No Work No Spending May 1st 2007

"IF TYRANNY AND OPPRESSION COME TO THIS LAND, IT WILL BE IN THE GUISE OF FIGHTING A FOREIGN ENEMY" -- James Madison

tyranny
    n 1: a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute
         dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or
         opposition etc.)  

    2: dominance through threat of punishment and violence

Tyranny has come.   It has been disguised so well that roughly 12% of the people are still fooled.  

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

The only way to effectively send any message is to tell them we are done.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

Done with their oil grabbing destruction of two (a third coming soon?) nations and by and sacrificing our countrymen who voluntarily enlisted to defend our country.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

The only way to get our message through to them it seems, is by hitting them in their wallets.  

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

Don't go to work. Don't buy milk. Especially don't buy gas.  If the closing date on your new house falls on this day, reschedule it.   Stay off the roads. Of course, the economy will only hiccup, but the hiccup will be noticed and paid attention to.  The rhetoric and propaganda will be strong against this.  Cries of "you will slow the economy, slow your income growth potential, slow the growth of your assets" will ring loudly across the main stream media.  What good are these assets to you without freedom from tyranny?  Will they secure your children?  I think not. I think you will only secure them if we restore freedom.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

Freedom is what this is REALLY all about.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

We the people have lost sight of who is the proper servant in a democracy.  It is not us.  Power truly belongs to the citizens.  Public servants, as they used to be called, are elected to represent the will of the people.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

They've been stealing from us for years now  

"The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens."

• John Maynard Keynes quotes (English economist, journalist, and financier, 1883-1946)

 

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value."

• Alan Greenspan

   

We now know that inflation results from all that deficit spending.

• Ronald Reagan, February 5, 1981

then, strangely enough, from Dick Cheney

"Deficits don't matter"

 They don't care that are confiscating the wealth of the nation to line their own pockets.  They don't think you’re smart enough to figure it out.  They want you to be so afraid that you are willing to give everything to them as protection payments.  For just one day, May 1st, keep your money and make them lose a little.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

Everybody who is not currently in power (or financially owns those in power) is broke.  The National savings average last year was in the negative - most of the country spent more than they earned.  I understand that a day off is a serious financial strain on anyone who isn't in the top 2%, but money is all these people respond to.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

That it hasn't been done yet only adds to their smug contempt and reassures those in power that We The People agree with their actions and are helpless subjects of their tyranny.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

While all the home owners were giddy about the value of their houses going up, they were unwittingly cheering for inflation.  The highway theft executed by the oil companies has not only made gas expensive, those high gas prices have driven up the prices of everything that is transported before it's sold, which is just about everything.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007  

And for what?  So the people who are making all the money to give bigger campaign contributions and buy more influence - if you need to raise millions every 2-4-6 years to keep your position, that doesn't leave much time for work.  Actually representing the people who voted for you then takes a backseat to fundraising dinners, meetings, etc.  Furthermore, it lodges you squarely in the pockets of those who could afford to "give" you those millions.  The beneficiaries of these "contributions" have abused their positions and started a war to grab control of more oil.

No work, no spending May 1st 2007  

The war profiteers are charging you to "rebuild" the damage that’s been done by them and their minions.  It is time to show them we are serious.  

No work, no spending May 1st 2007

•  oh yeah

  GO COLTS

  by scratchinmybutt on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:01:20 PM PDT

  •  An added benefit...

    of not spending on May 1 - More money for drinks four days later!!!

    ;-P...........

    by Hardhat Democrat on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:11:00 PM PDT

  •  Finally,

    it begins.

    Direct action. And, soon, civil disobedience.

    I feel a change in the air.

    And:

    GO COLTS!  

    by chesapeake on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:45:37 PM PDT

    •  there are more leftover fans here

      then I thought....didn't think I'd make it through the grocery store in my colts shirt after the Ravens lost...now I don't care, they won the BIG game today

      by scratchinmybutt on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 08:26:53 PM PDT

      •  Yeah, funny,

        and against the Bears, too.

        by chesapeake on Mon Feb 05, 2007 at 03:13:17 AM PDT

•  i've come to believe

  that the best way we as Americans can fight back and take back our country is to STOP BUYING STUFF.

