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The Benefit of Boycotting [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-28

Since the date of our boycott was today, I’ll keep this short and simple.

I f you could, you stayed home.

If you could avoid it, you didn’t buy your food “out.” You brown bagged it, make choices based on what you had on hand.

If you did not absolutely need to be buying something, you kept your cards and cash in your billfold. Tomorrow is soon enough to get back on the economic treadmill.

No online purchases. You should be very careful about any online shopping anyway. You did the thing that is most important — you gave yourself a day off.

Every now and again, we need to simply stop the machinery. Read a little further, please.

We live in a world where increasingly, a very small number of unknown, unnamed people siphon off a fraction of what you pay for things. Each item you buy gives a “dip of the beak” to someone who has leveraged themself into the equation, and the money they make from the sale has nothing to do with authorship, inventor status, copyright, patent, earned royalty or trademark, let alone the labor that went into the item..

The cost of goods sold doesn’t seem to show this siphoning. But it does contribute to a class of parasites on our economy. That’s the overt message of the meme posted above. It is a fist pump back at the powerful, the ultra-wealthy and those who can get a little bit of the cheese without actually contributing to any part of the process that makes it.

The other message of the poster is:

The world either controls you, or you decide how much to absorb and participate in.

Humans need maintenance time. In fact, all machines do. Think of an economic blackout or a boycott not only as a protest, and a way to pour energy into something you believe in, but also as a way to accomplish preventative maintenance for yourself and your mind.

I think it is beneficial for all of us to accomplish these blackout periods from time to time. It gives us a twenty-four hour period in which to gather our wits, appreciate our good fortune, however temporary it is, realize that we have a choice in everything we do, and begin to reclaim our sanity.

I hope you used this day, or any other day you designate as your blackout date, to not focus on everyone else, but to focus on yourself, and do so without spending any money. You are a part of an economic machine that must either shut down completely for maintenance, or be structured to allow its human components relief.

I could rant on about the perceived advantages of AI and high-tech to accomplish many routine tasks very precisely, and that humans might not be necessary in the infrastructure. But I won’t, because we travel this information superhighway all the time. It is a powerful tool. We’ve become highly dependent on it as a warehouse and clearinghouse for our daily questions, answers, commodities and logistics management. And let’s stop being ridiculous, this is not a life form that we’re now beholden to. It is just another form of machine. We can survive without it, and we should engage in the practice of turning off the informatics and logistics from time to time.

The world either controls you, or you decide how much to absorb and participate in.

On these boycott days, step outside of your mechanically programmed self. Step away from doing things without reason. Be a part of your own recovery, maintenance and reclaiming of sanity.

If you think of this as a field of combat, recognize that even on the battlefield, there are periods where rest becomes necessary for the opponents. Both sides must take a time out. There must be a safety stand-down every so often. The money managers need your participation, at the cost of your sanity. In a war that uses dollars instead of bullets, the best way to win is to not spend!

Boycotts can be powerful opportunities to re-energize. Make the most of these moments by not spending, not just your money, but your very existence. Step out of the rat race by sheltering in place, disengaging for 24, 48, 72 hours or more at a time. Make the time to appreciate yourself. It is necessary time spent on building your reserves for the continuing fight.

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