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May 29, 2007
The Bush Economic Boycott

by James
James is a friend of MoA barfly Beq. He asked this to be posted. I am not sure I agree with it, but it certainly deserves discussion.

Voting in 2007 or The Bush Economic Boycott:

Starts June 1, 2007, ends when ALL troops are removed from Iraq.

  1. Cut out-of-pocket expenses by whatever you can (a goal of 25% is recommended).
  2. No purchases of homes, cars, luxury items: unneeded appliances, computers, electronics, jewelry, etc.
  3. Shop at non-Bush friendly vendors only. www.opensecrets.org may help.
  4. Cut all non-essential driving. A goal of 50% is recommended.
  5. A 100% boycott of gift purchasing on the December holidays (children are optional, just cut back) Make gifts, bake goods, etc.

Our goal is to force the Bush administration to finally take notice of our strength in numbers. Yeah. They got the guns but…

They totally ignored the 2006 elections. So vote again in 2007. Every dollar not spent to fuel the economy will eventually help save American and Iraqi lives. I can’t think of a better sacrifice that we can make to stop the bloodshed.

Note: For those of you who live elsewhere, boycott wherever you can if you don’t already.

Posted by b on May 29, 2007 at 11:01 UTC | Permalink
Comments

I decided to do something along this same line when Bush was first elected, the idea being to avoid helping to burnish his reputation by not contributing any more than necessary to the economy. I have found it incredibly difficult to stay with my original plan. When things — appliances, vehicles, the house I live in, my own health, clothing, all those things we consume — start to decay and fall apart and stop working, there is generally no option but to replace them. When you do that, you contribute to the economy. Even growing my own food, which I do a lot of, contributes to the economy because of the organic gardening soil additives I purchase. But I still press on toward the goal of sabotaging the Bush Administration and his personal place in history, by doing as little as possible to contribute to growth of the GNP. Or whatever it is called these days. And by urging others to do the same, while they are also agitating to get out of Iraq.
One of the major flaws in this plan of mine, is that by crippling the economy (assuming that could be done if enough people opted out of the consumer mentality) we also hurt ourselves. If there are fewer dollars circulating, then there are fewer for us to spend, which means fewer for employers to pay out in salaries, etc. Dollars are, after all, a lot like the horse shit I use for gardening: They don’t do a lot of good unless you spread them around.
And if you have dollars, but spend them only on necessities, having more of them left over that you do not spend, what are you going to do those unspent dollars? Put them in a coffee can buried under the back porch? If you put them into savings or certificates of deposit, you are essentially lending them to a bank to be used by the bank as it sees fit. If you don’t lend them out like that, they will lose value and your own wealth will be diminished.
This has some basic implications for the kind of “don’t spend money so it hurts Bush” plan. If you have $25K and you “spend” that on a new truck which you use to haul manure for your victory garden, you have really only changed the nature of your asset, from dollars to pickup truck. If your dollars came out of your savings or money market account, you probably have had very little overall impact on the economy. The primary effect flows from the fact that everytime dollars move, one or more people in the process are going to keep a few of those dollars for himself or herself. And then go out and spend them.
It is hard to make an impact by not spending your money, but not impossible. I recall that during the Eisenhower Administration, Ike went on radio and TV to urge Americans to spend, so as to help the economy. The converse of that is probably also efficacious: Don’t spend in order to sabotage the economy.
The recommendations of your friend James, which boil down to spend only for essentials, is about as close as you can get to making the process work. However, I doubt the accuracy of this statement: “Every dollar not spent to fuel the economy will eventually help save American and Iraqi lives.” Bush, and many Democrats, do not look to the health of the economy when making Iraq war spending decisions. They just spend with the knowledge that the costs will become a debt to be repaid by the rest of us.

Posted by: Doran Williams | May 29 2007 13:09 utc | 1

thanks james. what about liquor?
😉
seriously , of course. and let’s not forget those taxes.

Posted by: annie | May 29 2007 13:10 utc | 2

barter

Posted by: annie | May 29 2007 13:13 utc | 3

Annie, bartering is fun, and it is a viable, important way to carry on commerce on a small, local level. But bartering will never be significant enough to effect the over all economy. If I grow a huge amount of green beans, or squash, or potatoes in my garden, I’m not going to have any luck finding a department store manager who will take a few bushels or pounds of such in trade for a new pair of workboots. Hell, I’m not going to find a thrift store which would make that trade.

