Just some additional advertising for todays boycott.
So… anything is a comic strip nowadays it seems.
We need PERMANENT boycotts. DON’T GO BACK!! Abandoned them and leave them to rot.
Follow what I see every Canadian is doing in the grocery store. Look up the brand and if it’s American put it back and add to the permanent no buy list.
I did this for Facebook and some other companies like X and avoiding using Walmart back in 2010.
I mean im american but im pretty much like this. A bit limited with my wife but we don’t buy subscriptions, don’t have smartphones, and are getting our stuff second hand a lot now. Granted this has been a thing with us thats just been growing for like the last decade. Essentially we have just gotten more and more serious about and emphasizing more the first two parts of reduce, reuse, recycle.
As an American I use Goods Unite Us to look up political contributions before buying
Just as a disclaimer, there are 10 trackers that Exodus detected that are embedded in this app. I’m not saying don’t use it, just promoting awareness.
Good to know. I don’t actually use the app since the website is fine, and I have Firefox with ublock origin for that. Appreciate the info though!
I second this app, I’m a big fan of the campaign finance reform score. If you want an easy way to fight the citizens united ruling, this is it.
Also want to give a shout out to https://www.opensecrets.org. their site isn’t as easy to use as goods, but the have a lot more data and if you can’t find info about a company or politician on goods you can usually still find it on open secrets.
https://lemmy.socdojo.com/comment/963871
You may have just answered a specific wish I’ve had for a while… Thanks much
Organising is now just posting the day of
Donating to non-profits is still cool though.
Positive boycotts are the best boycotts.
Otherwise people just delay consumption.
Well, how’d everyone do? I had to order some magic cards so I stayed up until midnight to do it lol. I also need to replace a pvc pipe under my kitchen sink so that waited until today and I’ve been getting water from the bathroom…
I heard buying local is fine so we got some sandwiches from a local restaurant, but other than that, we just stayed in. So success on our parts I think!
I don’t get this plan.
Even if people don’t shop one day, they will buy postponed items next day.
You are organizing the wrong thing, you need to build a platform and a troll farm.
As someone said in a different thread, it’s a first step in gauging support for a broader effort. It gives a sense of how effective getting the message out is, and how many people join on.
There is no way for anyone to gauge this. Retailers won’t release this data
I think doing a “Whiteout” would be better, where people only shop at pro-humanity or mom n’ pop stores. Costco, Winco, ect. People must spend money for their necessities and to enjoy life, but if that spending can always be directed into the pockets of decent people rather than Bezos, that would be far more impactful than a day of blackout.
In that vein, I think incentive programs to switch people would be ideal. Something like CostCo giving a free membership if you buy an amount of goods equal in value, and a free pizza/rotisserie/hot dog(s) for buying $15 of stuff.
I’ve seen other infographics for this protest encouraging that local business is still OK, not sure why it’s not all of them saying that.
Some are advertising this as anti dei so that would open up some. Like anything there are many grassroots around it so its not a single voice. im on the nothing from me today except for places were its so local I know the owner and their views and how they operate. That being said we are doing nothing today except my wife has a doctors appoinment which ah. we are not going to boycott healthcare as much as we sorta wish we could.
You wish you could boycott healthcare?
yeah its horrible but there is no real choice in it. Sure you can maybe find another doctor or such but in reality you really can’t.
You’ve lost me. Maybe because I’m not American and it wishes differently there.
Why do you want to boycott healthcare?
My partner is a clinical nurse and the local clinic is holding on by the skin of their teeth. Surviving on grant money, and if they go down it’ll be a 30 minute drive to the next town for medical assistance.
What are you guys trying to achieve?
Mindless consumption will happen for the entirety of human civilisation. Übercorps will continue to enshitttify to no end, and people will eat the slop until it runs dry.
Why? Because deep down consumerism is a key pillar in people’s minds. The idea of buying and consuming is an act that must be compleeted, like it’s part of the Ten Commandments or the ending to a Iftar prayer. You see so much of this anti-consumerism rhetoric on social media but I guarantee that everyone in this thread bought something before, after or even on February 28, including the author of this poster.
The reality is, you have no power. People will continue to keep the slop mill running. Unless you want to start a mass brainwashing campaign and completely destroy the world’s economy, useless consumption will remain as a pillar of our society for centuries. This blackout achieved nothing, and further protests and blackouts will not do anything to change the system.
What’s the alternative? We live off the land? We completely stop trade? We live in a solarpunk fantasy that will never be achieved? Sometimes I think of alternatives to combat capitalism, but they always turn out to be 10 times worse.
You can make an impact on yourself, change what you do and consume, but 99% of the population will continue to praise Übercorps and be their personal shitter, making food for flies.
why not boycott all major corporations every day? it does require a bit of work, but the more money you spend locally, the better your local communities will be
Im guessing many folks or at least more than the usual percent on the fediverse do this to some degree. I have seen other comments about it and have done them myself. Its really not to much work to me but its a continuing thing. Regularly thinking about what else you can cut out or if you think you can finally cut out a particular thing. So im not where I would want to be and im past low hanging fruit and it will be slow going forward of where I am not but I will continue.
