this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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I keep saying exactly this. It needs to be longer than a week and it can't be things like groceries or you're basically asking people to starve. And so many people who are supposedly fighting for the less well off don't seem to get "living paycheck to paycheck" and the idea that working 5 days a week and taking care of yourself/kids means that when you shop is largely dictated by factors out of your control. Its got "oh, just make your coffee at home to save up for a new house" or "blame the average person for climate change and not the massively polluting corporations" vibes.
Even groceries you could change what you buy though. Air fried beans costs fuck all. I was going to suggest egg fried rice as that is cheap in the UK but you might struggle with the eggs in the US. Could just fry rice and add some veg though.
You have very strong "avocado toast" vibes fyi. You seem to think that the problem is what we're eating as if we have enough money to be buying luxury foods in the first place. I'm already eating the cheapest, calorie dense food I can. If I could eat a nutrient paste gruel every day with 100% nutrients that was dirt cheap, I would.
Isn't avocado toast supposed to be really expensive though? I budget around £15/week each on food.
Making it longer doesn't help.
You need to boycott specific products (with ready altenratives) and have specific demands.
No, making it longer would help if your only goal is to crash the economy thinking that a tantrum will solve the core problem and not just lead to a bunch of bandaid appeasements.
For the record I'm agreeing with you. We need more directed action and more specific demands. These demands need to be things that have a clear roadmap to being implemented as well, not just "I want X". Cool. Nifty. How do you expect X to be implemented in today's world? What will the steps look like?
I am more than happy with wanting America to face a recession. I will avoid American products as much as possble.
If you could rely on supporters to actually abstain from buying things for the duration of the protest, and you had enough supporters then ok extending the duration of the protest might "help" crash the economy.
What I was kind of getting at is that you really can't rely on supporters to abstain and you don't have enough supporters.
The longer the protest (or... the more inconvenient the protest), the less dedication you're going to have from supporters.
I whole heartedly agree with the screen cap in the post suggesting that protesters seem to think they can just observe some rite and all of society's ailments will be resolved. Real actual change is going to involve real actual pain, and unfortunately the plebs always carry that burden.
My feeling is that presently people are dissatisfied but not really desperate enough to undertake the civil disobedience required to invoke meaningful change. For example, could you organise enough people to boycott starbucks until they allowed employees to unionise? It would take time, organisation, and dedication. This is just one teeny tiny example of a potential first step, a rallying cry, a way to demonstrate a proof of concept. However, I just don't think it's achievable.
My point that even if you had all the supporters you needed right now, the current plan is basically "let's crash the economy" with no forethought on what happens next. How do you crash the economy AND prevent new monopolies from forming in the wake AND not starve half the population to death in the process? No one ever addresses the second part, which is why this is exactly like the screen cap.
Yeah but then if they had to actually do real work for their protest, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place would we