Posted by: Doran Williams | May 29 2007 13:27 utc | 4

While I understand the spirit of James idea, I respectfully disagree. Boycotts do not work. Thom Hartmann spoke about this the other day, he basically said paraphrasing, ‘within the way contemporary economic petrol/hydrocarbon systems are built they now have within them operational contingencies that trade one function for another’ he was much more articulate than that. But he said, things such as the recent Don’t Pump Gas on May 15 meme has zero impact on CEO’s, and that they merely “laugh at us”. And that the only way it would work would be if it was done for a sustained period of time such as was done in South Africa during apartheid.
They merely adjust the slack at a later time w/mobile expenditures.
However, I suspect that National General Strikes do work, and have a long proud, if wobbly (Pun intended), history as proof. As an aside, I personally find it quite interesting that we seem to have come full circle , in that, the opening act of this ‘theater of the absurd’ seems to have started in earnest when the ol’ Gipper, Raygun, fired the 11, 359 unionized air traffic control workers back in the eighties under national security. And then Clinton had the gall to rename the Washington National Airport to the Reagan Washington National Airport to honor the former president on his 87th birthday — a decision made without input from area residents, I might add. I’m reminded of a brief conversation I had with the head of security of one university I attended, I forget how the topic started, but he chuckled and said, “funny how the buildings on this campus are mostly all named after crooks”.
For twenty-five years, the American public has paid the price for the greatest display of union busting in the Twentieth Century by our only “Labor” President…
We have come full circle back to class war. And that is the last option –a national general strike–that seems available to us a this point short of armed insurrection. Which we would lose because they have us out gunned –metaphorically and technologically , finally, I’d be so bold as to say, they want us and dare us to mount some kind of armed rebellion.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 29 2007 13:34 utc | 5

Nice post, Uncle $cam. I agree completely with your final paragraph. A national, general strike is about the only option available. Armed insurrection is not viable; it is a loser from the start. And yes, I think the facists/authoritarians/retro-monarchists would just love it if armed insurrection would break out, because it would give them the excuse to lock most of away forever.

Posted by: Doran Williams | May 29 2007 13:42 utc | 6

If one is going to do a boycott, there is probably a better way of doing it. Look for items made in countries other than the US. Shop at foreign stores. Buy Mexican, Chinese, Canadian. It is a lot easier to get people to switch than to do without. Hey, given how hard it is not to buy Chinese, this one should be easy. Take your vacations somewhere other than the US. Drive a Toyota.
Don’t sweat American purchases. Just gradually over time find substitutes. Got your favourate product that happens to be American? Keep buying it. Just continue to gradually shift your other purchases from American to somewhere else.
It’s gong to take a long time to either make the democrats (let alone the republicans) take notice.

Posted by: edwin | May 29 2007 14:26 utc | 7

Addendum:
I suspect it really wont matter, even if ‘the people’ got their shit together and did some type of coordinated resistance. Moreover, I believe it is much too late. “We’re far too deep in this now.”
Get Set for The National Continuity Coordinator

If you think you know your government, think again. Some of the most knowledgeable political pundits, congressional leaders and other elected officials would fail a simple three-question test that every American ought to ace.
My assumption is that most readers of this article will also fail this test. The result of such failure is catastrophic — in that it demonstrates the success of an insidious plot to take over this nation and run it as a dictatorship.

The ringwraiths have us surrounded, welcome to the ‘New World Empire’.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 29 2007 14:32 utc | 8

It’s easier than you think. Just do like the Iraqis used to do…Pay cash for everything except your house or business. Oh wait…Look at them now.

Posted by: pb | May 29 2007 16:26 utc | 9

I think one way this could work would require a focus on what to boycott and when. It is indeed silly not to buy gasoline for one day….who would that hurt? maybe the local gas station but no one else. however if everyone decided to no longer buy Chevron for a month or two and then Exxon for a couple of months then you could have an effect. same with other things, two months no Walmart and then two months no Target and so on and so forth. this would be really quite easy to organize and would not put undo constraints on most everyone.
the only sticky part would be who decides when and where. it would have to be decision by committee or a general vote because if it is left to a small group they would quickly become corrupted.
two years ago I did not buy a new version of Turbo Tax because of their sponsorship of a certain NBC news program. I did buy HR Block’s Tax Cut which is nearly as good and I did let Intuit know that I would no longer buy their products. so far that is the only focused thing I have done and it is really insignificant in the long run. however, we must do something. poor Cindy Sheehan really tried to get something going but has realized she is taking a lot of abuse for and from the very people she is trying to help.