That’s just not how our economy works. “Local” business is not making toilet paper from trees they cut down in their backyard.
I’m probably getting downvoted for this but I hate hate hate this “consumption is power” bull shit boycotts. Consumption is NOT power. LABOR is power. If you work at these large companies you have a million times more power and influence by organizing.
Boycott today if it makes you feel good. But it’s so incredibly missing of the point that I have to assume it is purposely missing the point of collective power.
Your power is in your ability to withhold labor. Not withholding consumption for one day that you’ll just buy the next day. Hell, if these planned organized single day boycotts, if they actually had an impact, would be a way to maximize profits to reduce labor requirements for those days. It’s so silly.
Organize your workplace. That is where your power is!
The engine of the modern economy is mass consumption just as much as labor, especially since a lot of labor is done overseas these days. Everyone not buying stuff from Amazon is just as much an existential threat to it as the entire work force striking. Either way you deny them there profits and force them to pay there fixed capital costs with no revenue.
You could argue it’s less feasible to organize the mass of consumers then it is to organize a workplace, but the power is still there either way.
Bottom 60% of earners in the US represent less than 25% of total consumption. The power is in labor and labor only, there’s a reason why we have plenty of historical examples of successful labor movements, not so much of consumer movements.
We need maps of what helps, and how much.
No more saying stuff doesn’t work and misses the point. Only pointing to where it is on the map. Better for organizing.
Sorry. If you’re actually asking but I thought I was pretty clear. Labor organizing is where power is. This starts at YOUR workplace. There are plenty of resources and “maps” to get you started but that is often very unique to your location and place of work. There is not a single meme image that I can post. This takes work. The start of that work is looking for labor organizing movements in your area and place of work. If there are no existing unions or labor movements you can contact the AFL-CIO or other organizations in your field. They can help you learn more about your resources.
This takes work. If I could post a meme image like the OP I would. But it doesn’t work that way. You need to be ready to do work. Talking to your coworkers, agitating, etc.
Chris Smalls is your inspiration but we need 1000 more Chris Smalls throughout the country. Not one day of a consumer boycott.
This is not about being a downer towards any movement. It’s about understanding that class war is always filled with distractions like these single day consumer boycotts that do absolutely nothing. People that are downers about them are trying to direct people towards what should actually be done. It’s not one massive movement out of the blue. It takes a lot of local and small work to even get to having any leverage at that scale.
Once we actually have a massive labor organizing movement in this country THEN the leaders of major unions can call for and organize something like a general strike. But that doesn’t happen on its own because someone posted a “general strike” meme on reddit. It’s takes a lot of work, organizing, and very specific demands, and strike funds.
But this all starts with you and the organization of labor in your workplace.
We are fighting capital. It doesn’t just end up with a bunch of peaceful protests and the capitalist class rolling over and saying “ok you can all have healthcare”. They have all the power of the police, state violence, and media agitating. It’s why you need massive organization, solidarity, and funding for your cause. And most of all very specific and united demands. Otherwise these movements quickly die when people can’t pay their rent or buy food.
IMHO we should have it every Friday or Every 28th or something like that.
Never heard of this before. I like it, should be a weekly thing.
technically anyone who honors the sabbath would be doing just that (im not religious but used to be somewhat of a religio/philophile).
Hahaha this boycott was Dead on arrival
“One day boycott with no terms or conditions, that’ll show em!”
I mean, I’ll still do it because why not? It’s easy (which is part of the issue), but like…this will do nothing.
The way I see it, you have to start small before you can go big. Get people used to the idea so when you call for a general strike later, it doesn’t seem totally outlandish.
Organizing around denying consumption is the exact opposite of what a general strike would do. This does nothing but make people feel like nothing they do matters because it’s focusing on the exact opposite of what we should be organizing on. We should be organizing around labor.
I can’t tell if these online “consumption power” movements are just a reflection of the complete lack of class consciousness. Or if they are planned distractions that are designed to fail to make people feel powerless. I think it’s a bit of both.
I suppose that’s a decent point. Like I said, I’ll still participate and I’m not trying to be defeatist about it. Let’s see where things go!
So what I dont understand is, even if one were to do a week long blackout of buying anything, we would still need to get milk and eggs and crap. So is the idea to switch from amazon to other stores or not spend altogether? Because not spending altogether is a pretty stupid and unrealistic goal.
My main complaint is that anything not bought on the day of the blackout will just be bought the following day.
Better protest is to act as if there is a recession. Buy only what you need, and if possible seek an alternative from a smaller manufacturer. As aways don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Nope
A single day isn’t going to do shit
Thank god I already did my shopping this week.
Thank God you also are fine again tomorrow.
