Forum Post: Protest with your Dollar!

What will you accomplish by only using your right to free speech through protest? Almost nothing! The one percent laugh at your feeble protest, drinking champagne and eating caviar, looking down from their high balconies as the police violate your most fundamental rights. So what will make a real impact, one that even the corporations, the stock traders, the banks, and the governments that they are so intimately entwined with? They don't listen to your political vote! That system is rigged against you, courtesy of the one per cents enormous monetary influence. No amount of legislation will change your economic well being! If you patiently expect elected representatives to help you, don't hold your breath. They are the one per cent! Only you can make the difference! But first you must understand the cause of this injustice, and second, the great power that you possess to fight with. The very basis for all economic inequality is for one group to overvalue their goods and services while the other group undervalues theirs. If you trade two hours of your labor for another persons labor of one hour, will you become richer or poorer? Poorer of course! And who's fault is it? Yours! In your battle against the unfairness of this economic system, you ignore your most powerful weapon! Your dollar! It is your labor, in a portable form. It's not just a piece of green paper made of plant fibers. What it represents has great value! It is the only weapon that wall street and the corporations will take notice of!
So where do I use this weapon? At the source. The marketplace. This is where the battle must take place! Here you will find that a 1 pound box of cereal cost 3 dollars, yet the grain inside only costs 11 cents? Or a soda at a fast food restaurant that costs nearly two dollars, yet it's ingredients are worth pennies? Surely it isn't due to the high cost of water. Why does the name brand product always cost half again to twice as much? Are you that brainwashed to believe that a logo will guarantee you quality and status? It is amazing that the poor crave the very things that keep them in poverty. Don't buy name brands! Period! Buy generic, even better, buy used or make yourself! If you protest against these greedy corporations, but continue to buy their products, what will be the outcome? Nothing! You protest against the corporation on one side, but support the corporation on the other by buying their products. How will that make any change? Closing ports will only raise prices that you will pay for in the end. The objective of your protest is not to feel good about what you are doing by occupying a space or closing a place of business. The purpose is to make positive change in the balance of economic power! My God, if you can't see that, rip off those glasses you wear that have been darkened by years of false advertising and empty promises. Open your eyes and use your mightiest weapon. You the 99 per cent must value themselves higher and the 1 per cent lower! It is the only form of protest that will make change! Protest with your dollar!