this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Resist: It's Time
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We are still in this together, but "this" is going to be real different in the very near future. This demands a different kind of "we."
The French Resistance during Nazi occupation played important roles delivering downed Allied airmen back to safety, supplying military intelligence, and acts of sabotage.
The Underground Railroad is estimated to have brought 100,000 freedom seekers to safety between 1810 and 1850.
It's time.
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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.
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.