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Wednesday Morning Rant

"Grassroots"

As I was trawling the news this week, I saw a couple of articles about a "grassroots" boycott movement that has been targeting various businesses this year, focused on opposition to the sudden lurching reversal of various DEI-type activities. This was news to me, but it turns out that they've had eleven completed or planned boycott actions this year. The targets are varied, from Wal-Mart (past) and McDonald's (current) to overall "economic blackout" activities. I decided to look into it further, and didn't realize I was about to enter the theater of the absurd.

It's all backed by an outfit calling itself "The People's Union USA," (I begrudgingly link to the actual site here, because the archived versions are outdated) which is itself backed by a man called John Schwartz. Schwartz himself is a former meditation instructor turned activist, and the organization describes itself as:

The People’s Union USA is a grassroots movement focused on economic resistance, corporate accountability, and real justice for the working class. We’re not a political party, we’re a movement for the people. All people. No matter your background, beliefs, or affiliation.
Our mission is simple, unite everyday Americans against the greed and corruption that’s kept us divided, distracted, and struggling for decades.

So typical leftist crap, and it keeps going:

We’re building a people-powered force that’s not just pushing back, but preparing to take power back from the corporations, the billionaire class, and the political parasites that have been feeding off our work, our wages, and our rights for far too long.

The idea that DEI initiatives should be abandoned is backward, regressive, and dangerous.
Every American deserves a fair shot at success, and that includes every race, every background, every belief system. Period.

Would you like some DEI with your class struggle?

We're organizing by town, city, and state, one chapter at a time. And every chapter will work to:
~ Protect the people in their community
~ Expose corruption and exploitation
~ Certify ethical businesses
~ Create outreach and mutual aid
~ Hold corporations accountable
~ Lead local and national economic resistance
~ Offer our members real protection, real support, and real leadership

How delightfully vague. None of it means anything other than potentially implying that it wants to be a protection racket. Per the website, their primary actions are these "boycotts." "Don't shop at Amazon today." "Don't shop at McDonald's this week." "Don't shop at all next Tuesday." There is apparently almost no participation. But okay. We've all seen this story before. Another prog nonprofit burning cash and accomplishing nothing. Same old grift, right?

Wrong. There is something missing from "the People's Union USA's" website. It looks for all the world like a bog standard astroturfing organization pretending to be "grassroots." You can buy merchandise with their logo on it. There's a blog and a forum. If you want to start a local chapter - beyond the one they have now in the Pacific Northwest - there's a link you can follow to do it. If you want to just throw money at them, there are of course numerous prominent buttons you click to donate and help "fuel the resistance." But there's some interesting word choice peppered throughout the website:

The People's Union USA is a fully structured, legally recognized organization.

Odd. And

Legal Disclaimer
The People's Union USA is a legally registered LLC and an officially trademarked organization.
We are fully established and operating within all legal guidelines to ensure the protection and longevity of this movement.

So it is not a non-profit. It is a straight-up corporation aping a non-profit. I suspect this is one of the reasons it calls itself a "union" instead:

This is not a temporary movement.
This is a living system being built for the long haul, something no political party will ever give you.

We've started the union. , (sic) now we build it out.

This is an outfit that calls itself a "movement" and an "organization" and has all the trappings of a phony non-profit, except that it very carefully does not call itself a non-profit. Given just how much graft sluices through the "non-profit" complex, this one must be really bad if it can't even meet the absurd minimum requirements to start or operate one. "Send your money to John Schwartz Incorporated" is a pretty ballsy move and it invites a question: how does it work?

Well, part of how it works is a credulous press. The Today Show. Newsweek. CNN. CNET. The Independent (UK). NPR. Yahoo!. Time. CBS. Even HotAir covered it, primarily to highlight some of the founder's past bad behavior - but even they didn't bother to mention that the dude is running an outfit so suspect that it can't even be bothered to jump through the hoops to get on the "non-profit" gravy train. All of these outlets and more have covered "The People's Union USA's" "boycotts" this year, some multiple times and none have bothered to even raise an eyebrow at the structure of this thing and question whether it might be almost hilariously transparent grifting.

It looks completely fake. It's an LLC masquerading as a non-profit (which is refreshingly honest, though I doubt that's intentional) getting enormous - and totally unjustifiable - press coverage, attempting to ride on the generalized resentment of leftists and the specific resentment of those who are pissed off that DEI is, for the moment, fighting a rear-guard action. It doesn't appear to actually organize anything. It doesn't have to print up signs or hire rent-a-mobs. It just posts on its website, "hey, don't shop today so you can stick it to the man. Also, send money or buy some merch." The "organization" sure looks lean, though, Not actually doing anything doesn't seem incur all that many expenses.

There is one other thing, though, which is awards. You can't have an "organization" or a "movement" without awards. Schwartz so far has handed out one "ethical business" award - to a coffee shop in East Hampton, CT. That is in the same county where per the HotAir article, Schwartz - coincidentally I'm sure - used to own ... a coffee shop. This whole thing is perhaps one of the most transparent and uproariously cynical cash grabs I have ever seen, and the press has lined up to send business his way. And it's worked - he raised $125k on GoFundMe before launching the website and switching to "donate" buttons. And as a private LLC, it's not like they have to publish financials. There's no way to even estimate how much has come in or how much of what came in actually went to organizational expenses or whatever causes it pretends to support. Fools and their money...

It's astounding, but hey - at least it's "grassroots!" After all, nothing says "grassroots" like "a former meditation instructor's private LLC with no disclosure, a single 'chapter' and a suspicious amount of credulous media coverage."