OK, one more time: the way we fight back against this is piece by piece, every day, involving a little inconvenience to be sure, but it's the only way. What's the combined readership of bad cattitude + screaming into the void, to start with? What if every single one of you (I exclude me because I already don't do this stuff)

stopped texting *at all?*

stopped all non-essential use of smartphones (no more games!)

stopped using Facebook. (No more grandchildren photos shared with your group!)

and encouraged everyone in your circles to take baby steps towards these goals

stopped using the big providers as much as possible.

I have a not-too-dumbphone from Boost Mobile that costs me $10/month. It has a camera (that I haven't used so far). It's a nice little flip phone. How many people here *really* need more than that? I understand that egm and screaming etc. access a lot of data in the course of doing their work.

But the rest of us? Anyone not needing a smartphone for their work don't need a smartphone.

And--there are, sadly, a great many of us who own no land, own no house, cannot enter into the slightest a prepper lifestyle, cannot grow our own food, are reliant on the common transactions of normal life.

But if you're still banking with the real bad boys--what's your excuse? My bank--a real bank, not a credit union--is a mutually-owned regional bank. It has no shareholders. It has branches all over my region, does all normal banking things. You got something like that in your region?

We can kvetch and talk about resisting and not complying all we want, but we must start with the building blocks of how they are able to get pretty far along in harming us.

Stop buying junk! No wrapping paper! Give used books to everyone you love!

Add to my list--practical advice only. That anyone can do.