I’m posting a bit early this week, because I wanted a little lead time. There’s an event scheduled to begin Thursday. I want people to think carefully about that event.
A lot of my family and dear friends–very nice people–have been sharing a flier calling for an “Economic Blackout” to begin at midnight on February 27th and last throughout February 28th. The flier is headlined, “As our first initial act, we turn it off. For one day we show them who really holds the power.” It then instructs us to not make purchases, that if we must spend, we should do it only at small local businesses, and we should not use credit or debit cards.
“If we disrupt the economy for just ONE day, it sends a powerful message,” it says, then closes with the vaguely sinister statement, “This is our first action.”
If you firmly support this effort, I’m can’t change your mind. You have to obey your own conscience. But I ask you to join me in considering a few questions.
Who is organizing this? According to several news articles, the sponsoring entity is called “The Peoples Union USA.” As far as I can determine, it has no legal existence other than as a title on its owner’s website. Its domain name is a redirect to the owner’s personal site, and its F.A.Q. says it is “in the process of formal legal formation,” with the current step in the process being a trademark search. Indeed, the site’s copyright statement today says, “COPYRIGHT © 2025 THE- ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.”
The site asks for GoFundMe donations, which presumably are non-tax-deductible and will represent personal gain to an individual. While the F.A.Q. also says the proposed organization is non-political, I suspect the owner will have a hard time registering for tax purposes as a non-political organization. Trying to economically damage businesses, while perhaps seen by some as a noble cause, is not charitable work.
So who owns the site? A 57-year-old mindfulness influencer named John Schwarz. He goes by “The One Called Jai.” Most of his social media presence seems pretty benign. He thinks we should shut out the noise of the world, be mindful, and be emotionally healthy. Pretty standard stuff, and he seems like a nice guy in his videos.
But…
What is the powerful message this gentleman wants to send? Several news outlets have suggested that the effort is targeting businesses that have recently scaled back their D.E.I. programs. And the site F.A.Q. does proclaim support for D.E.I. Indeed, it is the only political or social issue referenced. So, unless further statements are made, I suppose the message being sent to the companies in question is, “Bring back D.E.I.”
What is the referenced power that the people wield? It’s not clear. I infer that it is the power to economically damage large companies. Follow-up question, how is this individual, or his movement, wanting us to use that power? After we use it to get attention?
What Mr. Schwarz proposes to do is keep using it to disrupt the economy. There are multiple events similar to this first one listed on his website, to occur in the Spring of 2025.
This is a populist movement. That’s a bad word to some, because M.A.G.A. is a populist movement. The Nazi party made use of populist movements to gain power. Of course, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and many revolutions supported by U.S. citizens are also populist movements. Populism is a device, possibly neither good nor bad. But it’s been used too often to emotionally manipulate the many into granting political power to the few. Those few always promise to solve the many’s problems for them.
It rarely works out that way.
Waging economic warfare is not within the realm of “mindfulness” as I understand the concept. The proposed actions are intended to cause harm. You may believe that those being harmed deserve to be harmed. Again, that’s between you and your conscience. But the idea of mindfulness is that you’re supposed to take ownership of your own mind and your own actions, to control the way you react to the world.
I think it’s significant that, when one of my old friends shared this plan, another friend asked him, “Why?” His response? “Because I’m so damned mad!” Understandable. A lot of things are happening that are guaranteed to make us mad. But a mindfulness strategy would be to acknowledge your anger, accept it, and then let it exist without controlling you. The “Buy nothing” movement is suggesting instead that you direct your anger at large corporations and inflict pain. In other words, lash out in anger. We all do that sometimes. Hopefully, that lashing out will be witnessed only by people who love us and who are emotionally mature enough to recognize that anger is controlling us and we need help.
Most people in the world do not love us, and even fewer people are emotionally mature. When we lash out in public, we hurt our reputation and our cause. We might get hurt ourselves. We might hurt other people.
“I’m so damn mad!” is reason to sit down and regulate your breathing, do some yoga, meditate, take a walk, clean the house, split some logs… Do something positive with that negative energy. It’s not reason to go out and try to hurt someone, no matter how much the echo chamber is telling you they deserve it.
Consider also that shots fired in anger often miss their target. Let’s say (and this is a stretch) that this mass shout at the sky does have an impact. Let’s say it costs, say, Wal-Mart, money. They take a hit that quarter. What do they do to make that up? Invest in a robust D.E.I. program? Unlikely. Raise prices? That hurts you. Cut jobs? That hurts the very people you wanted to help.
Mr. Schwarz is right: we do have power. How will we use that power? Will we use it, or will it be used by the few who organize this burgeoning movement? Is “turning it off” really what you want to do, and keep doing?
‘Cause, take it from an old I.T. guy, sometimes when you turn it off, it don’t come back on again. Or it comes back broke.
For my own part, I’d prefer to try to be more kind to people who are suffering right now, to try to encourage minds to meet, to try to calm fear. The last thing I want to do is hurt people I’ve never even met.