Buy Nothing Day and Beyond
The last big, planned day of action that I can remember was in September 2019. Millions around the world protested in a week of coordinated action to call attention to rapid climate change. This was before the COVID-19 pandemic, before the George Floyd Uprising, before the Los Angeles strike wave, and before sporadic campus encampments calling for peace in Palestine and free speech on campus after Hamas’s incursion into Israel and the IDF invasion of Gaza.
What are nationally and internationally coordinated days of action? They are planned. There was the March 5, 2003, Books not Bombs student strike against the war in Iraq of which I helped coordinate student press in Chicago because Osama Biin Laden, a rich Saudi trained by the CIA, was not from Baghdad. There was March 10, 2006 followed by May 1, 2006, a planned organized day of action for immigrant rights against plans for mass deportations. There was Occupy Wall Street in the fall of 2011. It was a planned, deliberate, symbolic, and purposeful. It took the offensive against factory closures, mass layoffs, that followed the wall street bailout of 2008 and painfully slow economic recovery. On December 4, 2014, and April 15, 2015, there were mass strikes planned as part of the fight for $15 and a union, that many of us participated and planned. On January 20, 2017, there was the Women’s March.
And in September 2019, there was an international day of action, a youth climate strike, where millions around the world mobilized for a future worth fighting for.
Today, the Trump administration’s opening salvos against civil society are a wave of publicized deportations, and the union busting of the federal workforce. We need to build escalating national and international action days to fight back against the dismantling of key government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and, yes, USAID, without an act of congress.
Elon Musk’s DOGE is out of the Ronald Reagan PATCO playbook that busted the air traffic control workers union. Government union busting. In 1982 there was a planned mass recession to outsource manufacturing jobs and bust trade unions so Reagan could win in 1984.
Federal civil servants are America and the world’s protection against a draconian and dictatorial state, government by oligarchical tech CEOs, and a labor movement that fights to support working families’ dignity, decency, safety, security, money, respect, and freedom.
The broader labor movement must defend the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) American Federation of Governmental Employees, and other government unions fighting against mass layoffs and union busting.
One way is to prepare for the road ahead, and mass coordinated national days of action against federal government worker union busting, the usurpation of congressional power by an unelected CEO, and to support immigrant rights.
The first action may not be strong. But we need to escalate. Social movements floundered after the January 6 coup attempt, as Biden assured the Democrats, and through them, their base, that all would be well. Many integrated themselves into the apparatus of the party in power then, and social movement momentum floundered. Some groups failed to endorse or campaign for Harris for President, focusing on Palestine or Russia as an excuse in November 2024. Many of us were bewildered, confused, burned out, and disoriented. Some were hyper focused on municipal politics, or the strike wave in Los Angeles fighting to expand to other cities. But we can talk about that more later.
For now, this morning, Buy Nothing!
Dan LB
IT’S CALLED ‘BUY NOTHING DAY’.
๐๐ ๐ก๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐๐๐จ๐ง๐จ๐ฆ๐ข๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ค๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ
For one day we show them who really holds the power.
February 28th The 24 Hour Economic Black Out Begins.
๐๐๐๐: Friday February 28th from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM
๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐:
Do not make any purchases
Do not shop online, or in-store
No Amazon, No Walmart, No Best Buy Nowhere!
Do NOT spend money on:
Fast Food
Gas (plan ahead!)
Groceries
Major Retailers
Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non-essential spending
๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐:
Only buy essentials of absolutely necessary
(Food, Medicine, Emergency Supplies)
If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.
SPREAD THE MESSAGE
Talk about it, post about it, and document your actions that day!
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐!
~ Corporations and banks only care about their bottom line.
~ If we disrupt the economy for just ONE day, it sends a powerful message. Hold out much longer if you can.