They want you to be consumers, not citizens...

[MrScorpio]

[blkmusclmachine]

1. In other words, Citizens are a danger;

they want to unload your pocketbook.

[merrily]

2. I have been trying to get support for, maybe a year from now, an anti-purchasing strike.

Ideally, it would be a year, during which people across the country would buy absolutely nothing but strict necessities. However, to be realistic, I'd go for a single calendar quarter.

On edit: even a single month.

If anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to get them via post or pm.

Meanwhile, a post here introduced me to Rev. Billy and the Church of No Shopping.

I have not checked out the site yet, but I have a feeling I will like it. http://www.revbilly.com/

[LuvNewcastle]

4. I'm interested in doing that, too.

All you have to do is watch tv for an hour or so and count all the times we're encouraged to shop for something. Even all the shows talk about consumption. The best way to throw a monkey wrench into the works is to get large numbers of people to stop shopping for anything other than essentials. The question is, how do we get people to do it?

[merrily]

11. How do we even get the word out?

This is why I'd also love a national and an international website, where we'd all know we could check in to find out what is going on in the world of activism.

[LuvNewcastle]

25. Yeah, it wouldn't have to be anything as complicated as DU.

It could be like a virtual billboard where people can post notices for action. Maybe later it could grow into something more, but for the meantime, that would be something at least. I saw some other websites come along during the Occupy demonstrations, but they don't seem to have gotten anywhere. Of course, the constant presence of the FBI and intelligence agencies would have to be dealt with. People need to be thinking ahead to a day when the internet might be shut down or restricted, though. If people really start organizing, it's inevitable that it will happen.

[merrily]

27. The Occupy websites are still operational. I recommend checking them.

http://occupywallst.org/article/anonymous-call-action-nov5th-2013-lion-sleeps-no-m/

http://www.occupyboston.org/ (my local occupy--the one that started everyone using 99%, I'm proud to say)

Of course, the constant presence of the FBI and intelligence agencies would have to be dealt with.

I've thought of that, but I have no idea how to avoid it if you want to stir up national action. You can't code stuff for everyone in the country or the world.

But, the hard bit would be publicizing it. That takes money and personpower. I don't know any big donors and, I don't about you, but I don't give on the internet to people I don't know and can't vet. IOW, I would not donate to me.

[LuvNewcastle]

28. Thanks, I'll bookmark those links.

I'm in the same situation as you regarding funding. I don't know how to set up a website, either. I guess the only thing to do is to talk about it to others. Maybe if it's discussed enough, somebody with the skills who can raise money will get something started. I suppose everything worthwhile endeavor starts with ideas and discussion. There's probably a lot of people who've been thinking the same things.

[merrily]

30. Publicizing the website is harder than setting it up.

There's probably a lot of people who've been thinking the same things.

God, I hope so, but I see mostly requests to sign internet petitions and to call people in D.C. , maybe to travel to D.C. for some demonstration.

Yeah, that really works.

Do you know how many times I and many others signed petitions, called and emailed and demonstrated about the public option, to name just one thing?

Anyway...IMO, we have to hit them in the wallet or we're spinning our wheels.

But, a journey of 1000 miles supposedly starts with a single step. Maybe each of us posting wherever we can is that single step.

EMILY'S List was started by one rich woman, Ellen Malcolm. If one rich person likes the idea, that could do it.

[Demeter]

5. One major holiday ought to do it, actually

[merrily]

12. I think you might lose parents and grandparents.

The two biggest money holidays are Christmas, which usually ( though not this year) falls near the gift-giving holiday of Hanukkah) and Hallowe'en.

Both of those give kids a lot of excitement, joy and glee.

I think it would suffice if, for a month, no one bought a shirt, a dress, a car, a pair of kicks, etc. Even a baking pan.

