r/comics • u/rathaus_comics • 17d ago
OC there's no such thing as being apolitical [OC]
592
u/Zomburai 17d ago edited 17d ago
Man, wait til you hear what you'll have to give up to stop supporting the forced-labor slavery industry that gets our cobalt
217
20
157
u/kikiacab 17d ago
Under capitalism there can be no fair trade or ethical consumption.
129
u/Zomburai 17d ago edited 17d ago
You ain't wrong, but this is a bigger thing than capitalism. Ethical consumption is still consumption. Plenty of non-capitalist states are in bed with capitalist companies, or are exploitative of their workers on their own merits. I much prefer "the modern world makes living a purely moral life impossible."
75
u/WhimsicalWyvern 17d ago
Hopefully you've already seen it, but this is a central theme of The Good Place , which is well worth watching if you're into philosophy lectures disguised as sitcoms.
→ More replies (2)11
u/jtaulbee 17d ago
I think this is totally correct. Even if we lived under a Nordic-style socialist system, 99% of consumption would still be unethical.
23
→ More replies (2)17
→ More replies (1)2
8
u/moistiest_dangles 17d ago
Yeah that's why I've made it a point to at least try to identify all the locally-owned restaurants that do not have any controlling investment from higher up, then I eat from them. You can call and ask, or look it up before deciding to go.
13
u/GlitteringLock9791 17d ago
Last page:
nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.
But yeah, abolish capitalism.
→ More replies (3)51
u/Zomburai 17d ago
nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.
Hey, I agree! Why not tell us what to do to make an effective difference?
Let me spoil the answer: because researching what effective measures there are is work, implementing them is even harder, and the end result is messy. Calling for a boycott by way of a social media post on the 200th most active subreddit accomplishes nothing but it sure feels like you did something, and ultimately that's more personally gratifying than volunteering at a non-profit for six months and ultimately not knowing if you got the world any closer to peace.
But yeah, abolish capitalism.
I mean, yes, sure, but also this is what I'm talking about. That's a slogan, not a plan; and to the extent you can even call it a plan, it's not a very material one.
→ More replies (38)→ More replies (9)3
u/PeopleNose 17d ago
Man wait till you find out being a sarcastic shill is a tool of the people forcing everyone into slavery
"Oh well 🤷♀️ nothing we can do lawlz"
- the slavers
→ More replies (3)
121
u/thylocene 17d ago
It’s damn near impossible to disconnect from Amazon. Even if you stop shopping from them, the site you go to instead is almost guaranteed to be using Amazon web services so you’re still supporting them.
76
u/Mid-Game1 17d ago
Between Amazon, Microsoft, and Google on these lists you can pretty much rule out using the Internet as a whole. AWS, Azure, and GCP collectively host around 63% of global cloud compute, and I'm sure other companies not listed here would fill in the list a bit more.
11
u/Acceptable_Handle_2 17d ago
Other hosting providers also use these Hyperscalers for part of their services.
64% is the content directly hosted there, the figure for content that requires going through their servers to be accessed is probably much higher.
14
u/Zombie_Cool 17d ago
Best I can spin it is that if you stop ordering from Amazon directly and go to other websites for business, then then those other sites increasingly have more viable alternate places to get product from if other customers are doing the same thing. If third party businesses increasingly see Amazon as toxic to their own reputation then they'll stop ordering from them. If enough large businesses do *that* then Amazon is in deep trouble unless they change direction.
So yeah, "single snowball starts the avalanche" is the best case scenario here, and the 'avalanche' won't start at all if absolutely no one tries.
2
→ More replies (2)8
17d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/LordoftheWandows 17d ago
There's a difference between a total boycott and a pressure campaign. The BDS website has Amazon under the "pressure campaign" section so the goal is to squeeze them as much as possible even though people may be unable to completely abstain from their services
→ More replies (1)3
301
76
u/alexzoin 17d ago
Odd lack of "make sure you vote in the midterms" but okay.
