Organizations like The People’s Union USA have scheduled a total economic blackout—no spending—for this Friday, February 28. I encourage all DCDP members to participate. Please purchase gas, groceries, and other necessities before Friday, and withdraw emergency cash. Please do not go out to eat. If you must spend money, try to do so locally, not online, and with cash.
Following that are targeted weeks of specific boycotts to send a message to companies but also project the jobs of people who work at those companies:
March 7-15 Boycott Amazon
March 21-28 Boycott Nestle
April 7-15 Boycott Walmart
April 18 Economic Blackout #2
April 21-28 Boycott General Mills
Please seriously consider participating.
For a little context, the Trump administration is targeting consumer protections and decreasing corporate oversight. Trump’s FTC chair nominee, Andrew Ferguson, was confirmed with very little hell raised—and here’s why that’s a big deal.
The FTC regulates anticompetitive business practices and monopolies to protect small businesses and consumers. the Biden administration chair, Lina Khan, went after pharmaceutical companies for keeping the cost of inhalers artificially high, for making cancer research less competitive. She prevented a merger between two of the grocery oligopolies, Kroger, which is a parent company of Harris Teeter, and Albertsons.
And the FTC under her direction sued Amazon for inflating online prices and overcharging sellers. That lawsuit is still active but now we see why Jeff Bezos has suddenly cozied up to Trump. This has been the catalyst for me ending my Prime membership and associated memberships like Audible, and boycotting Whole Foods.
Those of us who can afford it need to start voting with our dollars, because things are getting a lot worse. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief has ended all supervision of companies, national labor relations board that oversees union cases has been declared unconstitutional, so Amazon is saying they don’t have to acknowledge the union vote that passed in one of their Whole Foods.
Our protections from predatory companies are being slowly eroded, and we don’t know if the courts are going to uphold these executive orders or choose to protect Americans. One thing we can do is contact our legislators. Congress can pass laws to give the FTC more authority and they can also vote overrule the FTC, so we need to let our Congress members know that we do want the FTC to continue to investigate Amazon, hold them accountable, block mergers and protect the American consumer. Two great resources to keep updated on this are the Center for Science in the Public Interest and also Public Citizen.
But Congress is not on our side, and if the courts fail us then all we have left to protect ourselves is where we spend our money. So what I’m asking is this—pick one thing to pull your money from, and make it count. It can be canceling your Prime membership and getting a Costco or Thrive Market membership. It can be changing your provider away from T-Mobile, which has partnered with Elon Musk’s Starlink. It can be joining a local farm co-op or CSA for more of your groceries so less of your dollars go to Whole Foods or Harris Teeter (I highly recommend Community Supported Grocery). Once you’ve figured out how to make that work, then pick something else.
This is how we protect ourselves and other people, by making these big companies lose money.
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