Resist: It's Time @fedia.io Sir_Kevin @lemmy.dbzer0.com 2w ago

Stephen King supporting the movement

https://bsky.app/profile/stephenking.bsky.social/post/3liazdbpm6c2o

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These "one day no purchase" things don't work. It takes sustained effort to "vote with your wallet".
- https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3lidyv4mggs2c
  People are organizing
  
  I'm specifically talking about the one day economic blackout.
  
  These have been done dozens of times over dozens of issues and have had zero impact ever. A one-day blackout won't do shit except give the Ralph Wiggums of the world that "I'm helping!" feeling. If you want them to feel it it has to be longer-term. A week. A month. A year. And that's sadly, something that people in a consumerist culture lack the stamina to do.
  
  Also if you just move your purchases to the day before or the day after all you're doing is very slightly messing up their forecasting. They're still getting your money, just earlier or later than that had expected.
  
  This is the precise problem with these kinds of empty actions. Back in the '70s and early '80s, when this was still new, companies would panic over this kind of action. Then they noticed it didn't even register as a blip on the stats. A mild anomaly, maybe, if it was held on the last day of a month, but completely buried in annual statistics.
  
  If you want them to actually take notice, you're going to need to have more than a day. And that means going without. Which most people are unwilling and/or unable to do.
  
  A consumerist culture is unsustainable with extreme wealth inequality
  
  I feel like the main issue with participating in a long term economic blackout is the fact that a lot of people who would want to do that don't really have the savings or option to do so.
  
  Young people living under the poverty line, living paycheck to paycheck are considerably upset with the state of U.S. economics but also cannot contribute to a movement such as this because of stuff like not being able to work full time and do school full time, needing to live off of every penny day to day because it's all they have, etc. If a long term economic blackout movement were to happen, these people wouldn't even make that huge of a difference regardless because of not being able to spend a lot in the first place.
  
  The people who will make a difference in a longer term blackout are middle to upper middle class families with stable jobs and good savings, and unfortunately somewhere around half of those people will probably be right wing, fascist leader supporting citizens.
  
  EDIT: Not to say this isn't a good idea and that we shouldn't try out best to push it as far and wide as we can, just making the point that the majority target audience for this type of movement is less capable of making a bigger difference and we need to push it further into social spaces that might not be getting information like this.
  
  Everyone has a different level of risk they're willing or able to take on, and that's okay. "Voting with your wallet" is definitely an uneven way to effect change, since people with larger wallets have bigger votes. What is feasible for one person may be unfeasible for another, but there are always ways to pull together in the same direction, against fascists.
  
  As always, all efforts, great and small.
  
  lol a general strike. pure fantasy. You're gonna need about 5000% more class consciousness in the US before you can even think about it.
  
  Yeah, why try doing anything, right? Action only counts when everybody does it! You, puny little human, are worthless. Your ideas not worth repeating. Don't ever try and organise anything. It's not worth it. \s
  
  Stop being a pawn for the rich.
  
  Sign up here.
  
  https://generalstrikeus.com/
  
  Thanks friend! I share that link everywhere I go.
  
  The number of people needed is huge, but it's more like ~3% of the population. Strike cards and a critical mass of participants are key for us working people.
  
  A general strike would be amazing, but it's not realistic. Even just having say 25% of workers out for a few days puts strain on the system. Same with limiting spending. If even 25% of the country spends only on essentials, then that'll translate to a couple percentage points of loss to major corporations (not all of course, but some major ones).
  
  It's not about a silver bullet, it's about inflicting enough paper cuts that it starts to hurt. No one thing will be 100% effective.
  
  Things like that graphic are good. It needs to be yelled from every corner though to be effective. Advertise it.
  
  That’s what some of us were doing an hour ago 😉
  https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3lifhrfh6c22v
- Do it anyway.

112 comments