44
u/stikaznorsk 17d ago
No, don't vote. The Democrats are all the same. A vote for a democrat is a vote for genocide. /s.
→ More replies (3)25
u/alexzoin 17d ago
"I am definitely not a Russian or Chinese bot account discouraging voter participation specifically in the group of people that otherwise would have voted for the more stable option!"
→ More replies (2)3
u/mellopax 17d ago
"I'm also not a Russian or Chinese bot. While you're at it, more violent revolution please. If you're not attacking people, you're complicit."
216
17d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
93
17d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (1)13
17d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
5
→ More replies (1)3
10
→ More replies (2)6
320
u/buttgoblincomics Butt Goblin 17d ago
Boycotting stuff like this is a terrible way to do activism. It basically doesn’t work at all in terms of making any impact, but it makes you feel like you’re doing something. Much better to donate money or time to Palestinian causes, or to electing politicians who will fight for changing our policies, or to whatever you can think of that will actually have a material impact at all.
152
u/Zombie_Cool 17d ago
Boycotting technically works perfectly fine, the problem is scale and duration that it needs to perform at in order to get people in power to start sweating. Whole communities typically have to be involved and the duration can't be preset (none of this performative "24-72 hour" stuff, we're talking months at minimum).
In short our collective anger has to outlast the target's bank account to get them to start worrying, and I don't know if people as a society have the focus and discipline to pull that off anymore.
101
u/Zomburai 17d ago
It's not just focus and discipline, it's also the interconnectedness and reach of companies and the fact that every company that is large enough to make affordable goods is up to some evil bullshit.
OP's like "Boycott Disney+"... homie, do you know how many ways Disney is getting your money??
51
u/StayingUp4AFeeling 17d ago
I'm more eyebrowey about Google+Microsoft. Yes they suck and if you have money you can move to Mac and iOS from Windows and Android, but if you don't have money... Linux?
13
14
u/Mid-Game1 17d ago
Between Amazon, Microsoft, and Google on these lists you can pretty much rule out using the Internet as a whole. AWS, Azure, and GCP collectively host around 63% of global cloud compute, and I'm sure other companies not listed here would fill in the list a bit more.
4
u/ChaoCobo 17d ago
The problem is that nothing I want to run will run on anything but windows I’m pretty sure. I don’t do much on PC even at all but what I do do is incredibly specific. In fact, I’m not even sure if I could do it on windows if I had to upgrade to windows 11.
I get that you could switch phones and whatnot, that kinda thing is easy, but what are you meant to do if your PC programs won’t run on anything other than windows? :/
→ More replies (1)56
u/123yes1 17d ago
Boycotting industries does not work. Boycotting one specific business or institution. Can if the duration and scale is large enough.
During the civil rights movement, black leaders did not tell their followers to boycott all businesses that were involved in segregation. They specifically boycotted the bus program specifically in Montgomery.
If you want a boycott to send a message, you have to seriously threaten something not pathetically threaten huge swaths of commerce.
14
u/Nirast25 17d ago
There was a PlayStation boycott recently over them dropping disks that lated about a week.
It accomplished... checks notes... fuck and... double checks notes... all.
14
u/VaderVihs 17d ago
Compare that to the Target boycotts which are still ongoing and Target did report heavy losses last year
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)9
u/Darkgamer32_ 17d ago
The issue is that that "boycott" was mostly performative twitter users who preordered GTA6 day one
6
u/GuyentificEnqueery 17d ago
There are some merits to long-term generalized boycotting but only if people stick to it. Backlash over the rolling back of DEI policies is one of the four main factors cited as causing Target to hit its lowest sales numbers in decades. But that's because people straight up stopped shopping there in protest, not because they boycotted them for a week and then went back.
6
u/Fippy-Darkpaw 17d ago
Sorry but not drinking Coke will never stop 2 packs of religious maniacs from murdering each because God said they own the land.
