It felt good to go to the No Kings protest this weekend, but also futile. Good to know you’re not alone - that this is not a miserable simulation where a bored developer has cranked the intensity to 11 just to see what happens in 2025.exe. Good to know that you’re not the only one blinking in disbelief at the erosion of our core values.

I went to the gathering in Culver City. I was going to head downtown but we’re currently a one car family partly due to the economic madness of King Gorge, so I was on my ebike. I locked it up close to city hall using an assortment of chains and cables (lefties are notorious bike thieves) and headed over to a small crowd of people. Like a good Stage Manager I arrived at 11am on the dot and by noon the small crowd had become several thousand strong. People in T-Rex costumes, frog suits, Lady Liberties, Trump wigs, diapers, hippies, a few punks, a dance troop, and everything in between; all there to confirm the insanity wasn’t a localized “eddy in the space time continuum”. The chanting and amusing placards confirmed the truth. Any democratic rally is usually good for a decent sign or two:

The one that stuck with me most was simple:

Despite the feeling of community, I couldn’t shake the feeling though that the protest isn’t the thing we need to be doing. I don’t believe it solves the problem. Those days are over. Our society is too lazy, too apathetic, too sedentary to come out in numbers that will mean anything. I saw a news report that said this was the largest total protests in recent history, but it still won’t actually do anything. It’s over now. 7 million people protested - yesterday. That news cycle is over, and they don’t care. Even the people who were at the protest don’t care. We all move on so quickly.

We need action. Action sticks. Action burns memories. Action leaves scars. We need to do something that hits at the core fabric on American society.

We need to go after their money.

There is a growing movement in the US of anti-materialism. It’s been a thing for a while of course, but it’s been on the rise steadily since 2016 and in the last 10 months it has exploded (can’t think why). It’s exploded for me because I’m a broke-ass fool, but it’s also given me more of a purpose. I feel focused now. I like it. I can taste it. I can connect with it. Choosing what and when I buy mindfully feels like a much more powerful act than any protest march or gathering - even with 7 million in the crowd.

You may know it as the Buy Nothing movement, or the Gift Economy. The core idea is that we stop giving money to the people that are, forgive my words, fucking us up. Of course, this has its limitations. We must buy some things to survive, but we can limit our spending as much as possible, and more importantly, we can state our intentions to keep doing it.

If we truly believe the billionaires of this world are controlling everything (which clearly, they are) then we need to take control of the narrative. As valuable as it may seem to post your protest stories on Instagram and Facebook, it is even more valuable to blackout social media for an entire day, or a week, or better yet - for good.

Showing up to the protests with waters or cookies for everyone is thoughtful and kind, and helps the community, but it doesn’t win the battle. Boycotting all Amazon purchases of any kind for one week, every month, until Amazon workers are unionized nationally and, I don’t know, he starts paying taxes?

When Tesla stock plummeted Elon Musk got the hell out of government. When the fortune was threatened, he bailed. Ignore the spin placed on why it happened or the timing of it, or what other business he claimed to be attending - he left to get his empire back on track.

We need to go after their money.

The problem is too many people don’t follow through on their convictions, and I’ll admit I have been one of them. I am trying to change that now, and I hope if you are reading this you will choose to do the same. If you don’t need Twitter, get rid of it. Close your account. If you think Mark Zuckerberg is destructive to our society, stop giving him the data he is using to destroy it. Close your accounts. You don’t need Facebook, or Instagram, or TikTok. Subscribe to a few Substacks (until someone tells me Zuckerberg owns that too) or surf the web. Use a VPN, hide your surfing habits, block ads, don’t use music streaming services, OPT OUT. You can still buy physical media. You can still buy secondhand goods. You can still go to a farmer’s market, or shop at a market with principles you support. Trader Joe’s looks after it’s people and seems like a decent company. Kroger (Ralphs) is awful to its staff. Don’t shop there. You can still just not buy anything or pay a little more and get less.

If someone tells you that all corporations are evil and it’s all pointless, ignore them. That’s the attitude that got us here in the first place. The time for complacency is over. Don’t get your wallet out, put it away.

Money > Protests