Unplug the Violence: Why We Protest in Public but Fund the Problem in Private...

When protests boil over, the world watches the moment the first push becomes a shove — and sometimes a life is lost. 

Marches, rallies, and street confrontations have always been a powerful way to demand change. 

But they can also become flash-points for injuries, arrests, and unintended escalation. 

There’s a different lever available: Personal Sanctions — targeted, financial pressure on the corporate engines that underwrite harmful policies. 

A tool that each and every one of us can use, and when used in mass by groups the size of the crowds at protests on the streets of the United States, it could actually make a difference. 

Redirecting crowds from confrontation to coordinated economic pressure is not retreat; it’s strategy. 

It’s protest with a safety plan.

Why We Protest in Public but Fund the Problem in Private

Most people are willing to spend real money, real time, and real effort to protest. 

They’ll drive hours, stand in there extreme heat or cold, risk arrest, risk injury, and risk escalation — all to make their voices heard. 

Yet after the protest ends, many of those same people will swing by their favorite big-box store, pull on their favorite brand of jeans, or grab that $7 artisanal cup of coffee without a second thought.

Here’s the uncomfortable irony: those very corporations may be funding, supplying, or enabling the policies and actors protesters claim to oppose.

This isn’t hypocrisy born of malice. 

It’s habit. It’s convenience. And it’s a failure of strategy.

Public protest feels visible. 

Boycotts feel invisible. 

One gets photos and chants; the other requires patience, discipline, and follow-through. 

The average person would rather protest loudly in public than boycott quietly in private — even when private economic pressure is far more likely to produce results.

The United States understands this logic well. 

It doesn’t usually force compliance by marching in foreign capitals. 

It uses sanctions — targeted pressure on financial systems, corporations, trade, and access to capital. 

The goal is simple: make harmful behavior too expensive to continue.

That same principle works at the individual and collective level.

Most unjust systems are not sustained by ideology alone. 

They are sustained by contracts, supply chains, investors, vendors, insurers, lenders, and brand reputations. 

Detention centers don’t operate on outrage — they operate on invoices. 

Deportation systems don’t run on speeches — they run on logistics companies, airlines, software platforms, and financial & insurance institutions.

Yet crowds continue to gather where the danger is highest: in direct confrontation with police lines, government buildings, or counter-protesters. 

That’s where injuries happen. 

That’s where emotions override control. 

That’s where movements lose moral authority the moment someone gets hurt.

A smarter use of mass participation is to redirect it — not away from action, but toward leverage.

Imagine thousands of people peacefully gathering outside corporate storefronts, regional headquarters, banks, and brand flagships. 

Imagine sustained boycotts that actually hurt quarterly earnings. 

Imagine investors and boards asking, “Why is this contract costing us customers?” 

That’s when change happens — quietly, efficiently, and without bloodshed.

This approach works for both major political parties and their constituents. 

Whether the issue is detention, deportation, surveillance, environmental damage, labor exploitation, censorship, or corruption, the financial backers are usually bipartisan corporations hedging their bets. 

Economic pressure doesn’t care about party labels — it cares about losses.

And here’s the key cultural shift that has to happen:

If you are willing to risk your safety in the street, you should be willing to inconvenience yourself in the checkout line. Plain and simple. 

If you're so dedicated to an issue that you're willing to lay your life on the line; maybe you should try leveraging your money instead of risking your life. 

If you believe an issue is serious enough to protest publicly, it is serious enough to boycott privately.

Because every dollar spent is a vote. 

Every purchase is an endorsement. 

And every “I need my coffee” or “I love these jeans” moment may be quietly financing the very systems you stood against hours earlier.

Personal sanctions don’t require violence. 

They don’t require confrontation. 

They require consistency. They require the discipline of a diet, the dedication of a workout routine...

And we all know how many times we started and stopped those in our lives! 

But I also bet each of us knows someone who did succeed with their diet or with their workout plan and today is a better, healthier, stronger person.

Crowds don’t need to disappear — they need to relocate. 

Away from flashpoints and toward financial choke points. 

Away from danger and toward impact.

The goal isn’t to silence protest. 

It’s to make it smarter, safer, and impossible to ignore.

When you've got them by the money; their hearts, minds and power will follow. My Mom swore by it!

(This story is dedicated to my mother, Donna, who lived by those very rules until the day she passed! -- but she actually phrased it more harshly)

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Sources Summary

• Economic sanctions theory and case studies on financial pressure as a compliance tool
• Human rights and investigative reports linking corporations to detention, deportation, and enforcement systems
• Historical examples of successful consumer boycotts and divestment campaigns
• Research on protest safety, escalation dynamics, and nonviolent strategy effectiveness