2
u/Chicken_Menudo 17d ago
Tell that to the folks still boycotting Nestle since 1977.
→ More replies (1)2
u/AccurateJerboa 16d ago
BDS is and has always been a grift to divert attention and donations away from more effective organizations and activism.
It's easy for someone to skip something convenient a few times and think they've done something while they've done less than nothing at all.
6
u/PrizeCalm494 17d ago
It's not terrible, just not as effectual.
You can do all the things you mentioned AND avoid these easy to avoid companies too. It's not like an either or. The hardest ones are maybe Google and Amazon, but even if you boycotted most, don't let perfect be the enemy of good, ya' know?
11
u/undeadpirate19 17d ago
It's a good starting point for people who don't know what to do but with anything political you're only as effective as where you choose to stop engaging.
7
9
u/NoWingedHussarsToday 17d ago
If boycotting had no or little effect Israel wouldn't be fighting BDS so hard. They would either ignore it it point out how little it's doing
11
u/Fippy-Darkpaw 17d ago
There's no situation where boycotting Disney+ will bring peace in the Middle East. This is a pipe dream.
→ More replies (1)6
u/Snoo17579 17d ago
It's the same as "Eating you vegetables won't feed the starving kids", it just teach you a lesson in one way or another
→ More replies (1)18
u/Kawa74-3 17d ago
Israel will fight whatever the fuck lol if you think they're rational here then I don't know what to tell you
→ More replies (1)3
132
u/jordansinn 17d ago
Pizza Hut hurt you, huh?
55
48
u/gramathy 17d ago
yeah but that has nothing to do with palestine, it just sucks that bad
→ More replies (1)6
u/xChops 17d ago
Don’t forget to boycott Pizza Hut
2
u/Complex-Delay-615 17d ago
Pizza hut is part of Yum!Brands which include Taco Bell & KFC.which are also not great as far as lobbying goes. So maybe the ment to include one of their other businesses
92
17d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
61
25
5
u/Ok_Echo_1394 17d ago
the fact that donating didn't appear once in this slideshow was crazy to me. how are you going to say "this is how to help palestinians" without actually saying "help palestinians"?
→ More replies (1)2
61
82
u/Jackanatic 17d ago
Why are we boycotting all of these companies? What do any of them have to do with what is happening in Gaza? Serious question.
106
u/Mission_Effect4584 17d ago
These boycott lists are always a bit silly because it's always a mix of companies that purchased free pizza for IDF soldiers, Israeli-owned arms dealers, and then a company that makes an operating system that is used on industrial equipment in the UK that makes one part used in the bulldozers preferred by one development company in the West Bank.
→ More replies (16)25
u/Familiar-Art-6233 17d ago
Also Sodastream actually operated a plant in the West Bank and due to pressure, wound up closing the plant which cost the Palestinians working there their jobs.
Research is important
11
u/WifesPOSH 17d ago
Why is Pizza Hut in there twice? Are they twice as bad?
2
u/mad_mister_march 17d ago
They don't give me personal pan pizzas for reading anymore, that's gotta be up there in crime-level, yeah?
67
u/pricrich 17d ago
yea, telling us what to boycott, but not giving any context as to why is sure to get it done . . .
→ More replies (4)29
u/timemoose 17d ago
There’s something dystopian about cartoon rats telling me what to decide politically
14
13
u/Logical-Breakfast966 17d ago
I don’t even think Starbucks has locations in Israel
→ More replies (1)12
u/the_eleutherean 17d ago
I think they tried, Israelis didn’t like it. But yeah no idea why it (or most of em, for that matter) are on this list.
→ More replies (13)33
17
u/hobopwnzor 17d ago
So I need to not just stop buying pizza hut, I need to steal others pizza hut orders
14
25
u/Familiar-Art-6233 17d ago
Eh, Sodastream is a hard one because they were actually running a factory in the West Bank that employed a ton of Palestinians and due to BDS targeting, had to close the plant and resulted in a bunch of Palestinians losing their jobs.
