I have been thinking a great deal about Charlie Angus’ new substack, The Resistance. In particular, this one struck a chord that won’t stop sounding:
My first point is this: the boomers, like myself, came of age when protest and resistance was a shiny new tool for social change. We learned then how to push back in ways affecting nuclear weapons, war in southeast Asia, abortion rights, equal pay for equal work, civil rights, union busting and the rise of corporations. These were fundamental gains a few generations ago. Now we are faced with the task of fighting those battles all over again. Charlie, your generation and mine, and more besides, have been doing this work for a long time.
There are several generations that came before and know a lot about defiance and change and organizing. Time to share the wisdom with the kids. It starts with some fire in the belly, some defiance, a willingness to question authority.
My second point is this: I just got scammed in an online purchase. Fraud protection kicked in immediately, we caught the problem. My credit card was compromised so I will be waiting for a new one. In the meantime I have been thinking a lot about how I spend money. I am switching to mostly cash for now, while this issue gets sorted. Perhaps I can do much more off line than I thought. I was pretty comfortable putting a lot of transactions online. Too comfortable, I suspect.
The internet is the place where people trade in information and money. Businesses and scammers alike compete for your attention and your money. It is the window display for the larger event where everything is monetized. Business has been quietly, urgently, been trying to get Trump to walk back tariff threats in Canada. A huge amount of US industry relies on Canadian goods, more than just Kentucky bourbon. If we stop spending our money on US goods…well, suffice to say, just the threat of tariffs and boycotts of US consumer goods has moved a few corporate mountains down south. The point here is that your choices about money may be the single most important tool for defiance you have. If you do not like how things are going, look to how you spend your money.
Here’s an example. I buy a lot of ebooks and online music because it is convenient. Yet, I do not end up with a physical object like a book or CD that I own and can lend to a friend. When my old Sony eReader failed some years ago, I lost access to all the books I had installed on it. Happily I can still read some of those authors by walking over to my bookshelf. I can listen to some of my music collection by going to another shelf and voila, as we say in Canada.
Here are the questions I ask myself right now: why the f*** don’t I just go to a store and buy a book, with cash, a book that will never disappear in the night? Why do I leave my credit card info with online merchants, like Apple, Substack, insurance companies and such? Why do I buy US made goods? Because it is easy? I have become too comfortable and forgotten my own history.
No.
I got old and comfortable and forgot the fundamental power of saying no. No, I will not vote for the politician that lies. No, I will not buy stuff I do not need, because someone in marketing has a career in financial seduction. I forgot that defiance is powerful. I forgot that the resource the online world wants from me is something over which I have control: where and how I spend money.
I am remembering in time to write this substack. By the way, there has never been a paywall on Mind Phases. I see substack as a conversation, not an opportunity to monetize a relationship.
In solidarity ... with both Lorraine and Charlie Angus.