Making Change: Why John Schwarz Kicked Off the Feb. 28 Economic Blackout
'No federal income taxes for American citizens. We need corporate profit caps. The gouging has to stop.'
Interview date: Feb. 21, 2025
NOTE: After this interview was conducted and posted, it came out that John Schwarz had been convicted of sexual crimes and served time. He denies the incident ever happened.
Welcome to the first entry of my Substack. I interviewed the founder of the People’s Union USA and viral Feb. 28 Economic Blackout movement for this story in Salon, “This Is Our Time: Economic Boycott Targets Injustice.” I had a word limit but I really wanted to share our conversation more broadly, so here we are.
In this time of venerated news organizations cowering to a corrupt administration and an internet polluted with misinformation, I think there’s a space for full interviews, in context, so folks can get a deeper understanding of what’s going on. Interviews are edited for clarity.
TL;DR: John Schwarz had an idea to remind everyone, especially corporations, just how much power consumers have by being judicious with their dollars. He started in early February and the movement has gone viral around the globe.
VMc: Tell me a little bit about the background of this idea, where you're coming from and what you hope to achieve, please.
JS: I had an online presence for over 10 years now. I was, for about five years, a professional online drum teacher for drummeo.com, and I transitioned into my main profession, which is meditation and mindfulness. for the past 10 years, it's been all about trying to find that common ground of kindness and compassion and helping people disconnect from that noise and information, those thoughts and emotions that constantly control us.
I've always been a person who's just been about focusing on yourself, and as we always hear, “be the change you want to see in the world,” right? I guess I'm a very opinionated person in my own home—I express my ideas and my thoughts a lot of times. And throughout my life, my friends and family have always said these are great ideas. a few weeks ago, I just realized that right now, our government, whether you agree with it or not, is dismantling so many different organizations. It's like almost in a state of chaos. And I thought about it that if people are ever going to have an opportunity to voice their opinion, to make changes to get the government and the major corporations to start contributing a little more to alleviate their stress on the American families. And this is our time. This is our time.
I woke up about three weeks ago, and I had about 11,000 followers on Instagram, and about 238,000 followers on TikTok. I've been doing well on TikTok for a couple of years now, and I just called out to my following. I started making prison videos titled An American President. And the point was I'm just a normal guy who grew up in the projects of Queens New York, and I have better ideas how to run this country than the people who are running this country. And there are ways that we can help citizens without hurting corporations and the country.
We need to show them that we do control the economy, that people really run this country. Why don't we have an economic blackout? I'm calling for a 24-hour economic blackout. No major corporations, no spending for one day, one day. Let's just show them we can organize beyond everything that divides us, politics, religion, race, gender, labels. We have to find that common ground. And this is it. This is the opportunity. Because, to be completely honest, Vanessa, left or right, I'm 57, years old. We've been on this merry go round forever. all the politicians are constantly making promises, but then behind closed doors, they're all making the same back back-door deals and same contributions. I finally got to a point that I'm just it's enough. It's enough. I'm using my platform to call for this. And I truly believe that if we get enough citizens together, we can even, in a sense, almost unionize to where we have a valid, recognizable voice that can go up against these corporations and governments.
And you asked what is the deal here. As crazy as this sounds, it's time for American citizens to not have to pay federal income taxes anymore. Even Warren Buffett has said if the top 500 corporations in America paid their fair share in taxes, not one US citizen would ever have to pay a dime of federal taxes. We alleviate that strain on the American worker right now, we tax the major corporations. We tax the church for God's sakes. In 2022, $59.3 or more billion was bought in by on documented immigrants alone in this country, so the American families are struggling and suffer.
The economic blackout stands for two things: one, an opportunity to get people to organize and unite without having to do anything. They don't have to get up, go anywhere, just don't spend any money. And we're also showing these corporations and the powers that be that we do control the economy anytime we want. We could stop we could stop shopping here. We could stop shopping there. We could stop shopping in all these places and only support the little, local, privately owned boutiques and restaurants and supermarkets and things like that. It's really to give people an opportunity to organize, and for us to stand on the shores of change and throw that boulder and see where that ripple goes.