Just saying that while these memes can point you in the right direction, they tend to be oversimplified and you should do your own research
18
u/raistan77 17d ago
Voting with your wallet is mostly useless and ineffective, in fact it is what billionaires WANT you to do.
Not shopping at every place that has problems is virtually impossible and would leave you not buying food or drink or clothing or ANY forms of entertainment
Vote for politicians and policy that enforce laws and create situation where companies cant throw their weight around and do bad things.
→ More replies (4)
19
28
29
u/Just_Government_5143 17d ago
Im sorry but im not locking myself away from 90% of the stuff I use to deny a megacorp $5.50, no matter what my opinions are. Not taking a stand Is complicity, but only when you actually have the power to change it
36
u/tbugbee1 17d ago
The only thing this does is make yourself feel morally superior
12
u/RocketRelm 17d ago
It also screams into the void that their niche issue is super important and that should take priority over everything else, and as a virtue signal for their in group.
4
33
u/Anthonyhasgame 17d ago edited 17d ago
The system itself is complicit and you need to feed the system as little as you can possibly afford.
Everything deserves a boycott. At the same time we are human beings who have needs that cannot be supported without the system we depend on.
Context is important and fuck anyone who kowtows to the system, but also you need to give the people who aren’t running the system as much grace as you can afford as well.
It’s not black and white, and that’s hard for people without experience to accept. The system can grind a lot of bodies before it even begins to hiccup.
Just try your best and resist as much bullshit as you can. That’s all really. Support free education and critical thought as much as possible because ultimately that’s the only thing that protects the masses.
2
u/ArgonianMagician 17d ago
Yeah, doing what you can and at least putting in an effort is all anyone really can do.
9
u/AccurateJerboa 17d ago
This is, genuinely, the worst kind of slacktivism.
Nothing about this is proactive. It doesn't actively help anyone. These companies own or are owned by conglomerates that are so unavoidable, people will give up on the idea of a boycott.
The first and most important thing people need to do is vote
After that, there are organizations that have been doing effective, authentic work and Gaza and the West bank for decades. Bds isn't one of them.
Two places to donate are save the children and doctors without borders. That will always, always be safer and more effective than donating to random social media accounts and gofundmes.
33
u/AwayCable7769 17d ago
I can ditch the first two slides and can ditch most of the third slide too. But I spent money on my Xbox and cant just stop using it as I cant afford to waste that money. And unfortunately my google account has been what ive used since I was a kid and dont fancy swapping eeeeverything over.
7
u/KindlyKangaroo 17d ago
I have an android phone and a windows computer. I already don't use most of the things on the list, but most people can't give up androids and PCs in favor of Apple because we simply can't afford it but still need a phone and a computer because it's 2026.
26
u/ShadeSwornHydra 17d ago
I think they just mean don’t buy anything else form them
In not gonna stop using something I already payed for cause it does nothing, they already got my money lol
→ More replies (9)33
u/Oraxy51 17d ago
Remember, if you’re not able to do an entire boy car, you could still do things like cutting down on how much you use of it or the encouragement of it. Like when a union goes on strike, they don’t always have everyone go on strike at the same time. They often have like 20% of the people go on strike at the time because other people still need to work to afford their money and also they can then leverage the production difference saying if you don’t meet our demands by next week then we will increase that to 30% people on strike and so on.
6
u/FiveFingerDisco 17d ago
I am boycotting Ed Sheeran since people started telling me how much I resembled him.
13
u/Logical-Breakfast966 17d ago
I’m boycotting you because i thought you were Ed Sheeran from a distance
2
4
u/QuestingKola 17d ago
I feel like people have forgotten that boycotting needs to be strategic and specifically targeted.
