Boycott Black Friday!

The friday after Thanksgiving is corporate giving day, when the large box stores participate in a feeding frenzy. This Black Friday, BOYCOTT. Do not go to a mall. Do not use your credit card. If you intend to shop at all shop small businesses on main street and pay cash. Are you with me?

I have tried to get MoveOn to do this for two years, but frankly, they are funded by large banks and apparently could not do such a thing . . . but we can. We are the 99%

You need to do more than BOYCOTT. A BOYCOTT has to have a voice. You need to tell your local newspaper what you are doing. Everyone needs to send a letter to the news telling them what they spent that day and that it was cash and who they shopped with.

Much like a gas boycott, this wouldn't work.

why

Boycotts work when a group is cohesive, well organized and has overwhelming numbers.

This isn't the time-yet.

So put more people out of a job and hurt the economy even more. Smart.

it won't hut the economy to not shop at big block stores for a day, but if we communicate why it makes a difference. No one is willing to stop shopping at the cheap mall stores . . . No one wants to give up the credit cards. This is how they make their money . . .
I will still employ people if I am not a big block store. And one day of no one shopping on the biggest day of the year is not going to cause walmart to lay people off . . .

This is a good suggestion in my opinion. If it happens it will send a message to big corporations. It will also make the news and plant the seed for a longer boycott into mass consciousness that would send a bigger message.

Capitalism is collapsing folks. We are at the limits to growth on the planet. Hyperinflation is just around the corner. Many people are going to lose their jobs in the future anyway. The sooner we make the needed changes the better. We can suffer a little now, or we can suffer a lot later. Our choice

That's the problem- it wouldn't send a message, as the boycott would just mean people will do it afterwards.

An example of what I would consider an effective boycott would be a public boycott of companies say, a monster megabank sponsors. But there needs to be cohesion first, this isn't the time.

It's debatable when the correct time for the boycott is. I guarantee it will happen sooner or later.

If boycotts are to happen, and they should at some point, you gotta make sure it's effective, easy, and smart.

You have to boycott in a way that there is competition that can benefit. Boycotts are fundamentally about using market power to gain an outcome.

That's why I suggested going after BoA sponsors, like say the Carolina Panthers. That's something that is fairly easy to do, and there is competition (other NFL teams for example) Eventually, the lost business theoretically would cause those companies to disassociate themselves from BoA, and that would hurt the bank.

The reason I think a boycott of large box companies would be best is that they are easy to target (while I like Alstein's suggestion, frankly, if people have to think too much about what to boycott they tend not to do it -- overwhelm). Big box/mall stores tend to be chains that do business with big banks, and also carry the most cheap products using child labor, etc, harm the environment, and on and on. While there may be some that are better, and, this is a boycott for a day, or maybe once in a while. It tends to strengthen small businesses, which, if you happen to live in one of the towns a walmart has harmed, tend to be run over by the big boxes who don't pay well anyway. They don't create better jobs, but cheaper jobs for them, and frankly they have so much strength they are unlikely to go out of business due to a boycott for a short time.

What i like about the idea, is that it sends a message to big box companies and banks (no credit cards used) that we the people have control of our spending habits and can stop or change what we do, which actually WILL harm them. If we stopped using credit, the banks would suffer. Starve the big dog. Cash is king. What would they say if we did it and it hurt their numbers for a day, and after getting their attention, we said, "Behave (meet reasonable demands) or we do this permanently."

I hear you Randall, that we may not have numbers yet. though if we started to send out E-mails on a personal level to boot and on FB the boycott might go viral.

I will tell you that making small noises for a long time works. For a few months, every time I went into our local Albertsons in our small town, I spoke to the meat department about the selections, and how I wish I could buy meat that was not brutalized and tortured, and without hormones. I said it politely, but each time people around me heard what I was saying. I pointed out where the cattle were kept, and how they probably should not display where it came from so very prominently. I told them I would shop at Albertsons more if they had more organic and "organic" humane meats. It took six months. Albertsons had the ability, but had not bothered to stock it.

Being polite, being persistent, like a mosquito, needling them. It worked. And that is but one of many stories.

From initial reports, the general strike in Oakland worked great. No, not everyone joined in, not even a majority of the people. But they had enough to send the message they wanted, some stores cooperated by closing for the day or refusing all credit card orders. Oakland has the 5th largest docks in the US, they day started late and they only reached 40 - 50% production. Trucks were lined up for miles. Later in the day, the docks shut down completely.

We don't need everyone to strike, we just need a lot of people. We need those that think 'this is a good idea, but it won't work, so forget it' to go out and do it anyway. If we get enough people to make their own 'one person' strike to send a message, then the message will get sent.

I was happy to read about the Oakland Strike, and really surprised that the city supported it. I think we will be seeing a lot more strikes soon.