Posted by: dan of steele | May 29 2007 16:27 utc | 10

Boycotts, slowdowns, sit-ins, local strikes, tax revolt, even national strikes are all sharper and sharper versions of the same tool:
Refusing the government.
Handing straight back its direction and authority. Actively NOT doing what it wants done.
The weapon in such actions is the destruction of the government’s legitimacy. Without active consent, the government becomes hollow, impotent, absurd. This is especially true in America, which rests its government(s) in all ways on the consent of the governed, as measured by occasional elections, and as measured every day of the week by polling and persuading the public’s opinion and outcry.
American government is sensitive to the people under its hand. A letter writing campaign, a publicity campaign, a protest song on the charts or a viral YouTube video gets attention and response from the American government, at least to the extent that it gets handled in such a way as to defend and preserve the government’s legitimacy.
Because legitimacy is all they’ve got. That’s it.
Think of the might Dollar, which currently rules the world’s economy. It is fiat money, churned out of printing presses and Federal Reserve spreadsheets wholesale without physical backing of any kind whatsoever. They just add some zeros and keep on governin’ like nothin’ happened.
The sole value of the Dollar is the faith of the next guy or gal you hand it to that they will be able to hand it off to someone else in turn.
The Dollar is truly, literally, actually — faith-based currency.
Government in America, whether Federal, State, County, City or Homeowner’s Association is faith-based in the same way as the Dollar. If it cannot be handed on — if it is handed right back — there is nothing physical to back it up except that tiny percentage of the population who are willing to handcuff and crack heads and shoot rubber or lead bullets into a crowd. At least until the crowd gets too big.
Whilst the hoi polloi are content to accept their government, they invest it with almost divine powers and authority over their lives. They gaze on its constant encroachments benignly, as if they were its proud owners, while it eats up their property, their freedom, their rights. For so long as the government does them no serious harm (“neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg” as Ben Franklin might say), the average citizen will let the great beast of government range free over his life, even after it has clearly become just another expression of corporate greed and graft.
But there is a tipping point, after which the government has no legitimacy in their eyes, and no power over them that isn’t directly, physically exercised.
When you can’t trust you own population unless they are under direct threat or incarceration, you do not have a government, you have a hostage situation.
America is producing hostage communities aplenty in recent years, from Katrina to the 50 million uninsured to the stop lossed National Guard grunts to predatory student loans to doctors forbidden to practice medicine without the supervision of a bookkeeper to the infant children of immigrants imprisoned indefinitely in Texas. Gentle Reader, you will be able to offer many more examples.
When government mutates from discovering and serving the needs of its people to preying upon whole classes of them for the ultimate benefit of its international corporate donors and owners, it has lost its raison d’etre, its reason for even being.
After that, it is only a matter of the people recognizing that loss, and refusing the government.
The essayist, James, raise “How To” points, How To show disapproval and noncooperation with the government.
I will suggest that it is far more valuable to collar public attention upon the illegitimacy of their government, illegitimate by its own definition. Show them the crimes and the insanity of its actions until they admit it is not a friend to any man, only a mad dog serving the bottom lines of faceless corporations.
The How To will take care of itself from there.

Posted by: Antifa | May 29 2007 16:31 utc | 11

Just as Dan says, there must be some specifics for any bycott to be successful. Just a general consumption boycott will neither get followship nor have any measurable effect.
– There must be communicatable cause
– Someone’s behaviour is responsible for that cause
– Said someone has the ability to change its behaviour
– Said someone has a pressure-point where it can be hurt
– If the pressure point is a specific product sell or franchise there need to be reasonable alternatives available for the people who boycott.
– Using the boycott/pressure-point must be legal (tax boycott is illegal)
– A communication campagne is needed to:
— Tell the boycotted that they are indeed boycotted
— Build the boycott movement
— Get public attention to the cause and the boycott effect
There are several companies who make big bucks on the war. Not only haliburton, but also companies with consumer goods, specific airlines etc.
Identify and target them and tell them that they are targeted. “You lost this sale, because …”
Another issue I have with James’ concept is “Bush-friendly vendors”.
On can easily look up local companies who give/gave for Bush/Republican election. Boycott those and tell them. But if you are really successful doing so, you will get another President Clinten or Obama or Dem-whatever.
After the sorry show the Democrats just came up with, does anybody believe such President would end the war?

