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A one day boycott is about as effective at sending some kind of message as taking off a condom after the first thrust is at preventing a pregnancy.
Americans are seemingly incapable of doing anything other than virtue signalling online.
I say this as an American.
I moved over from corporate tech work to take a pay cut to do tech work at a non profit helping the homeless, to actually, literally do praxis.
No one, none of my friends, none of my family, nobody seemed to understand why I believed that ones actions should align with ones beliefs.
Americans are largely performative, self-obsessed narcissists.
I am beyond disgusted with this country.
I spent a decade telling people what is currently occuring is not only possible, but becoming increasingly inevitable.
90% of people told me I was mentally ill.
10% said yes they agree, but what can you do?
Fine. Fuck it.
There is nothing we can do I guess, as doing something would involve actual planning, risk and sacrifice, and we’re all a bunch of either vapid preening esoteric socialites, or murderously stupid death cultists.
Beam me up Scotty, no signs of intelligent life here.
Here’s the thing: resistance movements don’t happen overnight except in the most extreme of circumstances, and since our transfer of power was (technically) peaceful, people aren’t feeling the kind of hurt that would drive them to protest just yet.
So, people who are wise enough to see what’s coming have to start small. Start with a small protest, then work your way up. Boycotts like this one are good for getting people to do something to start off. It might not do a whole lot at first, but they’ll start to add up as more and more people become aware of the movement.
Eventually, more drastic action can be taken, but getting people together and proving that they have the numbers to make a difference is vital, and unless a catastrophe happens, that process takes time.
Cool.
I’ve been doing such things, going to protests, volunteering for various advocacy/aid groups, helping to organize them, switched my entire career path etc., for nearly two decades…
…and what it looks like to me is… 80 to 90% of people treat what I do as an annoying ad they skip, as if me actually doing this in the real world, is indistinguishable from meaningless virtue signalling, and 10% of people are like you, coming in here and making a comment like that… for two decades.
I’ve been radicalized since getting simultaneous degrees in Econ and Poli Sci during the 07/08 financial crash, and since, have been doing everything I can to avert/mitigate this entirely predictable future we have now arrived at.
When was the last time you did something that actually had a positive effect on society?
At this point, I agree with Sergio Leone:
When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite.
Now I just believe in dynamite.
As an old Canadian socialist with the lumps to prove it, I agree. There is so much performance, and so little action. I spend time on reddit, trying to get keyboard warriors to understand that posting an opinion will not magically cause the fascist Administration to collapse and get a lot of “The media refuses to cover us!” bullpuckey. There are thousands of newsrooms in the USA that are not owned by billionaire tech bros or MAGA devotees (see, for example https://www.trustworthymedia.org/ › list-of-independent-media ) and most social media is still wide open to pictures and facts about your actions. If you are acting, let the independent media – most but not all of whom are progressive, check first – know and post your pictures (faces blurred if need be) and stories everywhere you can reach people.
Meantime, buy Canadian, buy local, or don’t buy at all, at least it’s something!
I don’t buy anything on most days normally. Days isn’t going to do anything and stop telling yourself it will.
Stop it entirely or as much as you possibly can. Never order from Amazon again. Where you do need to buy stuff buy as little as possible. Stop visiting pubs and restaurants. If your goal is to damage the US economy. Avoid as much as you possibly can that goes towards it.
My favorite restaurant is not a chain, I’m a regular there, and they have a once a month special on one of these days. I would rather support them on one of these days than buy nothing.
To be fair any excuse to eat there is good. Greek food is awesome.
Most likely they are buying most of their products from Sysco Corporation. Small businesses are still not immune to large corporations. The could of course also be simply buying from a local Costco Business Center. The issue is that large corp owns and controls everything. It’s already too late but do what you can. Doing something is better than nothing.
The problem I’ve found with the “Buy nothing days” is that it’s not really encouraging buying less. With the possible exception of a few in the moment things, it’s really just pushing purchasing to the day before or the day after. Someone seeing economic data for that specific day might notice something, but even just factor in the day before and the day after and it’s not going to make much of a difference. It didn’t cost the corpos anything, so they won’t even notice.
At this stage it’s more about proving we can organise, rather than actually denting anyone’s profits or inconveniencing ourselves. Let’s all agree not to buy anything on this one day, as a first step. Next we’ll organise not buying on two days. Then maybe a week. Then steadily ramp it up until we’re noticed and they start doing something about it.
Refusing to participate on the grounds that it isn’t the perfect solution is short-sighted.
Refusing to participate on the grounds that it isn’t the perfect solution is short-sighted.
Less an issue of “refusing to participate” and more a question of “what am I participating in?”
People who are enthusiastic about participating in a bigger organizing project still have a limited amount of resources - time, money, physical energy - to expend. Part of any organizational campaign is to connect with people and channel their efforts efficiently. Another part is highlighting your accomplishments such that participants feel rewarded and are enthusiastic about the next effort.