VMc: Is there a significance to the February 28 date? Besides that it's my birthday?
JS: Oh, wow. Happy birthday. I was just on the 12th. That's awesome. Well now, see, it's your birthday, so have everyone come to your house, right? Don't go out and spend money and [instead] all go to a little restaurant. That's the best thing you can do, is have a really good, cool party at some really, ass-kicking cool little local place. February 28 there's no significance about the date. It's the end of the month. And I know businesses always like to have a good close at the end of the month. I've managed businesses throughout my life, but for me, it was just, it was enough time, because this is literally, a little bit more than three weeks old. I needed to at least have a long enough opportunity to let my followers spread the word. But it literally has become like a force of its own. Honestly, I've got my Instagram page went from 11,000 followers up to 213,000 followers this week. Wow. My Instagram, yeah, I even got Mark Ruffalo. I can't even keep up with it at this point, there's thousands of emails coming in. It's had about 500,000 visits on the website. And I'm just getting started.
We have a go fund me up. That's almost at $47,000 and I'm trying to build a social media platform privately for the members, because we always have the threat of this one being taken away, or who's watching us on this? And there has to be something where people can go and just peacefully organize and talk and express themselves without having to worry about the government coming in and shutting it down and things like that. I'm looking to build something really amazing here, and the people have been incredibly supportive. And all the media, everyone, there's been like 99% just positive response.
VMc: My editor wanted me to ask you, what about the people who are working in the Targets and the Walmarts and the Amazons who are making minimum wage? She was concerned that their paycheck would be affected.
JS: That's a great, fair question. First of all, on that day, nothing really major is going to happen that day. I've actually told employees, if you can legally take the day off without risk of losing your job, if you can call on sick or take a vacation, do that too, because all it's going to be is a little bit slower that day. Let's be realistic, there's 340 million people in the United States, so people are going to go a lot of people are going out and shopping on the 28th you know what? I mean? It's not it's not like The Day the Earth Stood Still. That would be great if we could do that, and maybe we'll get there. But as far as, even those weeklong Amazon and Walmart boycotts, that's one of the first things I thought about. And then just statistically, 340 million people in the country, nobody's job is going to be affected. They may have a little bit of a slower week, but the thing that will happen is those people sitting up in that big boardroom who don't really care about anybody, who see us all with just dollar bills and consumers, they're going to be the ones who turn around and go, wait what just happened. And that's the whole point of this.
VMc: I see, do you feel like this is any so is it also a longer term strategy to have people think about what they need and where they should get it from?
JS: Most definitely. Is I release the list that goes up to the Fourth of July. And you know what we're doing [actions] between now and the Fourth of July, and it's not stopping there. It's going to continue. But as we progress this, I do want people to shop and support local markets, local like I said before, local boutiques, if you have them in your area, we should be supporting local businesses. We should be going to them over the big corporate places. that's a major thing.
No federal income taxes for American citizens. We need corporate profit caps. The gouging has to stop. I was born in 1968 it was so much cheaper to pay for a loaf of bread and an automobile, and it was thousands of times harder. You were talking about men and women standing on assembly lines, mixing ingredients, welding steel today, AI, robotics, automation, it's thousands of times easier to produce, manufacture, deliver. It should have gone in the opposite direction. Companies need to say, Hey, this is how much we're spending on materials. This is how much it costs us for payroll, and this is what we would like to make in profit. And there has to be a legitimate system in place. Businesses need to make money, but they don't need to rob American citizens who aren't getting pay raises to compensate this fictitious unicorn named inflation.
VMc: What would make you happy and satisfied as a response from the corporate overlords?
JS: I love that you just said corporate overlords, because that's what they are. I want this to shake their wallets so bad that they turn around and go to the federal government and say, listen, listen, we'll pay our fair share in taxes. And you know what the crazy thing is? Vanessa, I've sat down, I've sat down and did the math to this, these major corporations and churches are not paying their fair share and taxes. They have investments. They have other companies, they have overseas investments, their money sitting in a bank account is making so much interest, and they're earning so much money, they wouldn't even notice they were paying. It's absolutely insane that our powers that be, the administration, is just going, yeah, do what you want, because they're stretching their pockets out as far as they can and letting these companies fill their own pockets. That's what's happening.
