Forum Post: Stop Black Friday!
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 29, 2011, 5:30 p.m. EST by theheavyhead
(6)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
If you want don't the 1% to have your money, simply don't give it to them. Don't rush out in droves on the day after Thanksgiving trying to hurriedly shovel over your hard earned dollars to them. Make them feel the pain a little this holiday season. Money is power. If you give it away freely, you give away your power freely. Money is power, like electricity is power. That's why its called currency. It's always moving in a current TO one place FROM another. The place it flows TO (your laptop) receives power, and obviously the place it flows from (the battery) loses power. Stop giving away your power!
Bargains cost more in the long run But happy Couponing!
I don't want the government to redistribute wealth at all. It's no the way it should work and it's not powerful enough. I think that we....the 99%.....should redistribute the wealth through our actions. We have given our power away to these huge companies....it's not their fault.....it's ours. We have more power than the government can ever have. We can hit the reset button today by regaining the power we have relinquished for so many years. We are a democracy.....We vote with our dollars everyday. Everything that has happened to us up to this point is OUR OWN fault. Not the governments fault (as a republican will tell you) and not businesses fault ( as a democrat will tell you)...... OURS. We have voted for huge energy companies, huge financial "services" companies, huge retail companies etc. foreign and domestic and this mess we are in is a direct product of OUR vote. We can change it though, TODAY, by changing our vote TODAY. By CHOOSING alternatives to what we have chosen previously. I always think it's funny when people complain about how much a superstar athlete makes. They say it's not right. I think it is right. If a person sells millions of dollars worth of something ( actor sells movie tickets) they will make millions of dollars. If you sell thousands of dollars worth of something (server, sells food and drink) you will generally make thousands of dollars. If you sell hundreds of dollars worth of something you will generally make hundreds of dollars. The reason for this is that the buying public, whether its just a perceived benefit or a real one, benefits from the transaction. Bill Gates is a billionaire because he found a way to help Billions of people operate their computers everyday, so in turn he is rewarded. If WE think it's unfair for a baseball player to make the amount of money that he's making all WE have to do is change our vote. If no one showed up to the baseball games they would make no money and they would be able to pay their players anything. If we cut our consumption of baseball in half the players would make half as much. It's just that simple. If WE change our vote on big businesses and CHOOSE to take our money out of big banks, and to support small local banks instead WE would achieve the same result. The big banks would die off and the small local banks would prevail. If the small local bank got too big and started losing touch with its community and stopped caring about its customers choosing to care more about its bottom line then WE would again VOTE to take our money out of their bank and put it elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against business at all. I actually like capitalism. I just don't like big business anymore. Big business can be blamed for almost all of the things ailing our country anymore.... pollution, cheap unhealthy food, waste, greed, war, energy prices, etc. They always say small business is the leading employer in our country. I believe in small business. I believe in the day where each little community had a person responsible for each task within that community. There was a butcher, a baker, a metal worker, a brewer etc. Then came the days after WWll with its superhighways and suburbs, its huge conglomerates making things cheaper and faster........and JOBS. In early America more people had their own business than had jobs. THAT was the American dream. Immigrants came off of boats and provided their local communities with whatever talents they had brought with them from the old world. Nowadays its the opposite of the American dream. People RELY on jobs to carry them. They work long hard hours for huge corporations and believe that they somehow have job security. Then they take that same money they earned from the corporation and they give it right back. They are told to go into debt to own a home.... when that is opposite of ownership, its slavery. Go into debt to get an education. Nowadays you can't get an education without going into debt. I think the past decade has shown us that a job, or owning a home isn't necessarily the American dream.
Hey, I know and understand exactly what you are talking about because this 64 year old woman has been saying the same thing... self sustaining communities and taking some responsibility for yourself like growing some of your own food.