[Demeter]

22. One doesn't have to BUY Christmas

One can Make Christmas, or DO Christmas, or even RECYCLE Christmas

[glowing]

7. It would be great to take a no spending/ no working stance.

Just 1 day of people not showing up to work, besides essential personnel would literally effect the world. It's impossible to do for a month. People would run out of food, gas, and possibly a paycheck. And to be successful, it would take a lot of people to do this so they wouldn't lose their jobs.

The wealthy would be nervous if all of a sudden there weren't any people around to fly them places, wait on them, watch their children, work in their factories... It would be even more successful if the entire globe worldwide decided to stop playing their rat race game for a day or two.

Would it ever happen? I'm not sure. This country is divided so much as is; who knows what the rabid right would do if regular normal people didn't show up to work or buy and Fox News is still directing the traffic?

It would be really nice if people didn't show up for Black Friday sales on Thursday.

[merrily]

13. I made an exception for strict necessities, so a month is possible, even a year.

his country is divided so much as is

Yes. It is also my belief that the left has to start building bridges to the right, to law enforcement and other first responders, to the national guard and the military, etc. We must be the 99% and not the lunatic liberal left or we'll be spinning our wheels.

[canoeist52]

8. Already happening by nescessity.

We've been living like that for a few years now. I suspect that many more are also - or they will soon, as I see no policies that the people are crying for, being enacted to change this painful economic outcome.

And, we've found, it's easier to live this way without TV in your life.

[merrily]

14. Perhaps even by design.

A desperate work force is a work force that will be grateful for any job and any wage. And people who are exhausted or worried to death about their families because they are jobless do not have the energy for concerted action, protests, stikes, etc.

That's why we need to find ways to stop being divided among ourselves and to do things that will have an impact.

(And no, posting and "signing" internet petitions is not going to cut it.)

[canoeist52]

18. Yep, pretty sure it's by design too.

And dividing us by generational warfare is by design as well.

[merrily]

20. Also dividing us into left and right on the basis of nothing but cultural issues.

Please do not misunderstand. Cultural issues are extremely important to me, especially equal rights for everyone.

However, I don't think cultural issues are really important to most of the money people. Rather, they keep us focused on them while they work together to pick our pockets, take our jobs or send them overseas, etc.

[LuvNewcastle]

26. I definitely agree about the generational warfare.

It started out as a fucking marketing ploy and now they're using it to divide the young from the old by acting as if there's only enough money to go around for one generation or another. People shouldn't fall for it; generations aren't real, they're constructs. There are people you have something in common with of every age, as well as people your own age who you don't like. It's all bullshit.

[PasadenaTrudy]

24. Love Rev. Billy

Got to meet him years ago.

[KG]

3. the american people are viewed with suspicion by those in power, hence the need for NSA

[merrily]

15. And the FBI and the national guard, etc. And the suspicion falls mostly on the left.

On edit:

Jeez, how could I have omitted Homeland Security?

[DeSwiss]

6. In our system, if you're not a consumer you don't have any value.

- And besides, you're obviously insane. Everybody picks the slavery-by-debt route......

K&R

[Madam Mossfern]

9. Honestly

My husband is in retail and my father was in retail. They have/had small businesses. When I see posts like this, it makes me very angry. I'm a Democrat as was my father and is my husband. The rhetoric and fuzzy thinking in this article make me furious and want to leave the party if this is the direction it's going.

Why in the world would you want to hurt small business people who are struggling just as hard as you are? You cut off your nose to spite your face.

Instead of conjuring up ways to 'send a message' to businesses, perhaps you may want to focus on campaign finance reform?

Those people to whom you would want to teach a lesson would hardly feel it personally if you sat out buying for a year, but those who work in these businesses would find themselves unemployed.

I beg of you, don't be the liberal flip side of the tea party.

[MrScorpio]

10. I think that most, if not all, of the Black Friday fighting incidents happened in the big box stores

The conglomerates, like Walmart and Target. I seriously doubt that this sort of thing occurred in local mom and pop stores.

