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WAGING PEACE WITH OUR DOLLARS:
BUY LESS, BUY LOCAL!

60,240,297 Americans voted against George Bush.
60,240,297 Consumers can change national policy!

Profits really are the bottom line: affect corporate profits sufficiently and you will affect national policy. Remember, the end of apartheid in South Africa resulted largely from a boycott of companies doing business with the repressive regime.

Recent economic actions in the United States, such as "Buy Nothing Day" and "Not One Damn Dime", had very limited success because they were of too short duration, regardless of how many participated.

Therefore, we can affect national policy through a selective boycott if properly designed, of sufficient duration, and with a tremendous number of participants. This brings us to Minimal Month.

What is Minimal Month?

We are encouraging folks to avoid any unnecessary purchases during September and to put off, for at least that month, any major purchases that you possibly can. We also encourage you to spend as much of your money locally as possible, to deal with companies which keep the greatest proportion of their profits near to home.

You can do this. It is far easier than you imagine. You might even find it fun. Try the locally owned restaurant rather than Corporate Starbucks, McDonalds, Ruby Tuesday. Use smaller locally owned grocery stores or smaller chains. Avoid Walmarts or big chains. Skip the malls. Try the older shopping districts in your towns and cities. You’ll be surprised at the variety, value, and quality of personal service. Pass up buying that new car or any other major purchase for a month.

In short buy the minimum you possibly can in September. You don't need to suffer hardship, just skip what you don't need, put off purchases that you can, and buy as locally as possible. We will make sure that they notice the difference and understand why it happened.

info@minimalmonth.org Minimal Month, c/o Ashford Press, P.O. Box 513, Willimantic, CT 06226. http://www.minimalmonth.org

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