But a lot of the same people unhappy with Bush and his cronies were also the same people singing high praises to Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. They downed gallons of big-name soda a day, many smoked, and they couldn't understand paying more for organic produce (too expensive, tastes the same, they can't cook) or shopping at mom-and-pop stores (they're cramped, they're expensive, they don't carry many things), or getting lunches from places other than fast food drive-throughs (they're fast, good, and provide lots of protein).
As you can guess, I didn't have these products or shopping habits in common with my ex-colleagues. And I was so outnumbered, listening to them justifying their purchases and actions that I just simply shut up when the topic came up and let them deride the organic-food-eating, brain-addled blue-bloods paying more for their stuff when it was all the same. I could also sympathize with them - money was tight, and they wanted to stretch their dollar. I was just annoyed that they were ignorant (and seemed happily so) about why there were others paying more and doing differently.
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. - John Muir
The last few days on DailyKos have made me realize that there are still Kossacks who, while fiercely progressive, are still handing over money to anti-union, outsourcing, child-labor-or-sweatshop-using, environment-ruining, GMO-friendly corporations. The Disney boycott on DailyKos, IMHO, should have started long before now. But this diary is not going to be about which companies to boycott, because I'd rather encourage anyone reading this to get into the habit of using BuyBlue, Responsible Shopper and CorpWatch. This diary will attempt to illustrate how our consumer habits, our health practices, political actions and our capacity for learning, adapting and shrinking our ecological footprint are all connected and all matter. This is a diary about seeing the pattern. It is about solving problems by pattern. (And I'd like to credit Frances Moore Lappe for the expression solving by pattern.)
I am going to connect the following:
$40 million for the production for the Path to 9/11, McDonald's, Monsanto, global warming, America's economy, toxic air, education, bargain goods... hmm, did I leave out anything? ...organic produce, oil, the upcoming water wars, independent artisans, consumer conditioning, and the mainstream mass media. (Is there an award for DKos diary with the most keywords?)
TV networks earn money from their advertisers and sponsors. Duh, we know that. Companies that advertise are frequently now part of a larger family of companies that, like Voltron's constituent body parts, together form... a gigantic monster of a multi-national corporation. Even when you've decided to boycott what you think is one company (say, Disney), you'll discover that they own ESPN, Miramax, the History Channel (damn!) in addition to ABC. If you decide to boycott advertisers on ABC, say, Time Warner Cable, more difficulty sets in (maybe you're viewing DailyKos using their network), and then you also discover they own Cartoon Network, New Line Cinema and DC Comics (damn!). If you want to start small, say with Aveeno, then you should know they are owned by Johnson & Johnson, which owns a crapload of companies, produces craploads of stuff, and (more reason to avoid) tests on animals, puts GMO (genetically modified) plant derivatives and petroleum derivatives in their products and packaging.
Genetically modified products in beauty and food products - why bad and why should you care? I can't do justice to this topic; everything I know is from the following sources: Food Politics (the book), The Future of Food (the film), The Food Revolution (the book is a lot better than the website), and the Organic Consumers Association. Learning about the dangers of GMO and GE (genetically engineered) plants/products requires a healthy curiosity, an openness to reading science writing, respect for the diversity of lifeforms on this planet, and respect for the environment. And the dangers cannot be overstated. The food security of countries which plant GE and GMO plants is at stake. It is a question of environmental sustainabilty, and when GE and GMO technology is exported to other countries, it is also a problem of economic and social tyranny over other cultures and farming methods. These problems are also present even just with the use of chemical pesticides without GE or GMO seeds.
Nutrition, safety, and health: Would you like some food with your pesticides? It doesn't take too much research to stumble into the growing evidence that pesticide and herbicide use on food and lawns harms children, pregnant mums and apparently, men's sperm counts. It's time to drag this word into this diary: toxins. They accumulate in people's bodies, in your pets' bodies, and will increasingly pollute our environment with their accelerated use. Cancer rates going up? Kids being born with more illnesses and allergies? Creatures that live in streams and rivers that receive the run-off from lawns and heavily-dosed farms exhibiting sterility or mutations? How much more would you like the ongoing experiment on our food, air, water, health and environment to continue before concluding they're all linked?
