Stop Buying It!

I was reading an interesting article today,
When Change is Not Enough, and in one of the comments after the article was this sentence: "Every individual may participate in the non-violent revolution to take back our society from the capitalists, by shifting our individual exchange/association away from the capitalists and toward our local communities of small farmers, craftsmen and merchants." by rtdrury. (By capitalists he/she means the large corporations, not small businessmen). And it made me think.

We've got a choice now; we can either make a peaceable revolution by changing what we do, or we will be involved in a violent revolution in years to come. Things cannot continue the way they have. We need to take back the power given to the multinational corporations. Voting has been singularly unsuccessful in taking back the power they have acquired by lobbying and political contributions. Protests, petitions, letter writing, talking to your Congressman, all just as impotent. The power we DO have is the power of the purse (wallet, for you guys).

Stop Buying It! Stop buying the lead-coated toys, the melamine-laced pet food (and probably protein powders eaten by humans too). Stop buying the CAFO meat, raised on GMO corn and soybeans, slaughtered in huge plants by overworked and underpaid employees. Stop buying the bottled water: stop drinking the water contaminated by plasticizers, and stop contributing to a mountain of empty plastic bottles in every landfill in the country.

Stop buying the clothes and shoes made by sweatshop workers and children (school-age but not going to school) in impoverished countries. Stop buying the coffee and chocolate sold for pennies per pound by farmers in Africa and Asia, and hawked here for 100 times the cost.

Stop buying the GMO crops, the hormone-polluted dairy products, the irradiated meats. The FDA and the USDA categorically refuse to listen to the 90% of American consumers that want these products labeled so that we can make our own choices. Your only recourse is either to buy organic, or to grow your own (Victory Gardens, here we come!) And we need to hold strong against continued corporate and USDA efforts to weaken organic standards to allow GMOs, hormones, irradiation, sewage sludge, and other horrors into our food chain.

Just as an experiment, try to buy non-food items (such as clothes, household goods, home improvement, toys, etc. etc. etc.) that are made in the U.S.A. You will find it VERY difficult to find these products. Somehow, we have shipped most of our manufacturing base overseas, where they actually MAKE things. Most of the jobs in the U.S. just push data around. Many of the rest are "service jobs" mostly poorly paid: house cleaners, fast food workers, day care workers, you know the list. "Farmers" have become such a small part of our employment base that I read that the Census Bureau does not have a listing for farming as an occupation any more. And most farm families have some member who works in town, because farming pays so poorly (though it is one of the most capital-intensive individual occupations in the country).

Not to get too many themes into this article, I'll sum up:

Food
Best: grow it yourself! (Victory Gardens)
Second best: get it from a local small farmer
Third best: get it from your own state (Colorado, for me)
Fourth best: get it from the U.S., at least

If you must buy food from overseas, try to get it organic and fair-trade (such as coffee, chocolate, spices, tropical fruit).

Goods
Best: make it yourself, if possible
Second best: buy it from a local craftsman who makes it
Third best: buy it from a local non-franchise store
Fourth best: buy it from a "little box", a locally-owned franchise store
Fifth best: buy it from a "big box" store, but American made

If all of these steps fail, perhaps you DON'T NEED IT! Or perhaps you can buy it used, at stores like the Goodwill or Habitat for Humanity. However, in some cases, you will be forced to buy foreign-made goods from a big box franchise store, because you will have no choice.

Don't think that the spending by "one person" won't change the world, because it is not just "one person". There are more and more people who feel the same. If each us lives up to our conscience, our community, and our own enlightened self-interest, we CAN change the world. There is a peaceful revolution going on, and you can be a part of it.