VMc: Have you had any receptivity from the right or people that identify as conservative?
JS: There's a very small percent of my Instagram page has had 30 million views in this month, and maybe 10 comments I saw of people like go out and shop that day on a shopping spree. But for the most part, left, right, Black, white, and everything in between has all been coming together on this and here's what's even crazier. I'm getting bombarded with messages for the last few weeks from people out of the country, Australia, Spain, United Kingdom, Hungary, all over the place, asking them, how can they stand in solidarity with us that day? And it's simple. Don't go to McDonald's. Don't buy anything that's American in your country that day. As a matter of fact, don't even buy anything in your country that day. Let's show them.
The woman from CNN said, Do you realize, have you been looking at the news? I said, No, I don't. One of the first things I teach my clients is stay away from the things that cause you fear and anxiety and surround yourself with what inspires you. I said, so I don't. She says, everyone's talking about you, and I'm, That's comforting. And she said, have any politicians, anyone reached out to you? And no politicians have. I tried to reach out to Bernie Sanders. I've had major organizations reaching out, wanting to connect, but again, it's thousands of emails coming in. I've got one friend I've hired to go through it, and it's just, it's so much.
But no, as far as that, the opposition has not really been anything. It's been really supportive. Everybody has been absolutely incredible. And it just, it just really seems like everybody at this point sees the illusion we're really America's finally, finally, which we should have a long time ago, gotten it. We're all waking up living this version of society that somebody created a long time ago and we had no say in it. It's been regurgitated down from generation to generation. And I think finally, now, with the access of the internet and people being able to communicate better and share their lives, people are realizing we're all tired, we're all exhausted, and the cause of the problem is all coming from the same place, no matter who we are or what we look like or what we wear or who we vote or pray for, you know.
VMc: Do you think you would be doing this if Harris won the election? Is this tied politically in any way?
JS: No,no, no. Of course I would. I've said that a million times, and I'm not taking a political stance. But, of course it's political. But no, if Kamala had won, I'd be doing the same thing, because, maybe DEI wouldn't be broken down, and maybe FAA and all these organizations wouldn’t be getting torn apart, but there would still be these issues. There still be broken promises. They'd still be price gouging, and even that, like many people have associated what I'm doing with DEI, and that was not my initial motive, but obviously it's brainless. I mean, the fact that we even have to have something instilled in the first place to protect people, to include them, and make diversity and equal rights is heartbreaking, and the fact that we're taking it away right now something that does protect these people means we are going in a direction that's going to make the past look like a Disney story.
VMc: Is there anything else that you think people should know or that I haven't asked you that I should ask you?
JS: If there was one thing I can tell everybody to do, stop holding everybody and the world hostage to your imaginary expectations and work on yourself. Just wake up each day and try and be a good person and treat each other the way you want to be treated. And our world will change tomorrow. It really will. We all wake up with this misguided perspective and these thoughts in our mind, and we hold our friends and neighbors and children and the world hostage. Why isn't this like this? Why aren't you doing this? And we're all broken and misguided. we just need to stop and let all that noise and information go and just realize we are all here right now, and regardless of who we are, what we look or what we call ourselves, we all have an opportunity to make we have an opportunity to make our world better, because right now, we know they're not going to do it for us.
VMc: Right before you said his name, I thought you seemed like the heir apparent to Bernie Sanders. Are there any political aspirations?
JS: I love that he's an independent. I mean, that's really important, I admire what the guy is doing, and he pulls no punches, and he's honest and he's transparent and he's open, and he cares about people more than he cares about himself. He knows that in the time he's got left here he's going to do everything he can do to make sure we have a better future. I wanted to talk to him, but I got that generic response, thank you for reaching out to the Bernie Sanders family, you know. And it was, “if you'd like to make a make a donation.” No, I want to talk to somebody. You can't. It's impossible. I'll wait. My phone number's out there, my email.