Consciousness Consumerism Cont'd.

OK (impatiently tapping foot) while I still wait with bated breath for Mr. Fitzgerald to send out indictaments I will continue my thoughts on consciousness consumerism.

A co-worker and I have been having an on-going discussion about this subject. The power of money is strong, one need only look at this current White House to see that. Yet we also have examples of how money can affect positive social change, the bus system in Alabama, when boycotted by African-Americans for a number of months, overturned their policy of segregation/riding in the back of the bus. Or further back, Gandhi urged Indians to make their own cotton clothes rather than buy imperialistic England's stuff.

But how do we do it today? I try to make an effort to not buy stuff from countries where I know human rights abuses abound, but it is virtually impossible in America to do that completely. Why do you think prices are so low at Wal-Mart and Target?? Cheap labor in South Asia, that is why! Heck, stores where they purport to be so high brow can be the worst offenders. In July I bought a cute denim jacket at The Gap and after bringing it home, discover that it was built in Bangledesh...I felt at once guilt for making some poor kid sew on my imperial buttons, what a horrible person was I and at the same time I thought "if I didn't buy this, the kid might have starved that night." What a dilemma? Yet, I think until we, as a collective group say, "no we will not tolerate this anymore" and make these big corporations suffer by not buying their stuff their will be no change. This also goes for local social change. Though I feel really bad for the little kids who stand outside the grocery store (they don't know what hate is being spread by adults in their name), I refuse to buy popcorn from the Boy Scouts while they actively advocate discrimination against homosexuals. I no longer eat at Outback Steakhouse, cause they donate to the Republican party. More and more of us need to do this and we need to be vocal about why we are doing this....big corporations and the WASP's who run it are greedy bastards, money talks, lets make them listen.

Boycott: Purse change brings social change - http://www.lacarte.org/tracie/boycotts/index.html