To keep on the topic of health a little longer, it's now the time to link coal, oil, petroleum derivatives, energy and our air. Weaning ourselves off of oil means finding cleaner alternative fuels. The combustion of gasoline puts the following yummies into our air: nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulates and lead. Coal: sulfur dioxide, lead, VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and oh, cadmium. These poisonous gaseous outputs do nasty stuff to respiratory systems, asthma rates, cancer rates and multiple chemical sensitivity. (And I haven't even included the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.) To keep moving, it's also time to link in cosmetic chemicals, pthalates, plastics and synthetic parabens, which we wouldn't have without our good friend petroleum. Plastics - should we love or hate you? You make life grand, at the same time you choke our landfills and make our garbage himalayas ever taller each year. You offgas endocrine disruptors, toxins and irritants. Parabens - you give us our beauty products and perfumes, but why must some of you imitate hormones in our bodies?
Parabens are also used as food additives, typically as preservatives. Preservatives, ah, the real staple of processed foods and sodas, yum. Preprocessed foods frequently coming from big, Republican-contributing companies. Campbell's (to name one) uses GMO foods, including in children's crackers, and with no labeling (see above for GE foods). They are also responsible for significant deforestation (back to global warming and non-sustainabilty) with their use of rainforest beef (a trait they share with all the fast food restaurants you can think of, with the only possible exception of Burger King). And preservatives are present in sodas - they are, pardon my enthusiasm for the environment, the stupidest way in the world to obtain hydration. Resources have to be expended and pollution released to produce the packaging and have the products shipped. Sodas are devoid of nutrition, contribute to the obesity epidemic AND frequently use new artificial sweeteners for which long-term health effects have not been studied (90 days for a study is not enough in my book). Soda production uses precious energy, resources and water to produce liquids a fraction in volume and laden with questionable additives. The effects of Coca-Cola plants operating in dry places in India are atrocious. With global warming we will be dealing with unpredictable water shortages and distribution. Frankly, dicking about and using water to produce sodas when I can just drink water is, ah, how do you say? Dumb. Plus, why do I want to give these corporations my money so they can contribute to Republican candidates?
But, surely, you say, no one can survive with their larders empty of soda and GMO General Mills cereals! What kind of food can I put on my family?
Think CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), think farmer's markets, and mostly, think of whole foods (not so much the chain, though I like 'em, but the foods that come unprocessed, outside of a box, and, well, whole). I know they take more prep time in order to eat, and this won't be for everyone all the time (sure isn't for me). But if you have the time to cook, going back to whole foods in the kitchen has plenty of health benefits (like getting more nutrients from less food), in addition to benefits to your local community, the environment, and oddly, one's spiritual side. Cooking and serving food can be a wonderful time to slow down, meditate and do something for the ones you love. (A quick aside for AD&D 2e players: Remember how the cooking proficiency for one's character was dependent on their Wisdom? Makes me think the game designer was on to something.) And to lessen your impact on the earth, and the biggest thing you can do to fight global warming is to go vegetarian. (it isn't just about the fuzzy animals and not eating food that has eyes.) And I must be lucky in my part of NC, I can get my cereals and nuts from local growers and not from a cardboard box from PA. There's a "nut and honey" store run by grannies at the state fairgrounds who always give me candy when I buy anything. I love 'em!
Enough about food (I mighta gotten side-tracked), let's go on to the other things we consume. People need clothing, shelter, furniture, school supplies, computers, books, and er, other stuff from malls, big box stores, and mail catalogs. Shopping is patriotic! It keeps the economy going! It cures depression! You can shop for friends and family to show your love! You can buy something that will win you the admiration of others!
Before handing over the credit card at Target, think of landfills leaking toxic chemicals, think of America's trade deficit and manufacturing jobs going overseas, think of cheap items that will break in a week's time. Think of cheap pressed-wood furniture and synthetic carpet that will outgas formaldehyde into your indoor air, the deforestation of faraway tropical rainforests to make the furniture in mail catalogs and Pier 1. Then think of the alternatives: libraries (which you know Republicans hate), flea markets, antiquing, and freecycling, think of Craigslist, think of thrift stores run by charitable organizations bursting with stuff nobody wants. Think of people moving out of town and out of the country desperately trying to sell their furniture and equipment. I know, some of those places: ew, old stuff. But old stuff has paid its debt to the environment. Old stuff will not release new toxins into the air from its manufacture. Old stuff is sometimes old stuff because it's real and has survived to become old. The money you may pay for old stuff goes to a real person, not a faceless corporation with reaches and practices overseas and environmental sins you may not know about. Old stuff keeps your money in your local community.
