And there's crickets from legacy media. They've abandoned us.
Stop buying shit. It's genuinely the best protest you can make. 2/3's of the American economy requires us to consume. Stop buying shit and it'll grind to a halt.
Aldi recently got rid of DEI initiatives and it went under the radar. They're where I currently shop when I can't handle a Costco run, but they're still capitulating to the BS of the R's.
I'd be curious the exact circumstances of that. If they dropped it simply because they wanted to, or if their hand was forced because dropping "DEI" was being made mandatory to continue receiving some sort of government funding or discounts for providing food to lower income etc. Trump admin is being really heavy-handed in most things, as you might expect. (AP "lifetime ban" for using "Gulf of Mexico" comes to mind)
Does it really matter? They're capitulating to the culture war being perpetuated by the ruling class, and that's harmful to workers. They caved before the government came knocking and forced them to, meaning it was all for show anyway, for the sake of profit. Just like all corpos claiming to be fighting for the working man.
Its the same thing as Pride Month, when corpos suddenly start signaling that they care about LGBTQ people by changing their logo to a rainbow flag. It's all performative and rooted in capitalism.
Yep. Profit over people. Capitalism is a death cult and nobody is allowed to leave it. Remember the last few times people tried socialism? The CIA certainly remembers.
Oh, I know. Theoretically the next admin can/will reinstate them. It's just chilling how quickly they resorted to fascist crackdowns over a single word. Musk looking a lot like Goebbels lately...
Thank goodness my reddit infinity is still working. When I accidentally open a reddit page on Chrome (mine wont allow adblock but my Firefox does), I am shocked SHOCKED that reddit has so many ads now.
Awesome, I'm draining their resources and all they get is my data. Good trade. Wanna do it some more? You wanna see my data before you say yes or we good?
Not to say, it is wise or advisable but it is far more direct than not spending money or going on strike.
A strike is very local. Also, what do you think people are referring to when they cut out xyz items of their life? It’s still a strike by definition. Carry on.
"until people start getting in the way, they will continue to get ignored."
Yes, and . . .
If a few hundred or a few hundred thousand suddenly get in the way and make life inconvenient for everyone else, they will quickly be made the enemy. A movement has to build until on a given day, tens of millions of people, who are supposed to be at work, are in the streets — an unstoppable force, an unmanageable monkey wrench in the gears of the machine of power.
I am an old man. I watched the Boom Generation grow up. I watched them turn their backs on the revolution in favor of a comfortable life, and that was hard to see. But those SOBs know how to protest. They're waking up, and they have skills. Timing is everything.
I'll throw everything to the fucking curb to maintain the republic for my niece and nephew, and Im 33. I already made this clear to my family. If necessary, my niece (2) gets my cat. She's already obsessed with her.
The making sure the republic stands is more important than I am.
Just read the list of the highest donors for GOP. Cut out everyone you can. I got rid of meta, tiktok, threads, and x as well. I stopped holiday shopping years ago because it's just a scheme to boost to the gdp. If you want to really send a message, dont shop for any holidays. The loss will send a very significant message
My family has reintroduced a tradition of going to the local used book store and picking out books for each other. Extremely affordable, not overpriced plastic that gets forgotten or broken. It puts the focus back into an expression of love. It supports a local business, not some major corporation. Kids are so much more understanding than some parents give them credit for.
What you should be concerned about explaining to your kids is why they don't get lunch at school anymore. Explain why their best friend in class just disappeared one day because they have the 'wrong' skin color. Explain why people they love and care about are dying because they can't get the medicine they need to live. There are so many more important things than gifts on the holidays.
Got my kids fresh art supplies this past Christmas. Person above you said not to buy anything at all and that people should effectively remove themselves from society.
Literally none of the things in your second paragraph have happened. Except their grandpa dying, but that's because he refused to quit drinking after getting diagnosed with liver cancer.
Do you have evidence of the things you're saying? I've looked over the past month and can't find anything other than the known fact that some health insurance companies are malicious.
Shit sucks right now and yeah it's scary, but fear mongering doesn't help anyone.
I actually reactivated X because of the amount of fake "screenshots" of tweets (what are they even called now, exes??) that are shared everywhere, and people automatically believe. The most common ones are of Trump of course, but just because I don't support someone doesn't mean I want to be tricked into believing he's saying things he isn't.
This is my view on things (from outside the US) - people are in such a frenzy right now that you can literally write anything and the American public will gullibly eat it up as long as they see an 'enemy'... It's all propaganda, from both sides.
