them in conflict with the consumer, community and the environment. Very few big companies can buck that stockholder dictatorship.”

“Second is – where do you live? Are you locally owned? If yes, then you are connected to the community,” Hammel said. “Companies like Starbucks (a BSR member) are creating a homogenized culture. They are homogenizing cultures all over the world. We want to see locally owned coffee shops.”

“We have done several studies showing that for every $100 spent at a local independent company – $45 goes to the community,” Hammel said. “If you spend the $100 at the corporate chain like Starbucks, only $13 goes to the community.”

The last BSR conference that Hammel attended was in 2001 in Seattle.

This was ten years after he founded BSR as his dream.

“I sat down at a table and noticed three guys with name tags that said Philip Morris and Company,” Hammel said.

“I asked these guys – you are not with the cigarette company, are you? And they said – ‘yes, we are with the holding company.’”

“I said to myself – these guys are members of BSR? They make products that kill people. What is this?”

That was the last conference he attended."