Money always has been and always will be based on trust. Money represents a hour of time at work, or a gallon of gasoline. Money represents these things but money itself doesn't even exist. Sure a dollar bill is a thing and is made from plant fiber and you can touch it.... but that piece of paper is not worth the amount that's printed on it. It's all based on trust. We trust that if we work one hour we will have enough money for two gallons of gasoline. The market dictates whether that will be true or not. I believe in this system. What I don't believe in, and what has caused us all to lose our trust in our system, our money, and how are money is governed, is when huge financial companies were given our money to help themselves and weren't required to pay it back. I don't think it would go over to well if we went into one of the lending institutions and asked for a loan with the stipulation that we wouldn't be paying it back. That wouldn't make sense to them. Why then were they allowed to do so with our money. Money we have worked hard to earn. Our money is our power. The 1% hold 99% of the wealth because we have been handing it to them. Every day. Religiously. Without fail. We made them King! Now people are upset because of what we did. We can fix it. We can change it! We can stop shopping at big box companies, we can take our money out of big banks and put them into smaller ones, we can eat food that grown in our local areas, we can create our own small business that provide products and services to our local communities. When we do these things huge, overweight businesses that don't care about the 99% won't stand a chance. They can only survive as long as we feed them. It's time to turn off the spigot. We are greater in numbers, we have more money than they do (before we give it away to them). We have to do it ourselves.
Instead of making these companies richer on Black Friday. Stay home, save your power, build your power......Or...... Only support small businesses in your local area owned by individuals and small companies. This money will come back to you, instead of going out of your state to some huge corporations coffers to sit and collect cobwebs. This money will come back to you in your community because if you work or own a business in that community, chances are the local business person you just supported will be in need of your product or service, and they will likely support you. Now the power currents are flowing the way they should be. From one neighbor to another. Then the 1% creates a power base of his own.
this will take elimination of GREED and Materialism and replacing it with a real value for living...
You are so right. Wouldn't we all feel a little bit better if we made sure a fellow global citizen had something to eat Christmas Day. Thank you for that and I'll ensure someone else eats too because of your words
A General Strike (User Submitted)
Posted Oct. 22, 2011, 12:20 p.m. EST (5 hours ago) by FHampton
Let's redouble the outreach to labor. The UK labor movement has called for a general strike on November 30th. Occupy Wall Street must show solidarity with comrades in the UK, Greece, Chile and around the world.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/09/14-3
http://occupywallst.org/forum/a-general-strike/
"Redouble the outreach to labor" indeed.
If you look at the NYCGA site, the Internet and Art working groups have hundreds of members each. Labor has about 40.
I was a little befuddled by the number of groups subjects were categorized by
Black Friday Boycott (User Submitted)
Posted Oct. 22, 2011, 4:53 a.m. EST (5 days ago) by outwrangle
Black Friday is coming up, so I propose that we have a nationwide general strike of consumerism on the one day of the year that is all about mindless consumption. Corporations rely on Black Friday to boost sales figures, so they are going to expect us to flock to their stores and buy their products. I say we give them a nasty surprise.
We have a golden opportunity to hit the big corporations where it hurts, and I don't think we should pass it up. Let's take a day that is all about consumption and make it our own, and let's make it loud and clear that we will not support the corporations that destroyed our economy and undermined our Republic.
What do you guys think? How should this Black Friday Boycott work?
EDIT Here's a rough promotional poster I made.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/black-friday-boycott/
I do not know how it would work except to pass the word. I am in!
I Like That Idea, Stop Black Friday :)
Lets make it a Nation Wide, all Occupy Movements nation wide :)
I Like It
Move OWS WalMart now.
Unions can bankroll a 3rd party read more http://overthecoals.blogspot.com/
Instead of union leaders pissing away the members' money by giving it to the Democrats who have stabbed the unions in the back when Clinton created NAFTA the minute he got inaugurated the members money can finance a 3rd party that would end globalization. Unions need to bargain for their members by completely excluding all nonunion employees from any benefits when they negotiate contracts.
The OWS protests could influence this process if OWS would nominate candidates for the unions to finance. The OWS strategy that refuses to nominate any candidates is self destructive for the protest.
or halloween, christmas, new years, valentines day, and easter. Educate yourself on the true origins of these "holidays". Observation of important historical events does not require spending money on unnecessary material possessions.
Quit wasting time on nonsense. Move OWS to WalMart now.
I'm going to get a new HDTV at a good price. I also need a new laptop and iPhone
Who "they".