Notes From Underground (#3)
What I Learned From Yesterday's "Economic Blackout"
As a wise fellow law school student once said, “More than 250 years ago, we boycotted British goods when they levied taxes. THAT makes a difference. Not scrolling on Insta or Facebook for a day? Well…”
On the one hand, he has a point. For a country born out of boycotts against “taxation without representation,” you would think we could have done better than just 1 day of “[n]o Amazon, no Walmart, no Best Buy, no Target, no Disney, no Google, no Facebook,” & no spending on “fast food, major retailers, or gas.”
Besides, as if to add insult to injury, “[m]ajor retailers have not reported any significant downturn in sales” anyways.
So, like my wise fellow law school student, you may be asking yourself, “where’s our revolutionary spirit? Where is our will to fight the people who rob us blind, whether they are kings, aristocrats, oligarchs, or all of the above?”
These are, of course, legitimate questions. At the end of the day, as he himself put it, “[a]nyone who didn’t buy what they needed [the 28th], is just gonna buy it [the 1st]. [The corporations] still make their money.” True enough. If people do not maintain their focus, and stick to their principles in spite of the inconveniences, then guess who will win the fight for economic power?
Yes, that’s right. The Elon Musks and Donald Trumps of the world. And yes, I too long for the days when the American people appeared almost always ready, willing, and able to fight against a common enemy, or overcome a common obstacle, together.
Does it seem today that we are falling short of that great legacy of the past? Sure. Especially in a time where so many Americans have expressed their anger with corporate power, why aren’t we channeling that anger into something our children and grandchildren can be proud of? Instead of at “the enemy within,” immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country,” or “men in women’s sports?”
But nothing that we see today necessarily means that we will fail in our efforts tomorrow. Take even the example of this small campaign. It was an initiative of The People’s Union USA, “a grassroots movement dedicated to economic resistance, government accountability, and corporate reform.”
The event they sponsored yesterday is 1 of about 6 planned for the next 2 months alone. The next few blackouts will offer us all opportunities to voice our displeasure with food industry corruption at General Mills, child labor at Nestlé, and more.
We will have another chance. In fact, we will have many other chances, despite how fast things are moving now. Do not underestimate the power of your pocketbook. The generation of the American Revolution certainly did not. Take this campaign—and all the failures and/or successes that come with it—as chances to “flex our muscles.” Think of it as one small step towards imitating what makes us love what America used to stand for.
Or, better yet, think of it as a baby step towards “growing into our own,” and gaining/declaring our independence from our corporate overlords and the wannabe dictators who represent them.
“We are the United States of America,” President Biden once said, “and there is nothing, nothing, nothing beyond our capacity.” Half the battle is won if you merely believe that. To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., faith requires us to take the first step before we can walk up the whole staircase.
Today, I simply ask you to have faith in America, and to put one foot forward on behalf of all the American people.