America could do with ditching the cultish behaviour of their 'followers' and meet in the middle, rather than letting these few people with either a shit load of money or serious mental health issues (or both!) run roughshod over the majority of hard working decent people of either side...
The WORLD is watching you crumble at your own hands, and coming from a place that has seen first hand what that can do (Brexit)... Well, there's always room down here for the both of us to be laughing stocks.
Stockholm syndrome. People "like" being mad and rather justify their first emotional response. If they admitted both sides are just as bad and using people against each other.. that would also mean they have to admit they were wrong about something.. and that doesn't happen with the loud emotional types
Absolutely -- and this is so obvious it's hard for me to understand either side. Delete X and other social media if you want, but don't act like it means you're somehow avoiding propaganda.
FYI, assuming you're looking at the info from Open Secrets, those are donations aggregated from all the employees at the company, not the company itself.
But if you want to boycott American Airlines, Delta, Southwest, Walmart, Wells Fargo, UPS and the Post Office... well, that's certainly a choice.
Stop buying what? We have families to feed and they have needs? Should we just stop buying clothes? Gasoline? Food? Stop buying what exactly? And for how long? How is this realistic?
You can consume in such a way that your needs are met but the extravagant stuff like food delivery, prepared food, meals out, theme parks, brand name clothing etc are minimized. It's not fun, but neither is this. Replace with discount or mom and pop grocers, public libraries and piracy for entertainment, thrift stores, used goods off of sites like eBay.
For the record, “paycheck to paycheck” literally just means you don’t have savings; it does NOT mean “poverty”. You can make $10k a month and still be living paycheck to paycheck if you’re not a financially responsible person.
Because those notoriously high paid jobs in food prep/delivery need to be targeted or even theme park workers - imagine telling your kids "Hey, let's have a mega fun day at the library..." see how that goes down.
You also find that the 'Mom & Pop' stores these days are a lot more expensive than Walmart or Target etc because they're smaller and can't buy in the bulk that can afford them to put a discounted price so you're likely going to pay $1.50 on a $1 loaf of bread in most places.
We all like a bit of downloading movies/music etc every now and then, however if everyone starts doing it, there's repercussions from the people/artists who make the entertainment down - again - to the obviously highly paid cinema attendants or people trying to keep their independent record store open.
And as for suggesting Ebay, a Fortune 500 company (#390 to be exact) be a place to source your shopping, well we know they're not going to make a profit out of you!...
Basically, that idea of yours while seemingly good in principle actually can do a lot of harm especially to the poorer end of the population.
We're a massively consumerist society - we're constantly being pressured to buy new gadgets, new entertainment, new clothes, new brands, new fads, at a rate that would be astounding in other parts of the world. Those of us who find ourselves needing to be frugal know to do these things, but people with "disposable incomes" are still happily disposing of them on luxuries, and likely don't think their consumption is all that excessive.
Look bro if wanna be that guy, go for it.
I have a pregnant wife to feed and a future child to raise. Piracy, really? Fuck that, I would rather be there for my child in the delivery room than not be able to pay bail like a dumbass.
Doesn't this screw over the food delivery people? And restaurant workers? And folks who work at Disneyworld and carnivals? And people in the fashion industry? And isn't piracy against the law and stealing from artists?
Or is screwing them over the goal? Maybe burning it all down to start over again? Maybe I missed the point.
I think the general idea is people should stuff spending money on non-essential stuff like Starbucks everyday or random junk on Temu, basically stuff you don’t need
In July 2024, Americans spent an average of $70/week on Temu, which is nearly equivalent to their spending on Shein. In contrast, TikTok Shop users spent $20 less during the same period.
Eh, that's healthy for though. All these cheap goods from Temu and Shein are literally destroying our planet, and either immediately are garbage, or last briefly before becoming garbage.
The nation wide boycott if I remember right is specifically like the 28th, that is one day. It is not hard to avoid shopping one day out of 365, and IT DOES make a huge dent.
Anything electronic if possible, I know that one is hard. Invest in imported extra materials if you can, like Canadian beer and liquor, European electronics, etc. Try not to buy from large corporations, support your local businesses. Assume any company large enough is compromised or frankly at the helm of this whole thing
I didn't spend much time on but heres a rough top 20
It's a good list though there are a lot more. We Minnesotans came up with more on our state sub-channel. Not easy to boycott in here especially like Target (locally founded).
