bearboiblake

feelings are important, though? if i can avoid hurting someone and all it costs me is saying blocklist instead of blacklist, that seems like an obvious slam dunk

here's a question - if you had a friend who was making a mistake, would you try to encourage them to reconsider?

if you think I would poke fun at you, you have absolutely the wrong idea about my motivations. i don't want you to fail, i want you to succeed. i just know that this boycott won't achieve anything, and all of the time and energy put into it will be completely wasted.

i want people to take all of that time and energy and put it towards something that will actually achieve something meaningful. i want people to join a union and find a local activist group, and start actually making connections, building solidarity, and taking collective action that actually will accomplish something!

i'm encouraging people to find an alternative to this boycott, because it will not be effective, and it will take away energy and oxygen from other forms of activism which are much more effective. boycotts and petitions almost universally achieve nothing, and they discourage people from getting involved with real activism.

firstly, thank you so much for the thoughtful message. reading insightful comments like yours, where it's clear that you're genuinely trying your best to make the world a better place, and you actually think about what i wrote, makes all of the hate i get totally worthwhile.

in my opinion, it's more the unity of the working class, that's what scares them - when we work together, and when we're organized.

that's the biggest flaw with petitions and boycotts, they are all focused on individual action. You don't get together and organize a picket line, you don't get to meet like-minded people, you don't learn about how capitalism affects anyone other than yourself.

i've been involved in activism efforts for a long time now and if we could get just 5% of people who signed a petition to instead get involved with a local activist group, we would have won this fight by now.

i'm a union officer and rep, and i'm engaged with activism efforts in my area. sometimes i get bored at work and comment on lemmy.

it was easier for you to lash out at me than it was for you to actually seriously engage with what i wrote - that kind of reaction serves the ruling class, and sows division between the working class.

i wouldn't say they're always performative, because there's always nuance. but i would say that they're probably #2 on my list of pointless bullshit that almost never actually achieves anything, right after petitions.

yes, it does literally nothing. even if nobody shopped at target ever again it would change absolutely nothing. they'd go into administration, get bought by some other corporation, and possibly rebrand. wealthy people would likely profit from short selling the stock.

target isn't the problem. the problem is the system. you can't change the system by boycotting some random business. i am begging you to do literally any other form of activism. because this aint it.

luigi, now there's a guy with bolder ideas.

i hate trump probably as much or more than you do. please re-read my comment as i actually wrote it, because i meant what i wrote. i did not mean what you imagined i might be secretly thinking or whatever. please don't jump to conclusions :(

do you genuinely think that i'm wrong? do you truly believe in your heart that a 40 day boycott of a single big box store will help people?

we're literally watching the united states become a fascist dictatorship and you believe that this is an appropriate response?

people are suffering and dying because of us, and we're congratulating ourselves for buying stuff on amazon instead of target for 40 days? seriously?

i don't need a proofreader. i need people to wake up and actually do something, not waste everyone's time and energy with performative bullshit that achieves nothing other than making us feel like we're not doing nothing.

i can tell you why - because it's easy. this is slacktivism. it changes nothing about policy. it exists exclusively to make people feel better about capitulating and doing nothing to prevent their country from becoming a fascist dictatorship

don't get me wrong, i would have voted harris. (im not american) but she wouldn't have been good. she wouldn't have even been ok. but she was better than trump.