There was another protest at Rep. Tom Barrett's office today, and school's on midterm break, so I went with L.
We stood for an hour waving our signs and yelling chants and slogans. Someone halfheartedly started a rendition of "We shall Overcome," but it petered out after a stanza. There were some schoolchildren on a tour of the State Capitol and "Save our Schools" and "This is what democracy looks like" were very popular with them.
My favorite chant was the one I grabbed for the title of this post, "We Can't Bear it," with the last two words pronounced "Barrett." Clever! And fun to say.
Other things: We have 117 new refugee families in Lansing and their funding has been cut by the federal government, so fundraising is happening via Catholic Charities.
Also, I've had it with Target and their performative politics--they've ditched DEI just as they ditched Pride displays at the first inkling of trouble. I've been boycotting them for a month already. Here's a list of companies to support and avoid. TLDR: Costco good; Amazon, Target, McDonalds bad.
And of course, the big economic blackout is coming up on Friday.
Pic: These two earnest posters spoke to me the most. There were lots of clever posters including one with a "Musk-ito" sucking the life out of federal institutions, and an another by a laid off federal worker that said "an immigrant took my job" with a picture of Musk on it.
25 comments:
I almost forgot to comment because I clicked on your links and went down a rabbit hole...
I love those posters. And I'm loving the one you described- "an immigrant took my job"- very clever.
And... I'm so disappointed in Target. I don't know why I expected more of them???
Good for you.
We've managed not to buy anything from Amazon for a month or so. It's a challenge, but we're motivated.
Very clever slogan with the rep's name. I know I said before it's most effective with moderates, but it can't hurt to let him know his constituents are mad. That's how the tide will turn, if it does.
I've been boycotting Walmart for decades. And Home Depot, Chick Fil A, Hobby Lobby...I feel as if I've been blacklisting retailers forever.
There's an app called GUU--Goods Unite Us, a woman-led company out of Wisconsin that lets you enter the name of a company or brand and then see what political donations it has made.
It's nigh unto impossible to effectively restrict all our money going to corporations that support people/causes we dislike, but we can make informed choices whenever we can.
Thanks for showing up! It matters.
-Steph
Have you heard of the ap, Goods Unite Us? Another blogger told me about it. It shows what parties their campaign donations supported and also rates them in terms of campaign finance reform. I really really hope campaign finance reform occurs in my lifetime. It would prevent the Musks of the world from their undue influence. Also, you can answer a series of questions on the ap and it gives you a numerical rating for how well you are doing at supporting companies that score well in terms of campaign finance reform.
I'm so disappointed in Target. They are my hometown company and I hate that they caved to pressure from the idiot in charge. I keep seeing headlines about others in my industry taking down their DEI pages. I am nervous about what my company is going to do. My industry is already SO WHITE AND MALE. We can barely move the needle with the DEI programs we have. Ugh.
There are SO FEW retailers that I feel comfortable shopping with that I'm going to turn into a minimalist without trying very hard, I fear. I honestly am scared to look up Hallmark because I need cards for St. Patrick's Day...
And don't get me started on local small businesses. I'm still holding COVID-related boycotts and NOW I just do a quick look-see at a business's FB page before I spend money there and it is SHOCKING how many have pro-Trump BS on their pages. *sigh*
Love the signs. Fortunately a Target boycott isn't that hard for Canadians, and I just joined Costco again for the first time in years. I'm glad people keep reminding me of the Friday boycott - I'm going to put it in my phone calendar now because my memory is SO bad.
LOVE Costco. Can't quit Target and Whole Foods because convenience. I DO boycott Chik Fil A and Hobby Lobby and of course Tesla-- BUT. Boycott has limited utility in our current media landscape-- hard to spread the word to an aggregate/ less powerful of course with a fragmented audience.
Yeah... now I'm remembering eight years ago and all the really funny posters at the protests. :) It felt less dire eight years ago somehow...
Thanks!
We have been boycotting Amazon for the past month too... We boycotted for a longer period before but caved during the pandemic...
Steph, I took what you said about moderates before to my friend L, who's organizing some of this, and she said Barrett will never change his vote, but we need to let him know how much his constituents hate it. So you two are on the same page!
