Pass on Inauguration Shopping, Protesters Urge

Anonymous organizers are urging Americans to spend “not one damn dime” on Inauguration Day in protest of the war in Iraq.

The plea, making its way across the United States via the Internet, progressive media outlets and forwarded e-mail, says, “For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down. The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal, that they are responsible for starting it, and that it is their responsibility to stop it. ‘Not One Damn Dime Day’ is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics.”

It’s not likely these protesters will achieve their monetary goal, say market watchers.

“It’ll have zero impact,” says Richard Miller, professor of economics at Wesleyan University. “If people decide not to spend on that day, they’ll spend twice as much the next day. It’s just like a snowstorm. People don’t shop when it snows, but they will shop the next day after that. Business firms take this in stride.”

Laura Kerr, spokeswoman for the website www.notonedamndime.com, began supporting the protest in December after learning about it through friends.

She and the organizers of the website say they don’t know who generated the protest, so she and a group of mostly Democrats and liberal activists have offered themselves as spokespeople for the movement.

“We are hoping that it has enough of a financial impact in order get the Bush administration’s attention as well as that of the American public,” Kerr said via e-mail.

“Many Americans feel hopeless in regards to the war in Iraq, and we want to let them know that we can still be heard. If our protest does make an impact, it will have some effect on small-business owners. In light of that fact, many small-business owners have contacted me to say that not only will they participate in the protest but many of them will close their doors on Jan. 20.”

Political organizing via the Internet reached new heights during the last presidential election. There’s a question, though, as to whether the goal of shutting down the retail economy for 24 hours is an effective one.

Martha McCaughey, co-editor of “Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,” said it was reminiscent of Buy Nothing Day, created by Adbusters, a network of intellectuals and artists trying to overthrow the power structure of major corporations.