powerste said:Not sure specifically which part you don't agree with, although you are certainly free to disagree with all of it...
My point about the consumer boycott not working/applying is twofold:
1. In the tuna example, it wasn't US law that was broken. The US gov't had no jurisdiction over the practices of many of the companies. Consumer pressure was the only avenue for change on that front. In the current PEDs in cycling situation, the FDA is investigating possible criminal actions. That's the job of their enforcement arm.
2. The link between Nike and whoever is distributing PEDs is far less direct, at least to many people, than the link between canned tuna and dead dolphins (or between Shell and apartheid or . . .). Boycotts take off when there is something direct and visible (cute, mammalian, and highly intelligent help) for the public to grab onto. I think much public opinion is "Nike sponsors Lance. Lance might be a drug cheat. All professional cyclists are. Who cares?" Contrast that with "In order to catch the tuna in this can, many dolphins were killed as collateral damage!" The company that canned the tuna, killed the dolphins. But Nike didn't buy the PEDs.
I just don't think it's realistic to expect a boycott of LA's sponsors to take off, let alone impact doping in cycling. While I realize the federal government has plenty of shortcomings (no matter which self-serving party is in charge of it at the time), I do recognize that in the case of the Novitsky investigation, a criminal investigator is investigating probable criminal behavior. I hope he finds evidence to support it.
Great post by the way! You mentioned that, “. . . In the tuna example, it wasn't US law that was broken. The US gov't had no jurisdiction over the practices of many of the companies. I contend that that’s the very point that will be argued to some degree of success when the lawyers get a hold of this. Johan Bruyneel is not a US citizen; most all of the racing took place overseas, so drug purchases and use would be outside of the US; Tailwind used foreign banks for transactions; the team operations was based in Europe; I’m not sure what currency they conducted business with, it might be dollars, but I bet it was Euros; the list goes on and on.
Other than sponsors and the management company, most everything is tied to foreign countries. I’m not sure how they will ever get the cooperation needed to get this mess settled. The US Gov’t doesn’t get the love from European countries like it used to.