Posted by: b | May 29 2007 16:51 utc | 12

I started talking about boycotts five years ago when I first realized that armed insurection would be an absolute disaster. I’m sorry to say that I got no positive response from anyone and I doubt you could get many to go along with it now. It almost seems like it’s some kind of status symbol to talk about the hundred bucks it takes four times a month to fill the tank on that pig in the driveway. The truth is of course is they really don’t put out the money it just goes on the credit card like it is free for crissake. So it raises the monthly payment, so what, as long as they can make the the minimum monthly payment (which is getting to be less and less) every body goes blissfully on their way.
No. The problem is unfathomable debt and nothing will change until the coming complete collapse of the creative?? Enron style financing system. There will be no need for boycotts then. We will be worrying about the pillaging and looting going on by a completely undisciplined populace running amok.
Now I just settle for a bumper sticker that says:
Yeah?? Fuck you George!

Posted by: pb | May 29 2007 18:36 utc | 13

Funny, or not so, the recommendations resemble the ELP plan (Economize, Localize and Produce) proposed by J. Brown on the Oil Drum and taken up thereafter by subscribers and discussants as just plain old ELP. In view of upcoming ‘peak oil’ and what can be done.
Ppl are divided – such individual efforts are seen as laudatory or essential; or as the PC privilege of the already rich or comfortable who can do what they like, thereby ignoring or circumventing, even quashing, collective political action.
Oil Drum april 07
The goal of ELP or of the proposed action in the lead post as in all general and not specifically targeted boycotts or strikes seems to be ‘checking out’, ‘slowing the economy’, ‘potesting the system by not participating’, and so on.
Of course if it could be implemented sharply on a large scale for a long time span it would be devastating, the Iraq war for ex is paid for by the US tax payer. Gulf war I was paid for by the Intl community, Japan in first place I believe. Afgh. was, is, a communal effort as well. Not so Iraq, which is one of the reasons US soccer moms are feeling the pain.. still goods made by slave labor (China etc.) are plentiful and cheap and life trundles along, ME oil is protected so to speak, the US life style can continue..
But who can give up their job; a car to drive children to school? Who could face empty supermarket shelves? Who can really accept that if ‘the economy’ winds down, grannies will die and children will starve?
Specific targeted boycotts work better. The reason is that one must have a definite effect, accomplish something, cheer a victory. Killing one small company…yup… great…then what? that has to be worked out.

Posted by: Noirette | May 29 2007 18:37 utc | 14

anything targeted at bush is both missing the point & misleading

Posted by: b real | May 29 2007 18:52 utc | 15

speaking in terms of economic boycotts, that is. one can hold him accountable, as decider-in-chief, but the war is not strictly a bush regime/rethug adventure.

Posted by: b real | May 29 2007 19:00 utc | 16

/the war is not strictly a bush regime/rethug adventure.
go on…

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 19:26 utc | 17

…only as far as profits go

Posted by: jcairo | May 29 2007 19:39 utc | 18

…only as far as profits go

Posted by: jcairo | May 29 2007 19:41 utc | 19

the targets, if the goal is to prevent further deaths, are of u.s. origin, no doubt.
it wasn’t a cabal of international financial overlords who planned, sold, and committed the post-911 invasions, & then declared that only u.s. companies would be getting in on the ground floor opportunities to remold iraq.
it’s not the remainder of the coalition-of-the-killing that are really just making a mess of it over in iraq.
it’s not intellectuals or consumers in third-party lands who provide rationale for the occupation.
the butcher’s bill gets delivered on u.s. soil, and it may very well have george bush’s name on the invoice. but my point is that this thing is systemic, and the other party is just as involved in allowing the bloodletting to continue.

Posted by: b real | May 29 2007 20:28 utc | 20

Here’s a novel idea that may be of interest to some.

Posted by: pb | May 29 2007 20:52 utc | 21

then declared that only u.s. companies
jesus, even soros buys haliburton stock, michael moore apparently. some of the biggest institutional holders of halliburton are european and asian investment banks.
all those dollars are recycled in the global economy through the core economies, and all of it chasing iinvestment and assets returning profits. you can be sure many billions of dollars have been earned by foreign investment in the u.s. defense industry. something like a 30% return on a basket of defense stocks since 9/10.

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 21:40 utc | 22

in fact, axa, the giant french insurance/investment firm is the second largest institutional holder of halliburton stocks, followed by barclays.
but don’t tell rgiap.

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 21:50 utc | 23

so the u.s. military invaded iraq b/c halliburton’s (parasitic) shareholders (tapeworms?) expected/demanded it & then used that influence to prevent other transnationals from getting in on the bigger contracts in order that, by all appearances, the u.s. takes the heat & looks like the bad guy? who knew…

Posted by: b real | May 29 2007 21:53 utc | 24

barclays owns giant chunks of u.s. defense, including lockheed and raytheon. source: vickers security. a lot of asian investment there.

