Boycott

Great article by Matt Taibbi about what we should be doing now. Snippet:

"After a while, it’s simply not dignified to freak out over each of these things individually. The dignified thing to do is to recognize once and for all the essential nature of what we’re up against, and then fight it. Don’t write petitions or make appeals, don’t sing songs, don’t wait for someone up there to change their "minds." Just fight it. And make it hurt.

Wall Street supports this war. How do you think it would react if all 30 percent of the country that opposes the war decided one day to dump all of its stock? A self-defeating gesture, to be sure, but we didn’t get to drink the British tea, either. CNN and FOX are making a killing waving a flag for the Pentagon. Why not start boycotting their advertisers one at a time until they pull their spots? Does Dell really want that "Dude, you’re getting a Dell" kid to be turned into a symbol of the war machine on college campuses? Hell, forget about boycotting just Dell. Boycott everything. If even this minority of the population could go a month without over-consuming, it would give corporate America an aneurysm. Just one month of no new cars, no new hoop shoes, no Atlantic records, no Kellogg’s Fruit Harvest, no nothing but the bare minimum.

For years, corporate America and the media have tried to convince us that buying things is a political act, a way of expressing our individuality (Fruitopia instead of flower power, Nikes sold to the tune of "Revolution," peace signs on the walls of Starbucks). Well, let’s call their bluff. Let’s non-participate. Let’s go on consumer strike. Pull a slowdown. We don’t have a lot of choices when it comes to voting for politicians, but when it comes to buying, where our existence is actually necessary, we have a thousand choices a day. It might be the only method we have of making the decision-making class pay attention to our concerns.

Hell, let’s try something, anyway. Because what we’re doing now is just what they expected–nothing."