Forum Post: Occupy Black Friday: Suggested Tactics for covert and overt Retail disobedience.
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 16, 2011, 5:05 a.m. EST by Ratteler
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I'm proposing that Occupy members take this November 25th to strike a blow at the economies of those cities which have organized attacks on the Occupy Movement.
This can take the 2 prong approach of open picketing at stores opening early to make the most of the sales day, and subversive acts such as buying small low cost items like batteries or Blank CD's, and paying for them with only coins.
Even better would to waste time getting popular deal items, getting on the line to pay for them, and using credit or debit card with no money on them. This would waste valuable register time, as the card is retried multiple times, and force the product to be placed back into stock after it was considered to be sold.
DO NOT DAMAGE ANYTHING.
The point is to waste as much retail time as possible for the crucial 24 hours after Thanksgiving. Literately to Occupy the stores, and the space so real customers that might otherwise have made purchases will be frustrated and leave.
Send the massage that attempting to silence the movement will only lead to even greater disruption.
If they don't want us Occupying open spaces, we can just as easily Occupy spaces where it will REALLY cost them money.
Businesses that co-operate and openly support the Occupy movement should of course be left alone. Preferably even rewarded with business if possible.
Hit the rest in their retail pocket.
A nation wide effort be awesome.
Let's make it RED Friday for those who stand against freedom and equality.
Occupy Black Friday! Stop Black Friday!
http://stopblackfriday.com
Do you have some sort of shopping addiction? JUST DONT SHOP. People have been doing it for years. My brother in SF signed a pact with a group three years ago to buy nothing new except socks and undies. His two teenage daughters held out only for the first year. My. brother feels no need to harass people who shop or make miserable workers in stores, who around the holidays are students trying to earn a little extra cash. He feels no need to force his ideals on others. Why do you? JUST STOP BUYING STUFF.
Or at the very least, be a smart consumer.
I love all these people trying to be Bill O'Reilly taking the idea of Occupy Black Friday too far.
"Oh, so you're basically against capitalism and working people, right? RIGHT?!" @OccupyCapitolHill the MORON et al.
Shut up. You're not getting paid millions to make binary arguments and simplify/stereotype viewpoints, so you just sound like an arse.
I said nothing about you being agaisnt capitalism - it's your right to be.
And BTW, O'Reilly makes me nauseous.
Please remember to be considerate of innocent consumers. They are as likely as not supporters of the movement.
Please don't block people or make their "retail experience" a pain in the ass. Alienating Wall Street employees is one thing. Making life a hassle for what is left of the middle-class is not how to gain support.
I aggree. If they are going to picket, let it be signs for local non-corporate merchants as a form of free publicity. It's not hard to do. You make a small mini-site linking to all local merchants, make a qr code that people can scan and voila!! you use black friday AGAINST the corporates.
I like that.
Also, on a political level, I plan to go to the front door of Wall-Mart and pass out voter registration forms. An empowered electorate is the greatest threat to the Wall Street status quo.
Malls are private property and I do not agree with taking the protests into such places. (yes, I AM aware of the status of the park, as you are aware it has a status that makes it unique as being both private and public). Public schools, parks, sidewalks, and government buildings belong to us, and we should be free to use them for peaceful assembly and protest. I can agree with protesting on the sides of public access routes leading to private properties, but I do not think we have the right to go in for the purpose of protesting, and I think it is counter productive because it generates public anger, annoyance, and hostility toward the movement as a whole, especially when the protestors take actions that are disrespectful of the private property.
Listen people. Occupying malls will make Wall Street nervous. When the weekend retail sales numbers come in the following week and wall street see's down numbers, the markets will react negatively, people will panic and we win. When they see people only using cash and buying local, big box and credit card stocks will crash...
Boycott Wal-Mart
Get yourself kicked out of malls and Wal-Mart and get arrested distributing voter registration forms.
OWS sympathetic voters scare Wall Street more than anything.