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 22:03 utc | 25

prevent other transnationals
this is an error of analysis. to be sure, halliburton is an american company–wait a minute, a dubai incorporated company(!)–but the investments pour in from the global capitalist class from everywhere. this war is global. the u.s. military is this class’s street muscle.

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 22:07 utc | 26

christ, axa is a giant investor in Northrop Grumman and boeing.
oh my. do not tell rgiap.

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 22:15 utc | 27

street muscle, slothrop – it is like the four british mercenaries & their client in baghdad today – fucked

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 29 2007 22:17 utc | 28

shall we look for german institutional investment in big oil? that could be embarrassing.

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 22:17 utc | 29

well, no more whining from you about the lack of verification for french culpability in this war. bif you own insurance or receive a pension, you’re an investor, mon cher.

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 22:19 utc | 30

axa, barclays, top two investors in exxon mobile.
damn.

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 22:23 utc | 31

u.s. investors own an enormous chunk of Deutsche Bank AG. wow. this global capitalism is a sinister clusterfuck.

Posted by: slothrop | May 29 2007 22:34 utc | 32

atilio boron – read his critique/book of negri/hardt empire

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 29 2007 22:47 utc | 33

lenine – imperialism

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 29 2007 22:59 utc | 34

atilio boron who has also written a book which is a critique of antoni negri’s empire

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 29 2007 23:03 utc | 35

slothrop,
Perhaps the point is that whatever capital does, it does at the level of systemic action – which is to say action that can be theorized but which simply passes right through individuals.
The only way to get results as an individual, the only way to change the game is to stop looking at the systemic level, and to start finding ways to transform the social problem into problems for individuals. So, possibly, everything you say is correct. But it is also impossibly out of reach.
For human beings, the trick is to grasp the systemic causal ways, but to translate it into our own level. So, no, it is not enough to “blame” global capital.
Once upon a time, a 90% tax on high incomes was a way of restraining capital by restraining individuals. The Tokugawa government of Japan fell because assassinations made reform at the center a suicide mission. The same can be said of left politics in the USA since 50 years ago. People make things happen. And they change systems.
To say that the blame is merely everywhere is like staring at the sun. It’s not really built for human viewing, and so, it blinds.

Posted by: citizen | May 30 2007 2:59 utc | 36

To say that the blame is merely everywhere is like staring at the sun.
well, at the the risk of deeply offending “indigenists,” conspiracy theorists, eurocentrists, and other quasi-intellectual riffraff “leftists,” let’s evoke marx. global capital is a totality marked by the chaos of production, social relations determined by a specific mode of production, and an ideology which constantly reproduces a demand for domination by the capitalist mode of production.
i’m not to blame for this.
the task is to understand the greatest abstraction of power that has ever existed which functions concretely in every mundane activity.

Posted by: slothrop | May 30 2007 3:22 utc | 37

to put it in the metaphor favored by old sociologists: we are fish swimming in the water of capital.

Posted by: slothrop | May 30 2007 3:24 utc | 38

abstract theories create abstract actions
even in the postmodern space of informational & global financial networks, there are still (malignant) nodes that can be excised by the surgeon wielding both scalpel & precision

Posted by: b real | May 30 2007 3:49 utc | 39

b real
too much confusion. we need theory.

Posted by: slothrop | May 30 2007 3:52 utc | 40

yes, but let’s zero in on that which we can do something about
supposing it’s possible, will making the entire system visible — for however many nanoseconds you can get a snapshot of it — put an end to it? my feeling is that, at the level you are attempting to approach this from, you’ll never get a good enough grasp of it b/c of its transformational nature.

Posted by: b real | May 30 2007 4:17 utc | 41

no. at least with theory, which is the most precise analysis of global capitalist class formation, at least, we hurdle this ridiculous impasse that european civilization surpasses an operation of “capital” that is vulgarly “american.”
at the very least.

Posted by: slothrop | May 30 2007 4:23 utc | 42

people, just agree with it and move on

Posted by: jcairo | May 30 2007 6:07 utc | 43

2. No purchases of homes, […]
I’m afraid any efforts there will be swamped by the far larger signal of the housing bubble winding down. It’s simply good sense not to have bought a house in the last three years and probably for at least the next two as well. You don’t have to twist our arms.

Posted by: pirate prentice | May 30 2007 7:34 utc | 44

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