Beware the Ides of March: The Shutdown315 Movement

With the shutdown starting only a few days from now, it’s time to share some reminders of what this movement is, what our goals are, and what we plan for the future.

On March 15th, also known as the Ides of March, we begin a groundswell of economic non-participation.

We are not a physical protest, or a march, or a riot, a violent revolution, or a one-day boycott. We will not only begin a sweeping boycott of all major corporations, but we will stop all unnecessary travel and tourism. We will learn skills that allow us to care for ourselves and our communities. We will end our dependence on the capitalist systems and enabling ideologies that handed over our power to the oligarchy. We will fight this festering social disease called fascism. We will organize a massive workers strike and form tenants unions. We will elevate small businesses, sustaining their economic success and our shared communal growth.

Our goal is to methodically revoke the power of the ruling oligarch class. By way of connection and unified action we will restore power back to the American working class. We will keep this power in the hands of the American people by fundamentally changing our way of life; fostering community bonds so strong that fascism cannot break them.

We will never again capitulate to corporations or parasitic capitalism. We aim for total government reform and the stabilization of our society. We look toward a society in which people are fed, housed, healthy, and happy; and the health of our ecosystem and planet is protected and respected.

WHAT STEPS WILL WE TAKE TO GET THERE?

Boycotts:

Let's start with one of our biggest tasks: the boycotts.

Boycotts, when done correctly and on a large enough (and long enough) scale, have proven to be incredibly successful throughout US and world history as a method of forcing major change. One-day boycotts are a promising display of civil disobedience; while long-term boycotts are most effective in bringing about systemic change.

In simplest terms, the directive is this: stop all unnecessary purchasing from any major retailer, and exercise your economic power at small businesses.

Purchase from locally owned and operated establishments, grocers and markets. Guides such as Goods Unite Us (available as a free app) are becoming more comprehensive every day, listing small-to- large companies based on the responsibility of their practices and political contributions. Compile and publicly share your own lists of community values-driven businesses to support. Sharing this information is a powerful and significant contribution to the movement.

Supporting local businesses distributes the wealth of your community’s labor where it belongs: throughout your community. This act not only distributes wealth locally to people and families who most benefit from it; it also promotes community welfare, keeping valuable, community-generated wealth safe from the hands of corporate hoarders.

Every small act; every action creates momentum. Every habit change - whether large or small - is incredibly important. There is value in everything we do. Every effort builds magnitudes of possibility.

Shift from streaming service giants to independent platforms and physical media. Prioritize disengaging from major media companies. Switch from Amazon Prime Music to Qobuz; support independent, listener-supported musicians through SoundCloud , Bandcamp , and NTS Radio. Companies like Amazon engage in a theoretical miles-long list of egregious and unethical practices.

Consider acquiring or borrowing physical media. The infrastructure for free shared media exists, and it’s at your local library! Most libraries host music media, movies, TV shows and all offer audiobooks. Support the growth of your library or create a physical media trading post in your community. It creates another vital outlet of connections that inspire and ignite our shared endeavors.

Return to the library. Libraries are existing community hubs of mutual benefit. They will rapidly flourish as we turn towards them. They are a stronghold of knowledge that exist solely for the public good. Libraries - and especially, their librarians - are instrumental in this movement. Ask your librarians how you can learn or teach important skills like cooking, baking, crafting, self sufficiency, off-grid living, fishing, hunting, tracking, foraging, automotive skills, financial literacy, political literacy, and so much more. Libraries are a gift economy - all this institution asks for in return is public support.

Hold gatherings to organize initiatives in your area that feed people and protect the ecosystem you live in. Host larger gatherings at community function halls, and reach out to existing food security organizations, inside or outside your immediate area, for advice when creating your own.

Support or start a large community food garden to teach small scale agriculture. Re-claim land for native habitat management and water protection.

We will deactivate our Meta and X accounts. Meta and X flood users with targeted information or outright propaganda that favor the oligarchs that own them. User privacy is functionally non-existent, and they use unethical algorithms that promote dangerous content.

Boycott Google. This is a big one - detaching from Google is significantly difficult, especially on Android devices. At the very least, minimize your reliance on Google and Gmail; your data is not safe with them. Use search engines and browsers that protect your privacy, like Duckduckgo; as an alternative to Gmail, Proton Mail is a secure option that also offers a VPN, crypto wallet, password manager and calendar.

Switch from major banks to credit unions and locally owned banks. We understand that everyone's financial situation is different and that people can't move their whole mortgage somewhere else. Do what you can do.

