OntheWilderSide

Kimberly writes:

Thought I would share this exhilarating, though shaky, feeling, while it is still fresh.

I just got off the phone with my local bank.

I am so shocked, angered, and aggravated that Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and other bank/money companies have stopped allowing donations to Wikileaks. How dare they pile on arbitrarily to a political attack against a media outlet and a journalist?

I do not believe that being a credit card customer is noble. Though, it seems to me that there is a basic agreement when one is doing business, that business will proceed logically, and that both sides will carry out their end of the bargain and agreements made. I signed up to become a customer of my bank and of Visa, with the understanding that I was giving myself access to online transactions and creating a simpler way to pay bills and organize my money. By going to my local bank and Visa, I thought I was using business partners who were fairly anonymous, tied to business conventions, and established enough to be dependable.

I never suspected that my local bank or Visa would get in the way of my business transactions. I now want to donate money to a charitable cause, and I find that my banker will not allow me to. Or, rather, they are making it difficult, instead of easy, for me, by thwarting the process by which I signed up to make my use of money easy.

As a citizen, I am outraged that Visa and Mastercard are interfering with the Wikileaks situation by making sudden and arbitrary decisions to conspire with the US government to oppress a journalist, and this before any charges are even filed.

But, in addition, as a banking customer and consumer, I am outraged that my bank is daring to interfere with what I wish to do with my money, with my free access to the services they promised me, and with my values. How dare Visa and my bank do this. They are crossing lines. They are boldly inserting themselves into a political debate. They are boldly lining up with the political elite to squash and harass the middle class and working class as those groups identify with, and seek to help, a struggling media, a battle for Free Speech.

I know that I will not be using my Visa card, until they are back to neutrality and logic on the Wikileaks situation. I was not asking them to support Julian Assange. I was asking them to do their job and let me send my money where I want. I am not sure if Visa profits by me using the card in no interest situations, but, for whatever it is worth, I am not using that card for anything.

So, far, I have not found a certain boycott or plan to ask people to close down their credit card accounts, for companies who have interfered in politics in this way. I did find a statement about the injustice from the national Green Party, as posted at our blog: here. I will be on the lookout for pointed and organized actions which can demonstrate my displeasure with the companies who are supposed to be serving me as a consumer, and sharing this country with me — them as businesses, who serve the community and attend to business matters, and me as a citizen who can use or not use them according to the agreements they lay out.

Filed under: activism, economy, international politics, kimberly wilder, News, politics, progressive politics, rants, US Politics Tagged: | banking, business matters, Business News, credit cards, financial news, Free Speech, journalism, Julian Assange, MasterCard, Visa, Wikileaks, Wikileaks donations