Find PDF's of voter registration forms for the states in your region here: VoteSmart.org registration information for every state http://www.votesmart.org/elections/voter-registration
wasting register time on Black Friday means you're still technically "going shopping". You're looking for things and attempting to buy them. Why waste your time in long lines. Stand outside on public property and boycott instead!
I'm not going to go to a store and jack with people that make minimum wage. Many of those people are temporary workers and as soon as the season is over they will be out of a job. I am not screwing with people who are barely getting by as it is.
Then promote local shops that will in the future provide more jobs and jobs that may give a living wage rather than minimum wage.
That would be vastly different then screwing with the people that actually have to do the work inside the store and are already getting screwed by the employer. No?
You make it sound like a bad thing?
If your intention is to go in and screw with minimum wage employees that are already getting screwed, then you are doing a bad thing. If your intention is to promote local shops then that is a completely different thing and I approve.
If you wanna fight, pick a good one.
"Literately to Occupy the stores, and the space so real customers that might otherwise have made purchases will be frustrated and leave."
"Businesses that co-operate and openly support the Occupy movement should of course be left alone."
So your whole idea is to bully anybody that doesn't explicitly support you? So basically you're calling for small-scale economic terrorism. Real mature. Go the fuck home.
Your ideas are crazy. Grow up and at least act like an adult even if you aren't one. It's your problem if you don't have communication skills to deal with the source of your frustration.
Want to really accomplish something? Stop voting for corporation owned career politicians and vote in some people with common sense. Send a message to Washington and those that own them that we're are done with this mess and we are taking back our country. Childish antics like you suggest discredit the movement. Take action by method that speaks the loudest. Vote out the career politicians!
Occupiers would make the greatest impact by targeting big-box retailers while also trying to raise awareness about supporting local, independent "mom and pop" businesses. These types of businesses are VASTLY different from corporate retail and really connect to and care for the neighborhoods around them. Generating wide-spread support for locals is perhaps more important than slowing a few retailers on one day because it not only curbs big-box shopping but SHIFTS broad economic power BACK to the community. More info: http://www.amiba.net/buy-local-campaigns.
Um, in the future, could you please edit before posting? "Send the massage," sounds great, but I'm sure not as great as sending a MESSAGE would be. If you want to be taken seriously, then please try to sound like you know what you're talking about and don't come across as uneducated. Just sayin....
Why not jam the RFID towers and pretend we're at the North Pole? Free Gifts for everybody!
How stupid is this. How about staying at home? How about spending that precious time with your families and friends? Yes, Black Friday is all about businesses hitting the holiday consumer season running. But they can only do this if they tear people away from their families and friends. Why not keep your loved ones away from the shopping malls and online shopping by keeping them occupied the old fashioned way: being together.
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If we are assholes, then you are indeed the all-bran that keeps us regular sir!
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Play with them like the playing with us adds every 2 minuts on TV chanels for there products
Occupy the Katy Perry concert!!! haha am I right!
Wow, you jerk, is this was OWS is all about? I just want to shop and get a deal, why do you have to be a prick and try and do this? Way to go, you just made people hate OWS even more.
That is the most immature, ridiculous idea I've heard to date.
You're REALLY insane. Like something happened and you went off the deep end. You can't be serious.
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Oh, I missed this gem, "A nation wide effort be awesome." Do you mean that it WOULD be awesome?
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this will destroy 1000s of jobs at which your 99% work. Now, just because of this, I think I am going to go spend a minimum of $500 this day
I dare you to spend only 100$ this year.
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Cap retail sales profit = problem solved
Again, blocking others from shopping is no better than anti-abortion protestors blocking clinics. People have a choice. Just don't shop, but to dictate and harass workers and shoppers goes against freedom.
I aggree, if they want to hurt wallstreet and help the economy, how about using that manpower to promote local merchants and artisans over the big box stores, encourage pay cash or trade and even assist in giving soup kitchens a hand?