In short, deeply cut spending at major corporations. Rather than focusing on where not to shop, focus on where to shop. Spread those lists of small businesses. Refer them to people you know to build a network of places to buy necessary items. Examine your household’s spending: buy what is most needed, organize buy-nothing groups and trade DIY tasks with your neighbors. Use local resources like libraries and focus on building mutual aid and teaching people in your community.

Labor Strikes + Sick-Outs: What Is Next?

A General Strike. One of our original goals was enacting a massive general strike. Organizing a strike is immensely labor intensive and requires organizational infrastructure - including education and outreach - that requires more time to build. Additionally, general strike content seems to be throttled on social media outside of BlueSky and Substack.

A threshold of participation (3.5% of the population) must be secured for a strike to be effective. People and their families have varying risk tolerance that requires assurance and organization for maximum effectiveness. We have partnered with Generalstrikeus to focus on creating support for the general strike. It is inevitable, but the sooner we get one into place, the better. Visit Generalstrikeus for more information on how to help make a general strike a reality, and sign our Shutdown315 Strike Card.

Sick Outs: Many folks have made the decision to do a "sick out", which is to call out of work, use PTO, or any reason to take a day or more off. Some are ramping up efforts in organizing their workplaces and unionizing. Some are walking off the job entirely. Examine the treatment and compensation for labor that employees and vendors receive at your workplace. Is it fair and safe? Is responsibility shared appropriately?

Within this movement there are many who are using their businesses and self-employment to help this movement, and we encourage anyone who is self-employed or a business owner to do the same. Spread the word, and if you want to learn more about how you can help, visit our website or join us on Telegram to help us organize! This applies not only to small business owners, but everyone. We all have something we can contribute. We are focused on increasing momentum past March 15th, , providing support to each other as we align our daily choices with our values for a shared future. Keep following us and generalstrikeus for announcements and actions related to this labor strike.

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Mutual Aid / Community Initiatives

Community initiatives are this movement's largest strength and the foundation of permanent societal change. Community has been responsible for human survival for tens of thousands of years. Only within the past century or so have we been steered away from community and toward individualism. Individual possession of property requires more consumption than shared resources. Fascism feeds on disconnection. It sows distrust inside of us against our neighbors, our community members, and any unfamiliar faces, convincing us we don’t want the very connection that is vital for the human spirit.

Social isolation creates polarization of thoughts; encourages black and white "all good or all bad" thinking. When we connect with one another, those habits and ideologies break down. This is why engaging with your community and building social groups within it are so important. The biggest way we can connect our communities is perhaps the biggest uniter of people across all cultures, and can break any language barrier: food. When you feed people, and the food is nourishing, wholesome, well balanced and full of flavor (not to mention safe to eat) you can bring about peace. It is human nature to act out in aggression and frustration when our needs are not met. Threats to our survival like food insecurity is enough to make people behave entirely out of character and make choices they wouldn't normally make. It is easy to manipulate people this way, as they are given only bad options to secure their next meal.

Authoritarians and fascists, such as we are witnessing today, use hunger to manipulate the masses. If you reject their orders, you will not eat, you will not be housed, you will not have clean water and you will not be able to afford medical treatment. They hold all our human needs over our heads in order for us to be in service to them.

What we don't yet realize is that we have the power to dismantle their ability to withhold our basic needs from us. As it stands, we rely on employment for monetary pay and assurances like healthcare. Every human need for survival we now must work to pay for: food, water, housing, utilities, and any medical treatment. Economic growth makes us more and more reliant on this system with each passing year. Economic degrowth makes us less reliant on that type of system, and allows us to break down that system and take back our means of making sure our needs are met. Visit The International Degrowth Network for more information on the degrowth movement and how we can make that a reality.

By feeding our community, we can combat our trained tendency to be suspicious and mistrusting of others. By rebuilding trust and friendship, we can accomplish great things.

Start small by starting a food drive with the intention of cooking and serving a community meal. Start it out as a twice monthly event, then increase to a once-weekly event as you are able to get contributions and volunteers. Then a twice weekly event, and so on and so forth. Use these community meals as an opportunity to discuss what other things you and your community can do together. Who can help people grow and raise their own food? Who can teach food preservation and food safety? What ideas live inside of us, waiting to be shared? When people sit together and eat, problem-solving discussions form organically, and changes can be brought about.

What ways have you thought of (or known) that could work to bring people together in your community? How can we take our ability to feed our people back from the oligarchy? How can we take housing back from them? How can we ensure clean water and healthcare? Please use the comment section below as our community table - share your thoughts below and join the discussion!

