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stickly

@ stickly @lemmy.world

Posts
1
Comments
290
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Devils Panties 02/28/2025

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  • You're clearly upset because you THINK it won't have an impact and you WISH they were doing something else. Which is weird because this protest doesn't preclude them from doing anything?

    Its not like I'm choosing to use a sick day today or next week to attend one protest or the other.

    I'm sad I can't get you to understand how businesses run or basic economics. Even if you pretend no businesses are running on fumes and that missing a payment doesn't have an impact for anyone doesn't make it true.

    Or what about this brain blast: not all demand is the same. If I skip lunch today I won't buy lunch twice tomorrow to make up for it... If everyone did that, all restaurants lose 3% of their monthly revenue automatically. Is that not an impact? Is there a magic percentage that it needs to meet to be "impactful"?

    Did you ever consider what would happen if it wasn't just you but everyone in the city was late on rent? You're conflating an individual action's impact with collective impact. Your landlord can price in some percentage of missed payments the same way that a store can price in shoplifting. Being drastically off on that estimate is still a problem.

    Again, if you're arguing the protest won't be widespread enough that's fine. You could even argue that small businesses will be unfairly targeted by this protest and I'm here for it. But ineffective is not the same as performative.

  • Devils Panties 02/28/2025

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  • 🚨THE

    🚨PROTEST

    🚨HAS

    🚨AN

    🚨IMPACT

    I've walked you through it multiple times and you just choose to ignore it. If 300 million Americans did this for one day there would be an economic shockwave, businesses don't budget around NOT HAVING REVENUE. Even IF they make up the difference later.

    Next time I'm a day late on rent, I'll just tell my landlord me having money tomorrow is just as good as today. I'm sure he'll accept that as payment.

    So then is your argument it won't be widespread enough to have an impact? Because that's not the criticism you're offering, you're completely dismissing it.

  • Devils Panties 02/28/2025

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  • My brother in Christ it's the exact same thing with any protest that isn't en masse or an extended occupied disruption. My original question was "do you have any better ideas" and you clearly don't. Why take the time to shit on it?

    Edit: also not having $100 for multiple days is an actual impact that you're ignoring. If you've got a bill due on one of those days you might be on trouble

  • Devils Panties 02/28/2025

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  • The point is that it has an impact that you're arbitrarily ignoring. If you scale your sign holding and chanting up to 3 million people in a state capital then it might be impactful as well.

    The key here is which of these is a more accessible and reasonable thing to ask people to do as a first action? Is it easier to organize 3 protests of 50,000 people in a month or have 500,000 cut their spending in half for a month?

  • Devils Panties 02/28/2025

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  • That's completely backwards. It costs elected officials and our corporate overlords LITERALLY nothing to ignore your protest. It's bad PR at best. Even then, manipulating news coverage, headlines and soundbites is second nature to these people.

    How long would an economic strike have to be for it to have an impact you won't handwave away? There could be prepped food on shelves today that gets thrown out tomorrow. Do it over a weekend and no tickets get sold to a show. Do it for a week and logistics starts getting fucked up.

    Standing around and making noise without any other change to your lifestyle or attempting to organize your efforts is completely hollow. Not to mention, infinitely less accessible to people who can't afford the time or don't have the physical ability to attend.

  • Devils Panties 02/28/2025

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  • Honest question, what is an accessible first step for a population that has basically never performed any collective action that isn't performative?

    Is standing outside a local government building holding a sign to protest federal policy affecting change?

    In my view, at least this one day action has a marginal economic impact. Holding a sign on your lunch break so you can post some pictures to Instagram is way more performative.

  • Devils Panties 02/28/2025

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  • The point is that every dollar in circulation still gets the billionaire tax at some point. So the question shouldn't be "what are the things I can efficiently avoid while maintaining my lifestyle" but "what is the minimum consumption I need to keep a livable life"

    The reason eating at the Vietnamese restaurant is more expensive than eating at home is because running the business consumes more resources. Instead of paying the market price for pho ingredients you're paying for the gas that goes into employees cars, the lease for the business, HVAC, equipment, etc...

    If you're worried about the livelihood of the business owner, you could direct your resources towards supporting him instead of his entire business (mutual aid, charities or direct financial support).

    The answer to how much austerity you can stomach is personal. You don't have to grow your own rice and beans if its not feasible. But any organized action is going to be disruptive; you have to ask yourself how much you're willing to give

  • Devils Panties 02/28/2025

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  • Did you check with each of those businesses to make sure their supply chain and product offering is clean? Are those pho ingredients from a locally sourced farm? Does that farm run off of any big brand farm equipment? Hope they don't need to buy new pots and pans off of Amazon to keep up with demand...