Walmart, Chick Fil A, Hobby Lobby have been on our banned lists too. Despite hating that his alma mater named is now named NYU Langone health after the Home Depot guy, Big A continues to use Home Depot. We have no alternatives around us as Tractor Supply and Lowes are just as awful?
Thank you for the tip about GUU. I did not know the backstory, which makes me like it even more!
Thanks, Steph. Somehow, I was surprised I didn't *enjoy* it more. That seems a bit asinine--given how serious this is.
I've been hearing a lot of good things about Goods Unite Us, Lisa! I've used "Buycott" previously (It works off of UPCs).
I hear your concern about people taking down DEI pages (which were mostly *aspirational* in the first place, anyway). It's like they were just waiting to comply. They did that thing Timothy Snyder says NOT to do in _On Tyranny_: They obeyed in advance.
("Do not obey in advance.
Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. Perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not at first have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another. After the German elections of 1932, which brought Nazis into government, or the Czechoslovak elections of 1946, where communists were victorious, the next crucial step was anticipatory obedience. Because enough people in both cases voluntarily extended their services to the new leaders, Nazis and communists alike realized that they could move quickly toward a full regime change. The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed.")
This struggle is real, Engie. Prof BB probably says there is no ethical consumption under capitalism...
Thanks for the cross-border solidarity, Allison!
And I already loved Costco because of their labor practices...
Boycotts are inconvenient and exhausting and could be long, but they work. Racial minorities are seriously boycotting Target AFAIK. Honestly, I wish more white women, who are in that huge overlap of Target consumers and DEI beneficiaries, would boycott too.
I need to read ‘In Tyranny’. It’s funny you quoted from it because I won it on a giveaway on Jeanie’s blog!!! It’s been on my shelf but I need to pick it up.
Ahem, On Tyranny!!
Jeanie again :)!!
I've been overthinking this boycott thing so much. I am absolutely fine with not shopping on Friday. I am all in for boycotting Amazon/Whole Foods for a week, and I absolutely don't need to go to Target etc. However, I do have an Amazon Prime subscription, and I save a lot of money buying my Maya's Starbucks/Nespresso pods that way. I could buy them at Safeway, but they're like $4 more a box, and I don't really care if Amazon undercuts Starbucks/Nespresso. SIGH. A bigger issue in my mind is the all out spending blackout for 3 Fridays in about 6 weeks. Friday is a make or break business day for small restaurants. 1 might not hurt them too much, but 3 in such a small space of time could do them damage. So I'm going to continue to go to dinner on Fridays, but only locally owned restaurants (the only ones we go to anyway). I will pay cash though, so that the credit card doesn't get the fee that they charge the restaurants. I waffled on that a lot too, actually, because the credit card pays me points at restaurants, and the amount they pay me is more than they get from the restaurant (though it's close), so I would be costing the credit card company money. But in order to make a point, it will be cash. The thing I have to tell my busy anxious brain is that we don't all have to do EVERYTHING, but we all do have to so SOMETHING.
I'm glad you were able to go to the protest, I wish it had felt more satisfying. We went to a town hall last week (online, too many people showed up and we couldn't get in) for our Rep. We're in California, he's a Democrat, so mostly we were just there to hear what Congress is doing. The answer was depressing, because honestly I am not sure how much power they have. However, he did try to encourage us. He said, "Keep calling, keep protesting, keep it up. These things matter." So there's that. I'm writing my letters to Wisconsin voters, which does not feel like nearly enough.
I've been using Goods Unite Us to help me figure out which stores to go to. I have to switch my main grocery store (from Publix, to Aldi). It's hard to figure out the place to go for other essentials (like I would get at Target or Wal-Mart or Amazon). I need to think about a good alternative there. It's hard.
I also need to get on my 5calls game, ugh. Sometimes it feels hopeless because I don't trust any of my Republican reps but the point is to overwhelm them with calls, right? Sigh.
J--Thank you for thinking so deeply through all of these issues and sharing... This is helping me make my own plan of action, too. You're not just doing SOMETHING, you're doing A LOT!! If I see or come up with an answer for the pods, I'll email.
Stephany--that's a good point. I don't need anything for a while, but what about long-term? Maybe we're all more au naturel than usual!
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