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No-Buy-Friday imperfect? Stick with it and see. Obamacare barely took flight, & then got wings [1]
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Date: 2025-03-27
No-Buy-Friday imperfect? Stick with it and see. Obamacare barely took flight, & then got wings
Another failure in my ongoing attempts to please everyone.
Last Thursday, some of us from “Friends of Gaia” got together to post diaries in support of No-Buy-Fridays.
The focus of my post was that the message we send to ourselves with ‘NBF’ is potentially more important long-term than the one we send to them, because if learned properly it empowers us to take back what is rightfully ours — which is nothing less than Gaia, our cosmic home.
Interestingly, we had a few commenters, (primarily, but not exclusively to my diary), who chose to undermine our efforts by choosing to ignore the fact that not buying even just one day a week sends the message that if we choose, we can control our consumption.
They kept repeating the now common talking point, that as we would just spend the money the day before or the day after, the effort we were promoting was bogus. They failed to produce anything else more substantive, and perhaps thinking this sufficiently irrefutable, just kept repeating it over and over.
The most ‘passionate’ amongst them, charged ‘out the gate’ with this comment:
“One day boycotts do not work.
One day boycotts DO NOT WORK.
ONE DAY BOYCOTTS DO NOT WORK.
They’re just designed to make you feel like you’re doing something when you’re not.
The companies know you’ll do your shopping on Saturday instead. Because you will. Because you’re not boycotting ANYTHING, you’re just doing something performative on Fridays so you can feel like you’re helping.”
Fueling his passion, appeared to be frustration — lashing out.
Evidently the subject of my diary triggered him and he retaliated.
While on the face of it there is logic to his view, especially when considering the American consumer, it is none-the-less narrow and as such easily perforated.
Most everyone that supports NBF has poked holes in this obvious ‘fact’ in order let the light of reason in.
But as humans tend to measure others by a yardstick fashioned from their own personal shortcomings, it seems to have never occurred to him we might have already moved on.
~~~
I was tending to other related matters when his comment came in, but fortunately, a very smart, level-headed reader defended the efficacy of NBFs with this cogent response:
“Wrong!
It demonstrates that we are working collectively. That scares the abusers!
It provides us good practice at working collectively. That also scares the abusers.
It helps us make incremental change to our participation in a system that funds our abusers. That scares them and is the path to ending the cycle of abuse.
How do I know these things are true? Because the abusers always say the victim can’t do anything for themselves. That is how they maintain the abusive relationship. And they are correct….until they aren’t and the victims take steps to end the abuse.
Take that step.
Hurt the abusers in the place that hurts them most….their altar of mammon worship!”
When faced with such an astute rejoinder, I would have expected at least some level of moderation…but it would seem that having already dug trenches, our ‘instructor’ was determined not to let them go to waste.
He didn’t give ground:
“You’re not hurting them if you go right back to shopping the next day.”
~~~
When I returned to find this exchange I weighed in with this:
“Since my diary is primarily about the lesson that No-buy-Fridays can teach us as consumers, about cutting our consumption overall, you obviously didn’t bother to read it, or at least read it carefully.
Also, you seem to be unaware of the fact that No-Buy-Fridays have been conceived with the idea of being every Friday —
and that, as ***** replied to you immediately — by cutting consumption on Fridays, it sends a message that we have this power as consumers. Furthermore, despite your opinion on this, many have been taking part in this action for the last few weeks and their efforts have had demonstrably effect along those lines.
The fact that you remain obstinate, without making any attempt to address *****’s counter arguments, creates the the appearance that you persist because this provides you with an excuse for not participating, even if it is for just one day and you are still free to shop before and after.
Of course, we all know that doing this can be inconvenient and that furthermore, this will entail sacrifice in the long-term if it expands successfully into a broader movement, which you seem to suggest would be more effective.
Rather than undermine the efforts of others to help turn (that) into a reality, you might join in just for the benefit of the doubt. :-)
I wholeheartedly welcome you to do so. :-)”
His response was:
“Not shopping “every” Friday just means you’ve shifted your shopping one day. You’re not consuming less, you’re not making a real change, you’re not hurting their bottom line. This is no more useful than change your facebook profile pic and thinking it’s an action.
I actually boycott companies, and stop shopping from them altogether. I welcome you to actually try it, instead of performative acts that go nowhere, like every other lazy short-term boycott ever tried.”
~~~
Overlooking the fact that he offered nothing, other than conviction, to substantiate his claims as to the total ineffectiveness of NBFs, I chose instead to correct his assumptions regarding the range of my ‘boycott’ efforts, in an attempt to suggest there might be ‘middle ground’ worth surveying.
I started by quoting him:
‘’I actually boycott companies, and stop shopping from them altogether.”
…and then proceeded with:
“As do I, and have for many decades, while I feel safe in stating that many others here do the same. I’ll even go out on a limb to say we wish you would join us, as in many ways you already have :-)”
It was as if I’d spoken in the vacuum of space.
~~~
I have no reason to doubt his claim of being a long time boycotter, but would be foolish to completely trust it.
If he is, I find it hard to see why he was so adamantly against Friday ‘buynotts’, especially as a means to get a broader movement airborne.
Perhaps he was sincere, but repetition didn’t bolster his opinion and aggression didn’t flatter his candor.
Personally, I would be overjoyed if we could get consumers to join him in boycotting as a collective consumer stratagem, which is the direction I’m hoping to see NBFs go.
Nevertheless, since we’re dealing with consumer addictive behavior, going from cold turkey in ‘0 to 60’, is a proven path to failure.
Recognizing the necessity to be realistic, I lean heavily towards ‘something being better than nothing’.
As an example, I pointed out to him that by the time the Republicans were done milking Centrist Democrats, Obamacare was a tattered rag of the finery we were promised — but despite profound misgivings it passed. With the passage of time it has improved to become a popular, ‘all purpose coat’. At the time, however, such an outcome seemed unlikely, because our hopes had been trashed…making it appear as inadequate ‘scraps’.
The last comment in the exchange was left by a stalwart supporter:
“What if the most important goal of this idea was to open up a pathway for people to participate and make change.”
‘No-Buy-Friday’ provides a way for consumers to transform their outrage into resolve, through which means they can discover and develop the latent flip-side of their ‘buying power’.
Only through self-control can they redirect self-consuming desire toward self-fulfilling empowerment.
Like the splendor of Rome, some things take time to build.
[END]
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