What did the Feb 28th “No Buy Day” accomplish? Who participated? Who benefited? What is there to brag about? Why would I want to participate again in the future? Who am I even coordinating with in the future?
I’ll raise a counterpoint. Was at a pro-choice march in my home town years back. I got to meet other activists. I got to spend time with friends. I got to see how many people in my town were enthusiastic supporters of women’s rights. All of that was productive and affirming, even (perhaps especially) in the face of Roe’s repeal and the Trump electoral win. I got to meet other people and talk to them and plan out future volunteer efforts.
I didn’t get any of that out of this movement. I didn’t see people picketing outside retail stores or championing any explicit cause. I didn’t see any efforts to confront protesters or any concessions made by business. I only knew one person, personally, who was actively participating and even she conceded she was just going with the flow and didn’t have any expectations or know anyone else who was doing this.
This isn’t an issue of perfection, its an issue of community and effort building. If there’s a large cohort of activists who got in on this and are stronger for it, great! But I didn’t see it anywhere in my neighborhood.
Oh I didn’t refuse to participate, and I still encourage any effort we can manage, but these “don’t buy anything on X days” concepts are themselves just deeply flawed. Don’t buy anything for a week? Alright so either I just don’t eat for a week, or I’m only offsetting purchases to before and after. It still doesn’t make a dent. If your protest doesn’t hurt the corpos, they don’t care. Showing we can organize is great, but iterating on this format can’t be the end goal.
Huh, Thursday and Saturday are a bit more popular now and Friday dropped off. Should adjust shift patterns a bit.
By reducing our labor spend on these spend nothing days and not increasing our labor spends on these days surrounding them, we’ve increased our profits!
A lot of it also boils down to people’s inability to not buy highly processed food. Staple foods (potatoes, rice, flour) are relatively cheap, but turning them into complete meals take time and skill. So, takeout and fast food turns from a once-a-while into almost everyday.
People actually eat fast food daily? No wonder Americans are so fat
I keep saying exactly this. It needs to be longer than a week and it can’t be things like groceries or you’re basically asking people to starve. And so many people who are supposedly fighting for the less well off don’t seem to get “living paycheck to paycheck” and the idea that working 5 days a week and taking care of yourself/kids means that when you shop is largely dictated by factors out of your control. Its got “oh, just make your coffee at home to save up for a new house” or “blame the average person for climate change and not the massively polluting corporations” vibes.
Even groceries you could change what you buy though. Air fried beans costs fuck all. I was going to suggest egg fried rice as that is cheap in the UK but you might struggle with the eggs in the US. Could just fry rice and add some veg though.
You have very strong “avocado toast” vibes fyi. You seem to think that the problem is what we’re eating as if we have enough money to be buying luxury foods in the first place. I’m already eating the cheapest, calorie dense food I can. If I could eat a nutrient paste gruel every day with 100% nutrients that was dirt cheap, I would.
Isn’t avocado toast supposed to be really expensive though? I budget around £15/week each on food.
Making it longer doesn’t help.
You need to boycott specific products (with ready altenratives) and have specific demands.
No, making it longer would help if your only goal is to crash the economy thinking that a tantrum will solve the core problem and not just lead to a bunch of bandaid appeasements.
For the record I’m agreeing with you. We need more directed action and more specific demands. These demands need to be things that have a clear roadmap to being implemented as well, not just “I want X”. Cool. Nifty. How do you expect X to be implemented in today’s world? What will the steps look like?
I am more than happy with wanting America to face a recession. I will avoid American products as much as possble.
If you could rely on supporters to actually abstain from buying things for the duration of the protest, and you had enough supporters then ok extending the duration of the protest might “help” crash the economy.
What I was kind of getting at is that you really can’t rely on supporters to abstain and you don’t have enough supporters.
The longer the protest (or… the more inconvenient the protest), the less dedication you’re going to have from supporters.
I whole heartedly agree with the screen cap in the post suggesting that protesters seem to think they can just observe some rite and all of society’s ailments will be resolved. Real actual change is going to involve real actual pain, and unfortunately the plebs always carry that burden.
My feeling is that presently people are dissatisfied but not really desperate enough to undertake the civil disobedience required to invoke meaningful change. For example, could you organise enough people to boycott starbucks until they allowed employees to unionise? It would take time, organisation, and dedication. This is just one teeny tiny example of a potential first step, a rallying cry, a way to demonstrate a proof of concept. However, I just don’t think it’s achievable.
My point that even if you had all the supporters you needed right now, the current plan is basically “let’s crash the economy” with no forethought on what happens next. How do you crash the economy AND prevent new monopolies from forming in the wake AND not starve half the population to death in the process? No one ever addresses the second part, which is why this is exactly like the screen cap.
