32 Comments
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Elizabeth Coughlin's avatar

My personal plan is to boycott the entire month of March as best I can, starting with Feb 28 Buy Nothing Day. I’ll continue to buy food and gas as needed but nothing else

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K. Starling's avatar

Yeah, we're going minimal.

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Elizabeth Coughlin's avatar

So far my purchases in March, a week in, have been 2 40 pound bags of black oil sunflower seeds to feed the birds and 50 2x3 stickers I had printed that say “Billionaires win, Everyone else loses in Trump’s America”

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Elizabeth Coughlin's avatar

Halfway through March and I bought pasta, olives and sauce at a mom and pop Italian grocery shop and a huge bag of potting soil for my accidentally sprouted potatoes (maybe I can coax them into producing more potatoes) so far so good and very liberating too!

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AG's avatar

Hey, this is great info, but I wanted to flag that Abebooks is owned by Amazon. Biblio.com is a great alternative.

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K. Starling's avatar

Arg! I will remove it.

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Elizabeth's avatar

Came here to say the same thing and recommend Better World Books :). https://www.betterworldbooks.com/

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K. Starling's avatar

Add it soon.

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EWP's avatar

Yes also wanted to recommend better world books!

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AG's avatar

Great pick!

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Sil Read's avatar

Yes, I found that out recently too! I will move my orders to Biblio.com. Thanks!

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K. Starling's avatar

Added them :)

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This Three Pound Universe's avatar

And: Bookshop. org (https://bookshop.org/info/about-us)

Every Purchase Supports Local Bookstores. A Better Way to Buy Books Online.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookshop_(company)

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AG's avatar

Bookshop is great for new books, and ordering directly from your local bookstore is even better!

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Dee Cee's avatar

My local county library checks out more than just books. They lend everything from small gardening tools to hedge trimmers, pressure washers, etc. to sewing machines to Xboxes to musical instruments to all kinds of tools.

A great way to avoid buying things -- especially from Home Depot. Next time I need a tool, I'm checking with the library first.

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This Three Pound Universe's avatar

Reading over this, K, I'm struck how this "boycott" is really more like choosing a sustainable lifestyle and where best to direct your money. As well as a nice big Fuck Off to the Oligarchy. --No Kings, No Nazis, No Oligarchs.

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K. Starling's avatar

It is. What's hard is that there is not just one bad actor. It's a system that needs to be changed. This was my best attempt to give people guidance on how to boycott the oligarchy, I suppose.

There are efforts to boycott one brand at a time, which could work well, but would require a lot of coordination.

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Frida's avatar

Yeah i think that was a weird suggestion. Just boycott those brands all the time. Bezos has so much money that a day or a week wont do squat to his bank account. But completely withdrawing from him, Whole Foods, Washington Post, that will make a difference. As for things like facebook, people should figure out how to adjust settings for ads and also if they have to stay on FB, dont click on any advertisements

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Peg Bowman's avatar

One comment, one question.

Comment: Assuming the tariffs are not just a threat but are really going to happen, I consider it wise to make any MAJOR purchases (cars, TVs, computers) right now before prices go up. We can still do this without dealing with Amazon, Walmart, etc.

Question: I'm semi-retired and work part-time from home - essentially I'm about 90% self-employed. I would love to support the Strike but I'm not sure I'd count. Do you still want me to sign up?

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K. Starling's avatar

Do it. There may be ways we can support as well. Maybe we brainstorm these.

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Will Hodges's avatar

It's great this stuff is starting to happen. I heard about Shutdown315 first, apparently a similar kind of effort. As is so common with popular/left efforts, they are myriad, too small and disparate. It isn't anyone's fault but we have to do a better job of coordinating. Given that there is more time to promote shutdown315, I am going to do that.

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Joe Katz's avatar

There's also been folks organizing around the Latino Freeze movement: https://www.latinofreeze.com/. They've identified about 30 brands who have rolled back DEI or otherwise turned their backs on the Latino community to boycott, led by Walmart, Target, Amazon, Lowe's, and McDonald's. Feels like something likelier to have a long-term impact than the one-day blackout if we can get enough people behind it.

Thank you so much for what you do!

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K. Starling's avatar

Perfect. I’ll update my list.

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EWP's avatar

Another bookstore option: more than words supports foster care youth by employing them in their brick and mortar stores and online book sales of secondhand and new books! https://shop.mtwyouth.org/?srsltid=AfmBOopsr0fwkvKUoYDyZvju3O9vaDZzwvZLkl_qAyk584AOoTGe_yqB

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T Lombard's avatar

Please explain the cancel credit cards part? Trying to boycott during March.

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K. Starling's avatar

It is in an attempt to minimize soliciting large corporations. Credit cards can be especially predatory. We cut ours down to one and got rid of the one tied to Target, Amazon, and PayPal.

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T Lombard's avatar

Thank you! I thought perhaps there might be some connection to a specific company or individual.

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Jackie's avatar

Yes. Money is the end-all, be- all motivation for this Corporate/ Oligarchy / Authoritarian COUP. It’s the ONLY thing they understand or care about. They don’t care how many Americans and world citizens they must cause to suffer and die as long as they get their sick, greedy , twisted egos stroked. Should Americans pay their taxes this year? It is not the America that we the people had our previous contract with. They forgot they work for us. We are not their employees.

If anyone is going to shut it down it should be us. Hold them down until they they say Uncle Sam.

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Marilyn Kellner's avatar

I am hoping that some of the mainstream media as well as the alternative media publish any effects of the boycott today on February 28

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Castle O'Neill's avatar

Sadly, ABE is actually owned by amazon.

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Maryellen Brady 💗📚's avatar

Minimal & shop local from people you trust 🙌💗🙌 fantastic post.

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