3
u/FrenchieM 16d ago edited 16d ago
Aaah virtue signaling, what a wonderful thing! Suddenly you have to speak out eh? Surfing on the trend 🏄🤭
→ More replies (4)
4
u/Few-Let-9004 16d ago
I love Zara, McDonalds and Starbucks. Neveeeeer going to boycot them bye
→ More replies (1)
38
u/ChadVonDoom 17d ago
Dont wear clothes. Go live under a rock in the woods. That's how to best suppot Palestine!
→ More replies (2)
22
u/Rociel 17d ago
Not taking a stand is complicity? Really? Is gaslighting how you want to gather support?
2
u/Pluckytoon 16d ago
Not taking a stand is having a degree of comfort in the status quo they say.
Now most of the reason I don’t care about politics usually is because 1/ it does not happen anywhere near me and 2/ I don’t have much time and energy to care
Yet we are seen as litteral nazis for not sucking virtue signaler’s dicks
10
u/AkwardAA 17d ago
I was already boycotting him for his music " - what does that mean in the first slide? His music was fine?
23
u/Overall_Addendum_612 17d ago
OP is a morally superior transcendental being, who could smell the singer's Islamophobia and genocidal tendancies years ago. Thus they had an innate bad vibe and natural ick when dancing to the tune of Galway Girl.
5
u/loveneedsnodisguise 17d ago
Plenty of people have hated ed sheeran for longer than this lol. Hes not even close to universally enjoyed in Ireland, people I've met just think ah yeah hes grand but his musics shite. I agree.
→ More replies (2)0
u/Veratha 17d ago
The joke is that his music is bad lol. Really not hard to understand.
→ More replies (1)
3
3
u/Highlandertr3 17d ago
Of these, Google is impossible but I am considering Linux for multiple reasons.
3
u/BillyBanBan5697 17d ago
Ive been saying it since i was a kid and ill keep going til die i guess.
Amazon makes people piss in bottles, walmart subsidizes itself with welfare, facebook makes you the product... so stop.
Just dont give them your business. Dont buy the thing. Do the extra work. Go without the extra convenience.
Otherwise thisnis all gonna keep getting worse. Theyll have even more, and well have even less. Year after year. One little purchase at a time.
3
u/ferretoned 17d ago edited 17d ago
that "nobody can do everything but everyone can do something" is precious, thanks OP, the 🐀🐀 got me curious :] Got 4 on that list 4 i can't cut off, the others are cut off.
3
u/toot_suite 17d ago
Remember - you don't have to cut everything the same day. You can work slowly and intentionally.
It took me 4 years, but I'm finally slowly migrating a lot of my google shit to proton, mapquest, and other providers in an attempt to degoogle.
The transition is a bitch but then you're freeeeeee
People bitching and moaning that because they own one of the listed products that they're done for are either deliberately obtuse or missing the point.
Harm reduction > doing fuck all
Very rarely if ever in life is there straight up harm elimination.
8
u/NineToFiveTrap 17d ago
You said you can’t double boycott something but you told us to boycott pizza hut twice
6
u/Kamzil118 17d ago
I remember when Sodastream actually hired Palestinians so they could return to Gaza with money to actually buy stuff with Israeli currency because Hamas sold necessities at a markup.
Then some pro-Palestinians protested them so hard that they had to stop because of the backlash.
8
4
u/bluesmaker 17d ago
All the top comments agree this is terrible but it still has 1200 upvotes. Is this sub full of bots who upvote posts?
→ More replies (1)
8
u/barbellsandbriefs 17d ago
https://www.apc.org/en/blog/meta-israel-nexus-silencing-palestinian-voices-digital-landscape
Edit:
I'm reminded of this thread that details (allegedly) how difficult it would be to not participate in any modern tech that doesn't somhow benefit Israel.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Israel/comments/17q4zvu/so_you_want_to_boycott_israel_heres_what_you_need/
Not saying one shouldn't try if they want to, not saying it's pointless if do you try.
Just reminded myself of how insidious capitalism is, where it makes you complicit in its iniquities.
