Black Out the System calls for a nationwide Boycott Thanksgiving/ BlackFriday week. Act!
'We're Shutting It Down': Economic Blackout Set For Nov. 25 - Dec. 2
and
www.themassblackout.com
(another site provided by a reader)
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If you’re worried and want to help stop the ‘Troll’, boycotts are one of the safest and most effective ways to undermine his agenda. He is being propped up by wealth interests and ‘consumer restraint’ is their kryptonite.
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For the past half year, I’ve been posting on DK in advocacy of No-Buy-Friday, as well as boycotts and especially ‘buynott’, which is my term for turning away from mass-consumption by adopting consumer self-restraint as a lifestyle change —
and from the vantage of my ‘soapbox’, I hear about how many others are cutting back.
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Not all that long ago, boycotts were provided with a stellar example of their clout, when people reacted to the removal of Jimmy Kimmel by hitting Disney right where the only nerve capable of sending messages that will be acted upon resides — their coffers.
Within about a week of people canceling subscriptions, trips to Disney World, Disney related cruises and etc., the old mouse squirmed as the ‘trap snapped’.
Disney’s capitulation was virtually knee-jerk, as the sleepwalking giant of consumer fixation kicked up a petulant fuss at having had a beloved plaything snatched away.
The lesson here being that their mostly spontaneous reaction was powerful enough to stop this corporate behemoth dead in its tracks and get it to reverse course.
As more and more of us follow suit, providing a body for the resurrection of organized boycotting, and/or adopting the self-affirming practice of buynott, we can begin to take back the power we’ve abdicated in the vain pursuit of ‘fulfillment’ through material gain.
For the truth is that boycotts work, but ‘junkie’ consumers prefer to embrace the conceit that they are ineffectual, so as not to have to participate. This self-centered anti-action is predicated on the wrongheaded assumption that no one else will step-up because humans are fundamentally…self-centered. Misguided reason provides the ‘myopic insight’ that involvement would be a foolish waste of time.
“Foolish” becomes a stand in for ‘inconvenient’ and doing what you think is best as an individual, or (god forbid) leading, are not deemed worthy of consideration.
The ‘reward’ of avoidance overshadows them.
Thanksgiving and Black Friday, the latter of which is engraved in the collective consciousness as our national pre-Christmas holi-orgy of consumption, will roughly fall in the middle of a weeklong national boycott organized by Black Out the System.
I understand that we are thoroughly conditioned to give Thanksgiving preparations preeminence over all else, which presents a formidable obstacle that only the most informed and concerned will overcome.
Furthermore, I know that Black Friday does provide some people with an opportunity to make important purchases possible, due to greatly reduced prices.
However, I do not see boycotting or any other methods of cutting consumption as behaviorally black or white, but simply as a overriding goal to be strived for.
If during this Thanksgiving week, you managed to abstain from impulse buying just a few times, it will move the needle in the right direction —
and that needle will become a sword to strike at the heart of our oppressors.
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I urge everyone reading this to participate to the best of their abilities.
“If not us, then who? If not now, then when? Hillel the Elder—Jewish sage.”
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Note: Due to my heavy workload, maintaining a weekly Thursday diary stretches my resources enough that I have a little to offer this diary other than to have composed it and published it in the way of public service.
Although I will check in from time to time to see how it’s doing, I will not have the luxury of participating in the comments thread to the same degree that I can on Thursdays.
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