Yeah but then if they had to actually do real work for their protest, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place would we
Man this is something I struggle with outside of politics too
Look at what the right is doing. They go after targets with disproportionate force to force change. “Don’t buy anything” is easy for a day and hard for long. “Refuse to purchase anheiser Busch products because they caved to bigots” is less difficult and leaves a message.
I grew up in a protest to save my neighborhood from being demolished for a highway.
What the news reported was the protests in front of city hall to finally convince them to move the highway.
What you didn’t see was the incredible legwork getting dozens of local businesses to support us. Getting bake sales in schools to fund billboards. Doing social disobedience by blocking traffic and having people arrested. Disrupting city hall over and over and over. This was my life for months.
And it finally worked.
Martin Luther Kings peaceful protests were only half the equation to Malcom X arming black communities. You need to speak softly and carry a big stick.
It’s easy to imagine yourself as a hero with a molotov removedtail. Not as much fun walking door to door with a petition.
Can’t let people know where their power lies. If enough people believe in the ritual magic of peaceful, ignorable protests, then they will justify violence against protestors who actually put real pressure for change and the system can just overlook acts of violence against protestors rather than having to actually commit them itself.
Fight the power. ✊🏿
Mad props
imho the chapter on “Tactics” in Alinski’s Rules for Radicals provides a lot of ideas on how to avoid performative activism.
What is not usually mentioned is the psychological effect protests have on the people attending. The feeling of being one of many who care about an issue gives people hope and energy to keep tring to change it.
While at the same time not doing anything meaningful involving actual work
Progressives have weaponized procrastination against themselves
Rule number 1 of protesting is always that if the protest can be suffered or ignored, then it will be.
The key to non-violent protest is that you don’t plan on going home afterward. You go, you stay, and you don’t leave – until somebody drags you to the jail, the hospital, or the morgue.
The key to nonviolent protest is that they have to be an alternative to violence - in other words, both sides must be fully aware that either nonviolence works or violence follows.
Certainly. But of course, when the state has a much higher capability for violence, command of professional martial organizations, mature systems of espionage, infiltration, and surveillance, as well as vast propaganda resources, non-violence is a decent way to start. Not the kind of “non-violence” that takes an Uber to Denny’s after the march – the kind of non-violence that won’t simply “blow over,” but the kind of non-violence that absolutely will not stop until it’s dealt with, one way or the other. Not everyone who goes to a protest needs to be a martyr, but there should be a core of people who believe enough in the cause to put themselves at risk of winding up with a criminal record, a hospital bill, or… worse.
I’m not arguing for pacifism. I just don’t like that people have an idea that non-violent protest is the cowardly, half-hearted strategy of dilettantes and tourists.
That’s certainly not how Gandhi imagined it would work.
I don’t think that’s fair, the fact that enough people care enough to show up and protest can have an effect by itself.
Often that’s only if those in power worry there will be consequences for the protests being ignored. It could be as simply as worry about being kicked out of office, damage to property, or damage to them or their family (such as Republicans staying in line with Trump because of worries about stochastic terrorism).
Yes, and it can have an effect on the people doing the protest. I was supposed to go to dinner on 2/28 with four people. I canceled that morning when I realized it was “buy nothing” day (and told them why). Those four also canceled and became curious about where to learn more about protest movements. We’ve now committed to supporting each other to escalate our efforts into more impactful actions. So, keep in mind some protests are more about rallying the troops, creating cohesion, educating, and supporting each other than impacting direct change with that particular action. Protests are just one tool in the arsenal.
What do you mean by “ground level infrastructure?” Like educating people? A forum for communication? Everyone is on social media and social media is censoring that stuff. Civil rights era people eere in churches because those were the social venues of the day.
Ground level infrastructure meaning the ability to get people out to do anything from marching to rioting to picketing to canvassing to voting. The Civil Rights movement wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if it hadn’t actually mobilized people and thus made people aware of / afraid of organized resistance. The Black Panthers deserve a lot of credit as well for being the armed hard core of the movement.
We’d get a lot more of what we want peacefully if oligarchs were afraid we’d rally and fuck up their businesses bottom lines AND that they might get assassinated by radicals.
I see it as good practice and normalizing not shopping at those places
But people think it’s activism to not shop when it should literally just be the default. Get out of the consumerism mindset.
It’s wild how much everyone looks like a sucker and a mark once you’ve been out of the consumer mindset for a few years. You start to see between the lines a lot more and realize how much dumb shit is pushed on people. Buying a new phone every two years made a lot of sense when they doubled processing power and functionality. New flagships though? Forget that, why the hell would I want an AI powered advertisement and tracking machine in my pocket? The non AI powered tracking machine that’s 4 years old in my pocket is fucked up enough lol.
That’s fair
hah ! that’s almost a cargo cult
Not almost. It is. Cargo cult activism.
Yep. The best way to affect change is to make yourself a threat to power if your demands aren’t appeased. Protests by themselves aren’t effective in doing so.