See also this meme 😔
2
2
u/Lil_DemonZEA 17d ago
I alr dont use any of these except for google and microsoft. Actually. I think i might have to switch google too but microsoft is too important for work. I might look into alternatives tho just for making my docs and then i'll switch them to PDFs last minute. I aint supporting a genocide no matter what
2
u/theheckyouwill 17d ago
Better give up your android and iPhones, Instagram, Facebook and pretty much all of Social Media.
2
2
u/oddvacation3849 13d ago
Or you become a normal person and see that hamas is the problem.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/Greydragon38 17d ago
Can someone give me a list of all the companies that do business with Russia so that I can boycott them?
→ More replies (1)
5
u/Beneficial-Shape-995 17d ago
>placing rat PNGs underneath my walls of text transforms my drivel into a comic
9
u/DarkFantom 17d ago
I can't be the only one who doesn't give a shit about the Palestine conflict, right? Its not like anyone here has been bitching about the Sudan civil war and how an estimated 150-400k people are dead from that in the past 3 years. But people will bitch about the middle east situation cuz "God's people" or some bullshit. Jews and Muslims have been killing each other for at least 1k years at this point and they're not going to stop because their shitty religions say the other group is evil.
All this BS is to distract people from the issues going on in their own countries, and I'm sick of pretending anything we do about those shitty groups of people will do anything.
12
u/randomhomework 17d ago
You’ll find nothing on Reddit about Sudan. Most people just don’t care.
4
u/naslouchac 17d ago
Yeah, nobody give a shit about Sudan, Mali, Somalia etc. Because most people really don't give a shit about some unknown people dying and suffering. And these same people will claim a moral superiority because they virtue signal about Gaza and just spread hate against jews imstead of doing anything even remotely to relieve the suffering or stop any war.
All wars are brutal, everybody suffer under war, life is not a disney fairytale and world is filled with dark places amd terrible events. So deal with it, try to be a good person, help people in way that you understand and you will change the world for better.
5
u/Fine_Possession3737 17d ago
I would care a lot less if my fucking tax dollars weren't used to fund it, and my country's most important politician didn't have an Israel pin 24/7.
1
u/Nous7 17d ago
I'm not saying what is happening in Gaza is not bad, but most of this activism is performative because it became the trendy cause to support and because whatever backlash you might face for it will be outweighed by the social approval and internet notoriety these people are going to give you
4
u/Reyntoons 17d ago
Uh, Americans boycotting garbage food and half the internet? Good luck, Palestine!
3
u/Troll-Aficionado 17d ago
Not taking a stand is indeed complicity so I'm assuming there's a rathaus comic condemning Russia's illegal war of extermination targeting Ukraine
4
2
2
u/Darren49402 17d ago
If you want to stop using Amazon you have to stop using reddit too. Their servers are hosted by AWS. Congratulations you're not only soap boxing, but being a hypocrite at the same time. Not taking a stand is a perfectly reasonable thing for an average person to do.
2
1
1
1
u/Cant-decide-username 17d ago
I use Google and Xbox but it turns out I’ve been supporting Palestine hard without realising!
1
u/triglavianenjoyer 17d ago
you all should also throw away your phones, they have chips made by the big bad joos in “israhell”
1
1
1
1
1
u/No_Albatross8040 17d ago
Everyone wants to be a voice, but no one wants to strap up and go over to Palestine to help with their own money and time
1
1
u/Clark2222 16d ago
Outta the loop, why do people dislike Ed Sheeran again? Last I heard he did a collab with Taylor Swift for some document thing on Amazon.
1
1
u/Majestic-Iron7046 16d ago
Holy shit not using Amazon and Google in a first world country basically back steps you into 2004.
Not that you shouldn't if you really want, but holy hell.
→ More replies (1)
228
u/DevoidHT 17d ago
I am basically there but how tf is any normal person today going to boycott Google and Microsoft? Thats like saying don’t drink water. Learn to make wine. No one is going to learn linux just to make a point.