It's the big boxes that are giving retail a bad name in this situation.

[merrily]

17. Small business people are part of the 99%, too. And they are getting swallowed up by stores

like Wal-Mart and chains.

But, you have a good point.

There could be an exception for neighborhood stores that are not behemoths.

I love Shop Local Saturday and make a point of it every year.

[CorrectOfCenter]

16. There's nothing wrong with consuming.

It's some of those from which we consume that is the issue.

If they paid their employees a living wage and gave back to the country that allows them to do business, they'd still be making huge profits and people would feel less animosity toward them.

P.S. GO WALMART STRIKERS GO

[merrily]

19. Of course there is nothing wrong with consuming per se.

There is nothing wrong with working per se, either, but people stop working when they want to make a point, aka a strike.

IMO, if we want to make a point with anyone anymore, we have to aim at their pockets, just as they aim at ours. They are not going to step up voluntarily to make things better for workers. Maybe a very few will. But, if we show them that we are capable of taking concerted action against them and will do so, that is when we will have leverage.

[CorrectOfCenter]

21. Agreed.

I feel we're headed in that direction.

And it's starting with Walmart.

The more they resist, the more the movement will grow.

[merrily]

23. The more WE resist, the more the movement will grow.

I think anyone who can possibly be there should at least consider picketing along side the Wal Mart workers, the McDonald workers, etc. Protest--protest from which you have a right to expect change, anyway--is not a spectator sport.

I am not much for demonstrating for the sake of demonstrating, but picketing a store is different. Ya gots ta hit the wallet!

[Javaman]

29. I've been saying this for years...

once the mainstream talking heads started referring to the citizen of this nation as "consumers", the catapulting of the propaganda was complete.

the bow before their corporate masters and promote the buying of useless things so the donations from those same corporations keep flowing in.

Citizens vote and protests, consumers consume and are easily lead.

[fadedrose]

31. It turns me OFF from buying gifts

I am going to give money this year and let the kids select the stuff they like.

I've gotten my best bargains in January and February and if they have some cash then, they could buy a lot more than in December.

[BelgianMadCow]

32. Excellent post. Anybody interested in how the chance citizens -> consumers came about, watch

The Century of The Self, a BBC docu on PR and consumerism. Watch it entirely here.

It has the following parts:

Happiness Machines. Part one documents the story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays who invented Public Relations in the 1920s, being the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses.

The Engineering of Consent. Part two explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses. Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires.

There is a Policeman Inside All of Our Heads, He Must Be Destroyed. In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas, which lead to the creation of a new political movement that sought to create new people, free of the psychological conformity that had been implanted in people's minds by business and politics.

Eight People Sipping Wine In Kettering. This episode explains how politicians turned to the same techniques used by business in order to read and manipulate the inner desires of the masses. Both New Labor with Tony Blair and the Democrats led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group which had been invented by psychoanalysts in order to regain power.

[TBF]

33. At best. K&R nt

[woo me with science]

34. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

35. I do believe you nailed it.

Thanks for the thread, MrScorpio.

[marmar]

36. Noam Chomsky sums it up nicely:

[font size="4"]"The goal for the corporations is to maximize profit and market share. And they also have a goal for their target, namely the population. They have to be turned into completely mindless consumers of goods that they do not want. You have to develop what are called 'Created Wants'. So you have to create wants. You have to impose on people what's called a Philosophy of Futility. You have to focus them on the insignificant things of life, like fashionable consumption. I'm just basically quoting business literature. And it makes perfect sense. The ideal is to have individuals who are totally disassociated from one another. Whose conception of themselves, the sense of value is just, 'how many created wants can I satisfy?' We have huge industries, public relations industry, monstrous industry, advertising and so on, which are designed from infancy to mold people into this desired pattern."[/font]

[1000words]

37. Which explains ACA

We needed a public service and got a consumer product.