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this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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The key thing to remember is that a one day blackout won't have an effect on the corporations. What it will do is get more people comfortable with taking action. If you can go one day without buying from Amazon, two days isn't much more, and then a week, and then a month. The idea is to ratchet up the action.
Just like how fascism has a progression to slowly "boil the frog," collective societal action does, too. This isn't an end but a beginning.
The problem with this approach is that the frog knows you are trying to boil it.
I don't think it's much of a problem. People taking part want to do something to combat Trump and Elon, but many don't know how. And let's face it, it's kinda scary to try to go up against powerful people. This is an easy, low-threat way to get started. It's for Jim and Jane down the street who want to do something but don't know what and are afraid of going all in right now.
So, if they boycott for just a day as a symbol, they see it's not so bad. Hell, they may even make it two or three just on their own. Then the next call to blackout comes a month later, but this time it's for a week. Easy. Now, this time, they find alternative local businesses who align with their positions to get "emergency" supplies from. Then the next call comes for a month's blackout, and they realize that they haven't been buying from the big companies at all, so that's easy.
But, they still feel like they aren't doing enough. Isn't fighting supposed to be harder? So, they decide to attend a small protest. Then a bigger protest. Suddenly, Jim and Jane realize that they are going to city hall meetings, protests, etc., which they never thought they'd get involved in. And it started with just taking a day off from buying things.
Obviously, this won't happen for everyone where they get hyper-involved. For most, it'll probably just be doing the economic blackouts for however long at a time or just finding alternate places to do business so they feel like they're helping. And you know what, that's fine. If people turn away from the big businesses, even just 20%, that will start to show up.
Then you make jumping out of the pot the worse option
And what are they doing for that? Because there's no plan for that right now.
You’re half right. It does affect the corporations but not much. Change is change. Just need to be more proactive about it and keep continuing.
This is a much better plan. Much better. We should be organizing longer pauses with different targets. We should have a different one every week or longer.
This is the level we need to be at. Now. The minimum level.
Again, it's a step for most people. For me, it was easy to leave Amazon. I found a few things ultimately to work around the stuff I couldn't find locally.
But my parents who live in the land of Walmart basically have it and Amazon. Now I know they can find elsewise, but the convenience is there. If I tried to talk them into completely dropping Amazon, that will be a massive fight. But hey, take a break from it for a week because of this bullshit, that's an easier conversation.
After a week it's easier to realize you go further. I'm the oddball who's pretty good at just doing things cold turkey.
Getting people to take part in actions that have no effect on their target can eventually make them feel that all such actions are pointless, though.
It can always be spun as a symbolic statement, but giving it the appearance of an economic boycott leads to confusion about how effective boycotts actually work.