What if we all just closed our wallets? This is a call for a general boycott to end the war and this criminal administration. Buy only essential goods and services: December 30, 2007 until the last soldier is headed home and Bush & Cheney have resigned or been impeached.
It's not a novel idea. You can find a few scattered efforts from around the country if you're willing to wade through pages of search results. Garret Keizer recommended it as an alternative to the riskier option of a general strike in his Harper's piece from October 2007: Specific suggestion: General strike.
Many of us have participated in boycotts against specific interests at different times, for different reasons, from table grapes to Nestle to Exxon. Perhaps it is time to cast a broader net, to show the world real consumer power. George Bush's response to 9/11 and other significant events? "I encourage you all to go shopping more". Let's not. Let's just stop. Close our wallets until Congress responds.
Congress has failed to meet the mandate of the 2006 election and they will continue to fail without pressure. They will betray their oaths, sell their votes, ignore our letters, petitions, and protests; as they have shown. But they will act quickly in the face of an economic threat -- a successful boycott of all non essential goods and services. If only a third of us who oppose the war stopped buying everything we can live without, the economic impact would be staggering. Congress could not afford to ignore us any longer.
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