  Yes, I know I'm guilty of it, but it really is that simple.  If we all just stopped buying things, they'd actually pay attention.

  by pacified on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:02:35 PM PDT

  •  that would definitely help

    with the apparent lack of savings

    by scratchinmybutt on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:13:58 PM PDT

  •  my mantra:

    buy what you need -- not what you want.  
    

    i have been able to save for those "rainy days."

    my kids (now, adults) have learned that saying quite well.  
    we aren't stingy -- just frugal.  we spend on "fun times" once in a while cuz "all work and no play...."

    by sc kitty on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:31:04 PM PDT

  •  Join a Freecycle group

    Rehome the stuff you no longer want - don't send it to the landfill. Get stuff you want from other members. Free for all, and environmentally friendly!

    Find a nearby one here.

    by grayday101 on Mon Feb 05, 2007 at 05:12:38 AM PDT

•  So symbolic... let's feed the "Commie, socialist"

  meme...... the "radicals that hate America" theme....

  as noted.... general strikes as SOOOOO "Commie" and on May 1st as well..... are we supposed to sing "Internationale" as well?

  You're not going to win over the mainstream US population with such efforts.... you're only feeding the right wing noise machine with such efforts.

  by xrepub on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:10:10 PM PDT

  •  I think....

    if we curb spending on May 1,though...we'll all have a bit more for drinks a few days later!!

    by Hardhat Democrat on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:12:17 PM PDT

    •  Good idea....

      ...although I think the retread socialists should give up May 1 to the Mexican-Americans.  

      The original socialists and anarchists who were murdered after the Haymarket incident were fighting for immigrant laborers....whose modern counterparts are Mexican-Americans (and Central American-Americans) who are exploited by unscrupulous companies who threaten to call ICE when they complain....or are long-legal immigrants conflated with undocumented immigrants by Rethugs and watchers of Lou Dobbs/Glenn Beck.

      by varro on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:15:50 PM PDT

      •  while Mexican-Americans

        do deserve more respect, so do immigrants from other countries.  

        whose modern counterparts are Mexican-Americans (and Central American-Americans) who are exploited by unscrupulous companies who threaten to call ICE when they complain

         These companies exploit everyone they can - they call it at will employment.  

        While it may have happened to a Mexican somewhere, it was the guy from Pakistan I used to work with who had his ribs broken and was called a terrorist after ICE snatched him out of his home and threw him in jail for months.  I don't know if anyone "called him in" but I doubt it was the owners.  If anything, it was a disgruntled employee of his.

        Also, Labor Day has been a holiday for a while now.  We celebrate it at the end of May. It doesn't do much good to take off on a day where most government workers and schools are already off.

        by scratchinmybutt on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:35:04 PM PDT

        •  Yes, but the reason...

          ...I mentioned Mexican-Americans was because their big protest last year was on May 1.

          And Labor Day is the first Monday in September.  You're confusing it with Memorial Day.

          by varro on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:59:24 PM PDT

          •  lol

            I always mix them up.....the date wasn't plucked out of thin air. it was already symbolic (even if I am a bit ditzy)  

            Don't get me wrong, the Mexican guys I worked with didn't know what overtime was and after the one guy got picked up they stopped asking for it.  It ended up going nowhere cause we had nowhere to report it without getting them in trouble.

            To concede another point, the administrative OTM (Other Than Mexican)catch and release policy does discriminate.  It sets Mexicans to be physically removed where people from other countries get a peice of paper that says in essence, "leave now or we will give you another peice of paper that says leave now".  The trouble with that is, honest people (who would otherwise make positive contributions to society) just go. It also gives everybody else more opportunity to appeal.

            by scratchinmybutt on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 08:21:50 PM PDT

  •  Well no

    International workers Day is celebrated Globally, we even celebrate it here,  see:

    http://www.acpp.org/...

    'In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886. The resolution called for a general strike to achieve the goal, since legislative methods had already failed. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, rank-and-file support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly, despite the indifference and hostility of many union leaders. By April 1886, 250,000 workers were involved in the May Day movement.'

    it is about the middle class, about the workers of america, who have had they're lives torn apart.  No work in Detroit, no work in cities, no work int eh heartland, farms are dying off so fast you can't even buy local produce.  It is about OUR COUNTRY

    Our Freedom, perhaps you have forgotten the President is doing things he PEOPLE so not want him to do.  Stand UP for what you believe in

    by princess of puters on Mon Feb 05, 2007 at 03:44:59 AM PDT

•  are we gonna be treated to this

  silliness for the next three months!!??? oy

  by PhillyGal on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:10:12 PM PDT

  •  what?

    no pictures of your cat????

    by scratchinmybutt on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:18:04 PM PDT

•  Why is this in English?

