Right after 9/11, Bush urged you to go shopping. He had to make sure you kept shopping, because the only thing that could have driven him from office would have been a drop in the consumer confidence index. Consumer confidence was what he needed in order to go to war, destroy our civil liberties, and promote everything else in his agenda.
Well, he's the decider. If he tells you to go shopping, I guess you're going to keep right on shopping until and unless he gives you permission not to. After all, there's that new TIVO or HDTV you or your family want for Christmas, the new car you really need, the new appliances to replace the old ones, the new laptops that the kids need for school, the new cell phones, the new clothes, the new furniture. Sure, most of it is made in China, but if Bush wants you to buy it, it has to be the right thing to do. Has he ever steered you wrong?
We're a nation of consumers anyway. We're trained from a very young age to buy whatever it is we need. So if our needs should suddenly change, and we should need some different things, things like justice, truth, an end to an very expensive and senseless war, responsible government, no torture, the restoration of civil liberties, things like that, it is only natural for us to try to buy them. If we just send enough money to the right political party or non-profit organization, surely we'll be able to buy whatever it is we want. No?
No. Absolutely not. If you disapprove of Bush, and most Americans do, you have to begin to understand that you can't get rid of him by continuing to do what he wants you do to. There really are some things that money can't buy. Remember the Boston Tea Party? King George sent over what in today's currency would be a million dollars worth of tea. And instead of buying it, the colonists dumped it in the harbor. They wanted liberty. They wanted independence. They wanted no taxation without representation. And they got it by NOT buying his tea.
Sure it made him mad. And the colonists had to fight a revolution. But things are a little different now. Can you imagine George Bush declaring war on American consumers for not buying things?
Haven't you always known that you get what you pay for? Well, the reverse is also true. If you don't pay for something, you don't get it. If you don't want Bush running the country, all you have to do is stop doing what he wants you to do. Stop shopping. We control 70% of the economy. If even 5% of the people who oppose Bush were willing to curtail their holiday spending, we could take at least a quarter of a trillion dollars out of the economy during the holiday season. The consumer confidence index would drop so sharply it would resemble a vertical line. And the big corporations that lost money would insist that Bush and Cheney resign immediately and be replaced with somebody who could restore consumer confidence. It's their lifeblood. They cannot survive without it.
Do you suspect that elections might not work? Do you wonder if your legislators listen to you? Are you tired of signing petitions that nobody looks at? Have you noticed the millions of dollars the Bush administration has spent supplying local law enforcement with crowd control gear, just in case people ever got organized enough to protest? Have you noticed that no matter how many lawsuits get filed, the courts keep throwing them out, and that the only place they can possibly end up is in front of the very Supreme Court that selected Bush and has since been supplemented with Bush appointees?
What will you tell your husband or wife, your kids, your friends, your relatives, if you don't buy them anything this holiday season? How can you live without all the wonderful things you've been saving for and dreaming of? Easy. Just explain to everyone, including yourself, that as soon as Bush and Cheney resign, everyone will get everything they want. But until then, we're just going to have to make a few sacrifices.
If you keep shopping like Bush told you to do, he'll continue to be the decider. But if you're tired of his poor decisions, and want your country back, you're going to have to stop letting him tell you what to do. It may be inconvenient, but not anywhere near as inconvenient as it will be if we let him stay in office.
Bush says that we're doing fine in Iraq and should stay the course. You don't buy it? Then DON'T buy it. You're the one paying for it. Bush says we don't need habeus corpus or that goddamned piece of paper we call our Constitution. You don't agree? Then why keep propping him up? He can't do it without you. He needs your help. He needs you to keep shopping. Are you going to keep doing what he tells you? Because he really appreciates your support.
but I won't point a finger at people in their everyday life. Most of the products people buy are the needful things. Luxuries are rare. It is said that the opposite is true. But it is not. If the house leaks, you fix it. If the lawn burns you need help. If your family has two jobs you need two cars. If the appliances are too old and smelly, you need new ones. Any refusing doing it results in only one thing: loss of time, the most precious commodity of all.
Bush and shopping surely are connected. But even more and much more Bush is the product not of what we do but of who we are. And that cannot be changed by not shopping or becoming indignant on China. Take it or leave it, the outsourcing makes it possible to have low mortgages and credit, those two vehicles which make us alive. So, I would recommend the following: get in touch with others. If there is one thing we can benefit from the Bush's regime that thing is sorting out the friends and enemies. And then unite by your real interests. The GOP is winning because they have a common interest. What interest do we have besides ' not liking Bush'? I mean what do we want to achieve. They know their goal. What are ours?
I admire Mark Smith's articles and this is not a caustic criticism. But I do think that making your own life tougher by your own choice is not an answer: there are many other factors which make it tougher anyway. I do think that we have to make life tougher for those who are harmful.
