"No Buying while Soldiers are Dying" Boycott Action - in progress

We want to boycott buying on the largest selling/buying day of the year – the Friday after Tanksgiving. As a former retailer, I know the significance of this action. I know the sacrifice we will be asking retailers to make – not so much consumers, for they can consume any day – but retailers count on this day to whip their consumer base into a buying frenzy, which will forecast their whole year’s profits, or at the very least the season (which often is the whole year).

Some folks are worried about targeting business owners, especially small business owners. We are focusing on malls, shopping centers, department stores – which qualify as large business owners.

Some folks object, even if we are targeting corporate-owned businesses. Why should they have to sacrifice?

Well why the hell not? Only soldiers, their families, and Iraqis have to sacrifice? And activists? Why should we not ALL have to suffer, we all are suffering, we are in war, we are engaging in war against a tiny, comparatively unarmed people – once again – as if Vietnam didn’t satisfy our need to ravage a land and her people.

Four years, four years of war we’ve bestowed upon the Iraqi people – we cannot boycott one day of buying? One season of buying?

When we will be ready to put our money where our mouth is? Again, it is 'what can we do to end war..... without it costing ANYONE ANYTHING'?

And lastly, what does reducing our holiday spending have to do with ending this war? Making the connection between what we spend the Friday after tanksgiving and the war – what does one have to do with the other?

Why is it so difficult for Americans to make connections? Does EVERY little THING have to be spelled out for us to get it? What’s not to get about being 4% of the world’s population and consuming up to 60% of the world’s resources?

What’s not to get about spending money that perpetuates poverty, starvation, injustice, violence not to mention the cost to our environment?

But really, what’s not to get about no business as usual while we are at war? How can any of us, with any smidgen of a heart, think that spending $300 on a scarf has any place in a country that is reaping the benefits of war?

We will hold up pictures of the Real Face of War: pictures of children, women, babies suffering so greatly, and urge our fellow Americans to stop, take heed of this destruction, and to not buy Friday. We will ask our fellow Americans to buy the end of war this war by spending their holiday wad on supporting those organizations and individuals who are ending this war.