Still hate old stuff? Then think of your local artisans and downtown small businesses and mom-and-pop stores. If none are in your area, think of progressive companies you've researched, American artists, artisans, refurbishers, craftspeople, toymakers, dressmakers, soapmakers, small presses, independent publishers, even talented hobbyists. Think Etsy for shopping for clothing and X'mas gifts. Honestly, I can't deny my own shopping bug, but I can say I haven't entered a big box store in years, and I usually emerge from malls empty handed. I get a feeling more liberating from that than actually purchasing something.
What I'm getting at here: I myself am not so hardcore that I can advocate buying nothing at all (though some people can do that). I'm talking about minimizing complicity. I'm talking about shifting from buying lots of cheap plastic crap from corporations and from manufacturers far away, and saving and/or putting that money into buying fewer, quality objects made or refurbished locally. Most of the time, you'll find you're giving your money to people as progressive as you are. Be a THINKING consumer. It's gentler on the environment. It supports the local economy, and it minimizes your financial contribution to causes you do NOT support. When it comes right down to it, some of the $40 million put toward the making of The Path to 9/11 could have come from you in some indirect way. In this epoch of huge conglomerates with relationships like the Family Tree From Hell, it's more than possible.
But damn, practicising this ascetic-sounding, anti-corporate shopping behavior can be difficult and hard to explain. It's like living like, I dunno, hippies. Or paupers. How shameful. How radical. Anti-capitalist! Communist! You must hate America! (This is oversimplistic and ignores the growing potential of green businesses, which I'm actually excited about. But again, I'm getting sidetracked.)
The ecological footprint of the average American family is growing. Families are smaller now, yet they have bigger homes and buy ever more materials and gadgets, drive bigger cars and use more fuel to cover longer distances to work. This lifestyle is not to be admired. It is not sustainable. It would take more earths than this solar system actually has in order to provide this kind of lifestyle for everyone on the planet now. But everyone wants this life. It's the "American dream."
And I come, at last, to the mainstream media. You know, those guys getting their advertising and sponsorship money from big corporate advertisers? The ones dumbing down their news programs, sometimes airing complete fabrications? Those TV channels introducing us to the future, the oversized hummers, homes in the suburbs, the oft-useless new products, the latest tiny cell phone, the companies acting like they're doing you a favor with their cell phone service packages while they let the current administration listen to your phone calls without warrant? The channels that bring ads and shows with tweens in adult clothing, scenes of beautiful home interiors, the pool in the backyard, the reality shows and the game shows, and celebrity news you need to know. Shiny objects! Beauty! Health from a pill! Happiness! Glamor! Glamor! Glamor! Look at the original meaning of this word. It is illusion.
Despite what the teevee would have all of us and our children believe, happiness does not come from over-consumption. It does not come from what you own, what you have, or getting what you've been told to desire. It does help to realize that you may already have what you need. And it comes from having all your actions, and the result of your actions, consistently reflect what you believe in. And all of us have the potential to embrace the world we live in, and act mindfully when we are participating in political activism, interacting with fellow living beings, shopping (or not shopping), AND saving the planet.
It's time to lose the naivete with regards to the products and services you pay for. The story of what your money does DOES NOT END at the point at which you hand it to the person at the cash register. Recognize the pattern in which you're participating. Change it if you don't like it. Keep learning and growing. You want to vote every day of every year? Do it with your everyday purchases. Do it with your dollar. Put it where your mouth is. Put it where your heart is.
After a while, it won't even feel like a "boycott" anymore.
Epilogue: I realize this might have read as a rant for, oh, 90% of it, but I did try to keep things somewhat ordered, and I was ambitious in scope. And I know Kossacks are generous in political and charitable causes - that's wonderful! Let's keep it up! In the whirlwind I also know I simplified a lot of the health and toxicity stuff - after all, those subjects fill books. And I left out the following, if only not to make this diary a novel: linking corporations to politics and financing, campaign reform, touching on free self-actualization without shopping, and the voluntary simplicity movement, and how sustainability is NOT antithesis to a healthy economy, and supporting indy media. Oh, and do keep on boycotting Disney and friends and letting them know your displeasure. That goes without saying.
If readers want to link in their favorite issues to the "grand picture", or volunteer their own resources and alternatives to giving money to less-than-ethical corporations, feel free to jump in in the comments. Thank you.
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