BOYCOTTS -ARE THEY AN EFFECTIVE FORM OF PROTEST?
Do any of our boycotts impact the industries we despise?
I have been boycotting a huge range of products and services for so long that I can't remember why I started doing it, in many cases!
I boycott every business which profits from war, big P-Harma or Big Oil-n-Gas. I won't consume any product that is saturated in glyphosate or is known to be GMO. I avoid all main stream media (BBC, CNN, Guardian (spit), Sky, GBNews etc) My money does not darken the doors of Amazon (spit), any major supermarket, new clothes stores, Nestlé products, Coca Cola, fast food franchises, most chemical soup hygiene products, plastics, Black Fridays and I distil all water to boycott fluoride. I boycott products from Israel in solidarity with Palestinians.
I gave up dyeing my hair, wearing makeup, driving a car, watching tell-lie-vision, cinema, gigs, pubs and listening to radio. I see no adverts of any kind online due to using a Brave browser.
'Crikey!' I hear you gasp! 'What DO you buy, Fran? You sound like a nun!'
I laugh and think: None of this, that or 'the other'!! 🤣😂
Recently, I bought a cheap but tidy 3rd-hand mobility scooter from a local vendor. Meet the very pretty and efficient Spiffy McZoom:
I am disabled, so my son does most of the shopping from the local co-operative shop and we get rare online deliveries from Ocado for special occasions like Christmas. Even our local quality butcher delivers, if the order is large enough. We indulge in Indian or Chinese meals once a week from small local businesses which are also delivered.
I only very rarely buy 2nd-hand clothes from charity shops or local market stalls. I do not wear shoes at all. My feet are too swollen and cannot bear to be touched by unwieldy leather etc. Everything else comes via Ebay. (I am waiting for a 4 ft fibre optic Christmas tree and snowflake window stickers this week! So exciting - I love twinkly lights!)
To be fair, I have never been a shopaholic, even when I was young and fit. I always preferred to make things myself from scratch, especially home improvements, food and clothing.
The most recent of my boycotts came about over aspartame. 😝
Ribena blackcurrant cordial used to be a regular in my cupboard until the bloody idiotic UK government decided that we should all eat less sugar. Ribena obeyed by replacing the sugar with aspartame and it tastes like a toxic chemical soup to me. I wrote to them and said I was prepared to pay more for the original recipe product but, OH NO MISSUS, came the haughty response. "Our studies show (yawn) that most of our customers prefer the low sugar formula." They discontinued the all-natural ingredient product I had been consuming for 60 bloody years! Tossers!
Do any of my boycotts impact the industries I despise?
I doubt it. My miniscule, tight-fisted existence is but a penny against their billions, no doubt. However, my soul is unsullied by the guilt of perpetuating their poisonous fakery, their sweat shops and their multi-billion rip-off international enterprises.
Tis the best I can do, given the circumstances.
ps
Do you know where I can buy sackcloth and ashes?
Do they deliver?
with you all the way on this Frances and do my bit as much as possible (I'd be here for ever researching and re-researching with no time/life in the day for living ) but are there too many normie shoppers for it NOT to make a difference ? well at one time I would have said no it does make a difference but nearly 3 years down the road with this B.S I would suggest perhaps not, I am totally dismayed by all bbc1 zombies surrounding me and it's stiflingly oppressive and the monetary system is really just the game of monopoly and we know how that ends, hence the name and if you add years of propaganda and a pinch of normie, hey presto pandemico!!! LOL Respect & X 2 All
PS, I boycott most of the same things you do. I do have a car, inherited from my parents. I go to grocery stores about once a week and make my own meals. I started making my own sauerkraut from cabbage this past summer and now I'm starting to make sourdough bread. I also devour beans, eggs, salmon and sardines along with supplements and condiments, oils etc. Tried growing garden this summer, but nothing grew well except the Swiss chard, which I didn't get in the mood to try.
If we each persuade two people each week to do similar boycotts and we teach them to persuade two people each and teach them to teach the same technique, in only 33 weeks the entire human populace would join us. Easy as pi.