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Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous knowledge is a 100% necessary framework to stabilize our society during and after a revolution in the United States. The US was founded on the territories of the original indigenous nations that have existed, and continue to exist here since time immemorial. Their stewardship shaped this land in ways one does not see until they receive this knowledge. Food forests, berry patches, row crops, grazing meadows, and clean water were all here long before the US was an idea.

Indigenous environmental leadership is non-negotiable for this movement. We move forward by respecting cultural practices passed through millennia to today’s people. We will abide by their guidance and traditional knowledge of habitat management, and water protection. Without them, there is no clean water, no clean air, no food, no future.

Indigenous people are among the most marginalized in our country. Their genocide and forced removal from the land kept arable by their ancestors was not the end. For hundreds of years, the governments that colonized this continent have systemically abused, imprisoned and stolen the futures of Indigenous people. Today, Indigenous nations and their peoples still face severe injustice. Many nations lack access to clean water, housing and food. It is not only important but completely necessary to assist our indigenous relatives. We have to empower and uplift their voices. We must secure their right to self-sufficiency by affirming their sovereignty when addressing the unmet and withheld needs of their communities.

In our organizing spaces, we must take measures to prevent indigenous individuals from being targets of harassment and abuse, with tactics like cyber bullying, silencing, and even outright dismissal. Lateral violence is among these offenses - and it is much harder to identify. Lateral violence is when individuals within the same demographic or group target another individual(s) within the same group. Colorism, racism, harassment, hate speech, sexual misconduct and other abuse tactics are levied at those that are thought not to belong to ‘the group’.

For instance, a common act of lateral violence in indigenous social circles is colorism: claiming an individual isn't indigenous because their skin color is too light or too dark. Another example is accusing individuals as being ‘pretendians’ (also called race shifters) without rigorously verifying that claim. This term is reserved for people who fraudulently assume a native identity, and it is a serious issue that indigenous people face.

Unfounded challenges to the identities of indigenous people, by other indigenous people, is incredibly harmful to both the accuser and the accused. It is an unfortunately frequent tactic used by people with bad intentions or colonized mindsets to harm truly indigenous people; and in turn, stops them from their work of dismantling oppression.

There is much to be said on this topic; we will include resources to help educate on this matter; awareness prevents bystander complicity in organizing spaces. A common tactic used by people who engage in lateral violence is to invite those from outside the group in question - in this example, non-native people - to weigh in on a situation the “outsider” has little understanding of.

It is important, as a non-indigenous person, to not involve yourself when you suspect there may be lateral violence at play. Stay neutral. Do not engage. Encourage the discussion be held between the two parties in a separate space, with a neutral 3rd party who is qualified in helping resolve a conflict. Stay tuned to learn more about lateral violence in native communities and how to stop it.

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WHAT CAN YOU DO TO GET INVOLVED IN THE SHUTDOWN315 MOVEMENT?

Join us on Telegram! We are organizing a keybase to accommodate the growth of the group. We do use signal as well, but it is not ideal for topic specific organization the same way Telegram is. (To join signal, you must first go to our telegram link which will send you ti our “waiting room” where you will be given rules and instructions for joining, and then given the link to all our chats.)

Help mobilize state chapters! Chapters are to be utilized for location-specific organizing. This movement is decentralized; there is no official hierarchy involved in what we do. We are joined by the values of civil disobedience, non-violence, and community support. We may be using sessions, signal, or groupspot to connect all chapters to stay in communication and pass along vital movement information.

Distribute our graphics! Here are the images. You can order stickers of them here. Post them all over social media. Feel free to print and distribute!

Drive engagement on our social media accounts, and use yours to spread the word. Any time you see a post regarding The Shutdown315 Movement, comment, like, share, follow, save, subscribe. Search for our content, and follow our official account on BlueSky @shutdown315.bsky.social

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Message The Shutdown315 Movement

Start the conversation with your family, friends, coworkers, colleagues and neighbors. Talk about how we have the power to change things, and talk about ways we can help our communities.

Forge a relationship with the natural world. Acquaint yourself with the small changes of the life in the landscape around you. This will not only connect you to the land we live on, but it will also be good for emotional and mental health. With spring coming, we will be sharing information on how to start growing your own food at home.

We know that not everyone will be able to do everything the movement is aiming to do, and that is understandable. Please know that anything you can do is huge. Technology can be challenging, and making such drastic switches can be incredibly stressful. Please, take your time and know that you aren't a bad person for having a hard time with something.

Never forget that we have strength in numbers, and we are powerful as a unified people. Do what you can to combat division. And remember, together, we will win.

Wôlowôzi, be very well.

-The Shutdown315 Movement.