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Mark Sashine (42 articles, 19 quicklinks, 227 diaries, 3219 comments)
on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 7:58:18 AM
or advice? or ideas? or elaborate a little more on the second part, on how we can make life more difficult for those who are harmful? I would really appreciate some specifics you have thought about, and have in mind.
say a little more? Thanks, katrin
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Katrin R. (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 503 comments)
on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 10:17:57 AM
I wish that I could be more specific, but this is something that every individual will have to decide for themselves.
The strategy is based on at least 5% of the Americans who oppose Bush, withholding at least $50 of their purchasing power this holiday season. A low income person might only be able to do that by buying their durable holiday needs (a frozen turkey or ham, gifts for the kids, etc.) right now instead of in November or December. A more affluent person might be able to withhold $500 or $5,000 from the economy this holiday season by simply postponing planned purchases until after Bush and Cheney resign.
In order for this plan to work, each individual who cares, has to figure out for themself what they can do, and pass the word on to everyone else they know who cares. Even if your own spending is already at a minimum, you might know someone who is angry about the direction this country has taken and who hasn't yet figured out what to do about it. Let them know that there is something they can do. But leave the details up to them. One of the things that distinguishes most of us from Bush is that we don't like pushing other people around or telling them what to do. We can make suggestions, but after that people have to decide for themselves if that is what they want to do and in what way they can best accomplish it.
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Mark E. Smith (20 articles, 26 quicklinks, 64 diaries, 767 comments)
on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 12:59:44 PM
Well, Panurg, some of us think that habeus corpus, the right to freedom from cruel and inhuman treatment, and a few other rights we used to have were necessities.
I guess it is just a question of what we consider to be necessities.
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Mark E. Smith (20 articles, 26 quicklinks, 64 diaries, 767 comments)
on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 12:44:18 PM
but I am from such a place which never ever even heard of habeas corpus. And still people there lived, shopped, ate,shopped more. Everyday life has to include politics, that is true, but it is not Bush who tells Americans what to do. Even Stalin, who told his people,' How nice it is to live now!' right in the middle of the bloody purges, did not tell them what to do. People live as much as they can every day. I asked many times on this site about why progressive movement did not adopt tangible goals, like requesting a trial of 9/11, finding and supporting true leadership, not the ones who only do not like Bush but those who are willing to take over, replace him, have vision what to do in power. I asked about the necessity to convene an Emergency session of the Demparty, to call for the Unified Front of all parties against GOP with one candidate from that Front. I asked why nobody even considered a lawsuit against Bush anf his cronies on Katrina disaster. Even one of those events would have shown to the people that alternative leadership is alive and wants to fight. But if the leaders do not want to risk their own asses why should we blame the people for maintaining at least their everyday lives? You know and I know that those lives are very tough to maintain and so far in the malls and in the WallMart I have not seen the ones who benefited from Bush's regime. They do not shop there.
I ama with you. I think we lose those necessities you are talking about. But those were not taken from us. We dropped them.
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Mark Sashine (42 articles, 19 quicklinks, 227 diaries, 3219 comments)
on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 3:07:51 PM
For more ideas about witholding your purchasing power, please take a look at this article by Joel S. Hirschhorn click here and the suggestions that follow it.
These articles complement eachother well, and have some good ideas on sticking it to the corporate fascists who are destroying our country.
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Amanda Butler (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 21 comments)
on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 2:39:14 PM
Americans stop shopping? Are you insane? How on earth can any American possibly survive without going to the local mall and putting him or herself deeper in debt? It's the American way, just look at our deficit!
Can you imagine the furor? No one buying the phone that isn't a phone from a phone company that isn't a phone company? No one buying a car that just proves how stupid Americans are because this car has to be programmed to parallel park itself? No one buying unneeded trinkets from Needless Markup?
You know, you're probably right about this one. Too bad, really. We the people are so hooked on blowing money needlessly, I doubt we'll ever get to a point where we can walk by a sale table and not pick up that dollar deal thingie. Until we can do that as a people, then your idea is doomed to failure. After all, buying things fills in that empty space inside where once our courage used to dwell.
Blessed be!
Pappy
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Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments)
on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 2:50:20 PM
Everyone needs to understand that except for probably the poorest 20 percent of the population, middle-class Americans (the middle 60 percent of the population in terms of income)spend a lot of money on products and services that are NOT necessary; call this discretionary spending or whatever. Taking into account the multiplier effect, a trillion dollars could easily be taken out of the economy. And YES this can translate to POLITICAL power; the trick is to link timed cuts - "buycotts" - in consumer spending to SPECIFIC desired political actions. Here's a big example: if you want to take corrupting money out of political campaigning, compel congress to pass a federal Clean Money/Clean Election law - if you do not know about this approach, that is now used in some states - do a google search or, better yet, read my book Delusional Democracy. Consumer spending really can equal citizen power!!!!!
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Joel S. Hirschhorn (113 articles, 20 quicklinks, 46 diaries, 428 comments)
on Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 8:11:48 AM