    The point of a blackout is you can't really choose which parts of a fundamentally broken system you want to support. These oligarchs didn't gain total economic control by producing a single widget you can avoid or a single store you can boycott.

  • Trump reveals 'big, big surprise' for ailing Democrats as he warns Blue states will 'totally disappear off the map'

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  • The fact that compromised states like Texas and Florida are pending makes me think this will be a mechanism for right wing fuckery.

    Oops, turns out that all of these states controlled by the GOP voted 100% republican with no oversight from the feds. Hand over your EC votes please 🫴

  • Trump reveals 'big, big surprise' for ailing Democrats as he warns Blue states will 'totally disappear off the map'

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  • ... a Russian plant

    Come on man it was right there!

  • A Friday Night Massacre at the Pentagon

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  • We're gonna start seeing social media style workarounds. Show me papers on wmen and mnor*ties

  • A Friday Night Massacre at the Pentagon

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  • Well, the British did burn Washington DC once before 🤷‍♀️

  • A Friday Night Massacre at the Pentagon

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  • They're not going to necessarily be the saviors of democracy but there's actually a pretty clear demarcation between career politicians and career soldiers. There's a reason "oblivious politician forces military to make strategic blunder" is a trope.

    Usually their goals align with maintaining US hegemony but much less so when the Commander in Chief is selling the nation to foreign adversaries.

  • A Friday Night Massacre at the Pentagon

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  • Isn't a large part of the federal workforce veterans? I can't imagine active service members have good feelings about Trump kicking them to the curb

  • Trump administration hasn't complied with order to halt foreign aid freeze, judge says | CNBC

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  • Good point. But at the same time the states control a lot of bureaucracy around day-to-day civilian operations and vital records.

    If the state doesn't send birth and death certificates to the IRS, taxing gets a lot harder. They control the registration of corporate entities, and while I'm not an expert on corporate law, I assume they could cause problems restricting access to those.

    There's probably some creative, outside the box economic resistance as well that I don't know enough to guess at. For example, taxes/tolls/fines targeting government vehicles? Cutting or up-charging state power/utilities to customs offices?

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    What would happen if Americans stopped buying new consumer goods for a month?

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  • We have no neighbors. Only an unruly 51st tundra state and a hoard of alien barbarians being held at bay by the Night's Watch ICE

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    What would happen if Americans stopped buying new consumer goods for a month?

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  • OH THANK GOD they finally stopped exploiting me. Let me just catch my breath here and oh GOD OH FU--

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    What would happen if Americans stopped buying new consumer goods for a month?

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  • Total collapse might not be required for real, tangible change. Collective action is a unifying force, and it would remind everyone top to bottom that the house of cards is in fact collapsible and not an inevitable behemoth under its own inertia.

    You could argue that even with reforms the underpinning economic system remains as problematic as ever. But building that collective support, reminding poor voters that they're not temporarily embarrassed billionaires, adds more opposition to it than support.

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    What would happen if Americans stopped buying new consumer goods for a month?

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  • After a long enough period of striking it begins to have repercussions beyond the individual budget.

    If the flow of money slowed to a crawl for an extended period, companies don't have the funds to pay workers. Enough job loss leads to further reduced spending, thus impacting stock value, thus impacting employment, etc...

    A month would have a noticeable impact, but a full fiscal quarter would be the first cliff where the big corporations would really sweat. But generally I agree, an economic strike with an end date is like an overnight hunger strike

  • Trump administration hasn't complied with order to halt foreign aid freeze, judge says | CNBC

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  • You wrote up a bunch about technicalities of pardons and push back on over reach but it's actually really simple. If he wants something illegal done, he signs a paper that says to do it and another absolving them for carrying out the order.

    Nobody will care about over reach because every functional position in the government is now a political position. If your loyalty wavers for even a second, you're fired (or worse). Federal oversight is replaced by state surveillance, you can be sure that rogue chef or secret service agent would have eyes watching their every move.

    Even if the SC sets themselves up as the final arbiters on legality, that doesn't protect them from illegal orders targeting them. For example: tough to oppose a president from a jail cell or if all of your assets are seized for the Sovereign Wealth fund.

    Your point on state opposition is one that I'll grant, that's probably the storybook (legal) ending to this if there was one. The best case scenario would turn into a cold civil war, with states finding ways to oppose the federal government while coordinating some measure of support for each other.

    The most likely ending isn't that or a rogue assassin, but a palace coup. Popular unrest allows the military to step in and overthrow the head of state. The power remains centralized and unconstitutional; you're now at the whim of the heads of military.

    But at least the military industrial complex isn't beholden to the whims of every foreign government with a blank check. They already have way more power and influence than any random elected politician, and maintaining the US hegemony is their main goal.