Dear Electronics Companies,

We're not buying anymore of your shit. Not the next iPhone. Not the new Jambox. Not the Kinect, not the 3D TVs, not even the old hardy Playstation 2 or a cheap HP printer. We're not buying any of it.

We're not paying you any more money for pretty much one reason.

For the people who live there. Why?

All that stuff I mentioned? It takes a few key ingredients to make that stuff: tin, tungsten and gold are just three. And a lot of that stuff comes from that place, the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's a pretty terrible place to live. There's a war there, a war that's lead to more than five million people dead. That's about ten times worse than the American Civil War. And women are more in danger of rape there than any other place in the world. Don't believe me?

Now, those electronics that you make and promote so intensely use resources from Congo, and most of the money goes to warlords & murderers who control the mines. You don't seem to mind. If you did, you'd make sure your money didn't end up in their hands. They use it to buy weapons, fund war, kill and torture people. It's not fun to think about. We know. But you encourage people to ignore that and buy your shit, mostly when they don't need to. I mean: does anyone really need a new phone every year or two? New computers? A larger TV? We don't. We've decided that the costs outweigh the benefits.

We hope you make that decision, too. Help stop the violence.

And if you decide otherwise: we'll keep not buying your shit, and we'll keep telling other people not to buy your shit.

Take your shiny stuff elsewhere.

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Not Yours,

Those Above & Ken Baumann