Those are all great ideas for people who have the latitude to perform them.
Are you marching on your capitol daily, refusing to perform work, and if you are, how long before you run out of money to pay your bills?
Some of the people who are moved enough from “being frustrated and not knowing what to do” into “joining a one-day purchasing freeze” are going to ask themselves, “What’s next?” And they might march next time. They might switch to a credit union. Then ask “What’s next?” Some are going to become connected into networks that provide them with new opportunities and ideas.
Everyone has to start somewhere. Everyone is not you, or me. Gatekeeping is divisive.
And likewise some are going to mistakenly thing this meaningless impact is meaningful and feel fatigued and defeated when they quickly realize it’s all just self-congratulatory.
People are going to feel more fatigued and defeated when marching on their capitol daily doesn’t produce results in days or weeks.
Of course some people are going to check out at some point. People have their own lives to attend to. That’s okay. They can check back in later when they’re able.
You think that this particular action is counterproductive. No one is forcing you to participate. I think that opposing participation in general is counterproductive.
I’m not opposing; feel free to continue these meaningless protests. I’m just refusing to participate in the performative part where we pat ourselves on the back and act like this is accomplishing anything.
Feel free to waste your effort, just don’t expect praise for it.
I flat out reject the idea that any action is good action and that actions cannot be criticized or critiqued. Bad protest is not without impact, as it can disenfranchise and fatigue those who wasting efforts on futility. These people are going to think “but I’ve already been trying and nothing is working!”, when in reality it is not the lack of effort that is the error but the misplaced effort.
You must have been talking about yourself in third person.
Because unlike my question yours is irrelevant. Whether I’m out every day or not, hell even if everyone is out every day, either way this “no buy day” will still remain entirely non-impactful and entirely self-congratulatory.
We need to spend less time coddling people and trying to massage away their legitimate anxieties and more time focused on having grown up conversations with people like adults about the realities of our situation - even when said reality is starker than a couple warm-fuzzies can solve.
But to answer your whataboutism anyway: daily? No sir. But I have been out in the streets, and I will continue to do. And I will continue to encourage useful collective actions while reminding you that I can only participate in the collective part of collective action, as I am not myself a monolith; critiquing individual efforts is wildly different than critiquing collective organizing effort. But to be clear, feel free to criticize me because unlike defenders of this wasted effort protest I do not believe that the mere goodness of my intentions makes me beyond criticism.
So back to the question posed to you - the suggestion that anything less than full support is the same as opposition is bullshit. First off we’re leftists - we have reason, logic, decency, literally all the immutables on our side - we don’t have to default to ignorance and happy feel good platitudes. Telling people that they’re wasting their efforts, not prohibiting them, isn’t opposition, it’s respecting them enough to talk to them like grown ups instead of placating them like children.
Boycott permanently.
March on your capital, daily.
Refuse to perform work.
Close your bank accounts and open credit union accounts instead.
There are hundreds of actual actions; that I didn’t list them doesn’t automatically make your shitty option good.
Those are all great ideas for people who have the latitude to perform them.
Are you marching on your capitol daily, refusing to perform work, and if you are, how long before you run out of money to pay your bills?
Some of the people who are moved enough from “being frustrated and not knowing what to do” into “joining a one-day purchasing freeze” are going to ask themselves, “What’s next?” And they might march next time. They might switch to a credit union. Then ask “What’s next?” Some are going to become connected into networks that provide them with new opportunities and ideas.
Everyone has to start somewhere. Everyone is not you, or me. Gatekeeping is divisive.
And likewise some are going to mistakenly thing this meaningless impact is meaningful and feel fatigued and defeated when they quickly realize it’s all just self-congratulatory.
I too can present convenient hypotheticals
People are going to feel more fatigued and defeated when marching on their capitol daily doesn’t produce results in days or weeks.
Of course some people are going to check out at some point. People have their own lives to attend to. That’s okay. They can check back in later when they’re able.
You think that this particular action is counterproductive. No one is forcing you to participate. I think that opposing participation in general is counterproductive.
I’m not opposing; feel free to continue these meaningless protests. I’m just refusing to participate in the performative part where we pat ourselves on the back and act like this is accomplishing anything.
Feel free to waste your effort, just don’t expect praise for it.
I must have been confused when you said
You must have been talking about yourself in third person.
So anything less than full endorsement is opposition?
People are free to waste their time, but telling them they’re wasting their time is not prohibition from doing so.
I’ll sidestep that question like you sidestepped mine:
Because unlike my question yours is irrelevant. Whether I’m out every day or not, hell even if everyone is out every day, either way this “no buy day” will still remain entirely non-impactful and entirely self-congratulatory.
We need to spend less time coddling people and trying to massage away their legitimate anxieties and more time focused on having grown up conversations with people like adults about the realities of our situation - even when said reality is starker than a couple warm-fuzzies can solve.
But to answer your whataboutism anyway: daily? No sir. But I have been out in the streets, and I will continue to do. And I will continue to encourage useful collective actions while reminding you that I can only participate in the collective part of collective action, as I am not myself a monolith; critiquing individual efforts is wildly different than critiquing collective organizing effort. But to be clear, feel free to criticize me because unlike defenders of this wasted effort protest I do not believe that the mere goodness of my intentions makes me beyond criticism.
So back to the question posed to you - the suggestion that anything less than full support is the same as opposition is bullshit. First off we’re leftists - we have reason, logic, decency, literally all the immutables on our side - we don’t have to default to ignorance and happy feel good platitudes. Telling people that they’re wasting their efforts, not prohibiting them, isn’t opposition, it’s respecting them enough to talk to them like grown ups instead of placating them like children.