  May 1 is the day for Mexican-Americans to show how much they contribute to this nation, not retread socialists from the 1930s.

  by varro on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:13:07 PM PDT

•  great idea

  economic protest!  boycott big business and big oil.  don't buy their koolaid no more.

  by Thea VA on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:32:20 PM PDT

  •  rock on

    you got the idea

    by scratchinmybutt on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:39:56 PM PDT

•  Wouldn't it make more sense

  to withold purchases over a week or so at the end of first quarter, which would end the last day of March?

  I withold all purchases- no milk, gas, nothing - when I run out of money 3 days before pay day twice a month. I think the economy already hiccups, very noticeably, every 14th and 31st. Then we make up for it when we get paid - buying the milk and filling the tank, etc.

  1st quarter earnings are traditionally the slowest across most retail industries, and once the books close for the quarter, they are closed. People who are filthy rich are often concerned with the out of context, short term results that are reported at the end of each fiscal quarter.

  Since first quarter is often slowest already, witholding purchases - hey, maybe for the last two weeks of March! and moving those purchases into the second quarter might proove marginally more annoying than witholding purchases one month into the second quarter, with two months to make up the purchases we will surely make once we run out of milk.

  However, I like supporting the company I get milk from! They're pretty cool, all the milk is from Amish farms. And while Chavez is making me a little nervous lately with his shutting down of a major TV station, I never feel badly (politically anyway) buying gas from Citgo.

  There's an independent Italian grocer here who has his own small import company - he's got one neighborhood grocery store, and cans on the shelves with his very own label. I'd hate to see all the little old Italian ladies staying home on May 1st and Angelo Caputo racking his mind to figure out what he did to offend them.

  I could stay away from Walmart, which I do anyway. Hope that will help-

  by westsidegirlygirl on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:41:00 PM PDT

  •  Absolutely.

    Boycott the multinationals! Support small, local business.

    by chesapeake on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:47:43 PM PDT

  •  great input about the timing

    although, I don't think the majority of people could take off work for two weeks without risking losing their homes, cars, etc. the no working is a big part.  If nobody works then they are shut down.  It's not about doing as much damage as possible, it's just sending a message.  But since you brought it up I might not buy anything non-essential at the end of March.

    Chavez makes me nervous too, but I can't say I'm against that heating oil dicount thing.  I also buy milk (meat, fruit and veggies too)from an amish market.  They are great, cheaper then "organic" but better then something that sat in a warehouse for months.  The guy with the Italian market probably isn't making Haliburton or walmart sized campaign contributions to anyone.  

    by scratchinmybutt on Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 08:00:34 PM PDT

    •  I didn't imagine anyone could stop working

      for two weeks. I guess if you do something for more than a day you would pretty much have to limit your scope to suspending purchases.

      I have to ask, though- would anyone with the drive to participate in a boycott of multinationals actually patronize them the other 364 days out of the year?

      It would concern me a great deal if the answer was yes.

      by westsidegirlygirl on Mon Feb 05, 2007 at 11:18:22 AM PDT

      •  there are people who

        have no choice but to shop at walmart - in too many places the other grocery stores are gone.  We are fortunate to have other options - I was lucky to move away from wallyworld only land.  So, unfortunately, there are those who are forced to partonize multinationals simply by monopolized markets.  If it can't include those who are most victimized by current circumstances, then it will likely not be much help to those same people.

        by scratchinmybutt on Mon Feb 05, 2007 at 11:34:30 AM PDT

        •  I wonder

          How widespread that is. How many people are actually forced to buy groceries at Walmart?

          Wouldn't these be rural areas where at least there may be farms somewhere?

          I don't know, I'm in Chicago. And they just let Walmart in here recently. There are plenty of options for shopping, but they have full time people on the street directing traffic, you'd think they were giving away wheelbarrows full of money.

          Here, it looks like Walmart shoppers are a different breed.

          by westsidegirlygirl on Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 10:46:51 AM PDT