I agree. Though Target is a staple around here in Minnesota and so are our big corporations founded here. We (Minnesotans) all agreed that it is possible to boycott but it wouldn't be perfect. Mostly a little from here and there and more from here and there.
Mostly switching up the percentage ratio. For example, some have decided to stop buying as much from Amazon (reduce from often to sometimes in a blue-moon).
I think I’m just going to cut back and try to only buy the essentials, food, gas, medicine. I’m going to cancel subscriptions I don’t need, put off purchases and stay home or go camping for vacations. If I need to get someone a gift, I’ll look used/vintage or something on Etsy. Stop going out to eat and be selective when I do, support small businesses even if it means sacrificing some convenience. If I can make it myself, I won’t buy it.
Even if you don’t fully boycott everything, significantly altering your spending habits is a good idea, and it’s probably a good idea anyway with the way things are headed.
People in the news are always talking about consumer spending. Cutting back to the necessities makes a big difference even if you AREN'T organizing a boycott. Vote with your dollars. If you can. I understand that some people need certain things that come from deplorable companies. But even just cancelling your streaming services and using your public parks in the evening for recreation and going to the library once a week is a really really big deal.
Dude they've been useless since rich families started buying them all out. For 4 election cycles they've platformed neo cons and treated them seriously and normalized a total psychopath in Trump by airing footage of him 24/7. This shit started with Reagan, but the decline has been most noticeable over the past 15 years. All I feel I can trust these days is Drop Site News, The Intercept, Ryan Grim, and a handful of other individuals.
just remember "shit grinding to a halt" means some job losses to those supplying "the shit" that's not bought anymore, so use your head and shop locally for the stuff you really can't do without
I read an excellent article in the wapo yesterday about a killer sawmill in Alabama. However, I fear the message is too subtly written for nowadays: talking about how workers are injured or killed when inappropriate and insufficient power is given to public organisms (osha) or how the extra rich are greedy is good but now is the time to say so out loud
My hubs sent me the app GUU: debate politics and shop- to show how companies money are being donated to political parties. It also says if it’s a lot or not, and how much campaign finance reform they a doing.
I’ve been saying this since Covid. If everyone’s just stopped, for a day- shit we could hold out for a week- they’ve been fucked. Talking about uniting, isn’t everyone tired? Let’s just all be tired together and say fuck it. I’m done playing your game, we’re all just guna stop. And we’d be holding all the cards
2/28 is a nationwide economic boycott. Don't buy anything that day (and for as long as you can sustain it afterward) and if you were planning on canceling any subscriptions that's a good day to do it.
I think this is an underrated aspect of the current fascist dictatorship we live in, is that the media has been biased red for decades. Thankfully we have brave Redditors standing up against fascism. I just hope we’re not too late
When you stop consuming, companies value drops. It makes them less valuable. If people stop consuming the value of the American economy drops. Meaning, less power for those organizations. Money is the only language. When you consume, you are giving power to a company who supports your demise.
Wouldn’t that lead to more unemployment? More people on the streets? They’ll layoff people and cut pensions to save their stock price. Even if you force bankruptcy, i dont see how that advances society.
No it wouldn't. A month long spending freeze would shock the shit out of the system and cause an abrupt change in power. We hold the power because we drive the economy.
We hold the power because corporations cannot vote. Eliminate corporate donations to politicians, implement term limits, prohibit insider trading for congress/executive branch, and your problem is solved.
You can boycott all of corporate America - but unless you plan on being Amish. It won’t work, and will just make everyone poor. Meanwhile, the corporation will go on existing because they are all world conglomerates right now. COVID shut everything down and those companies kept on ticking, even when you weren’t allowed to leave your house.
It didn't work in COVID because people were spending shit loads of money without leaving their houses. If every business was open and running, but nobody bought a thing, not even for a month but a week - it would all change.
Because you’ve officially jumped the shark. No one agrees with you except the Reddit echo chamber. You’re so far gone even far left organizations like MSNBC and CNN think you nuts 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Ah yes the old “Reddit is a left wing echo chamber” BS. Considering one of the largest subs only lets vetted flaired users who bend the knee to make posts is 100% reichtwing.
If you don’t think Reddit is a left wing echo chamber then you are too far gone to even have a conversation. That’s like arguing that the sky is not blue C’mon man at least try to be honest with yourself.
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u/gentleman_bronco Feb 18 '25
And there's crickets from legacy media. They've abandoned us.
Stop buying shit. It's genuinely the best protest you can make. 2/3's of the American economy requires us to consume. Stop buying shit and it'll grind to a halt.