I feel like the main issue with participating in a long term economic blackout is the fact that a lot of people who would want to do that don’t really have the savings or option to do so.
Young people living under the poverty line, living paycheck to paycheck are considerably upset with the state of U.S. economics but also cannot contribute to a movement such as this because of stuff like not being able to work full time and do school full time, needing to live off of every penny day to day because it’s all they have, etc. If a long term economic blackout movement were to happen, these people wouldn’t even make that huge of a difference regardless because of not being able to spend a lot in the first place.
The people who will make a difference in a longer term blackout are middle to upper middle class families with stable jobs and good savings, and unfortunately somewhere around half of those people will probably be right wing, fascist leader supporting citizens.
EDIT: Not to say this isn’t a good idea and that we shouldn’t try out best to push it as far and wide as we can, just making the point that the majority target audience for this type of movement is less capable of making a bigger difference and we need to push it further into social spaces that might not be getting information like this.
Everyone has a different level of risk they’re willing or able to take on, and that’s okay. “Voting with your wallet” is definitely an uneven way to effect change, since people with larger wallets have bigger votes. What is feasible for one person may be unfeasible for another, but there are always ways to pull together in the same direction, against fascists.
I feel like the main issue with participating in a long term economic blackout is the fact that a lot of people who would want to do that don’t really have the savings or option to do so.
Young people living under the poverty line, living paycheck to paycheck are considerably upset with the state of U.S. economics but also cannot contribute to a movement such as this because of stuff like not being able to work full time and do school full time, needing to live off of every penny day to day because it’s all they have, etc. If a long term economic blackout movement were to happen, these people wouldn’t even make that huge of a difference regardless because of not being able to spend a lot in the first place.
The people who will make a difference in a longer term blackout are middle to upper middle class families with stable jobs and good savings, and unfortunately somewhere around half of those people will probably be right wing, fascist leader supporting citizens.
EDIT: Not to say this isn’t a good idea and that we shouldn’t try out best to push it as far and wide as we can, just making the point that the majority target audience for this type of movement is less capable of making a bigger difference and we need to push it further into social spaces that might not be getting information like this.
Everyone has a different level of risk they’re willing or able to take on, and that’s okay. “Voting with your wallet” is definitely an uneven way to effect change, since people with larger wallets have bigger votes. What is feasible for one person may be unfeasible for another, but there are always ways to pull together in the same direction, against fascists.
As always, all efforts, great and small.