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Making a difference: concrete measures

16:27 / 22.04.02

I just wanna know for all the talk about having a freer and more just society, what is it that you actually DO in your day-to-day lives that you think that makes a difference? Alone I feel quite powerless way too soon!

Thinking about myself:

stopped eating meat partly because of animal rights stuff and I also buy food products that are more expensive but come from farms that treat their animals respectfully whenever I have the choice.

take the bike to go to work instead of the car whenever possible partly out of environmental concerns

once in a while surf the net to dig up info on which organizations behave "ethically" in the way they run their business. I like the way gap and levi´s jeans look, I feel great wearing them. levi´s apparently isn´t so bad (on an ethical conduct trst carried out in austria they came in second right after hennes and mauritz but if i remember correctly naomi klein criticized them for their business conduct in her nologe book) and they are at least aware of the fact some people care about stuff like that.

stopped believing the news and watching tv to keep a clear head ;-)

as soon as I got enough money I´ll switch to a electricity provider who doesn´t get their current from nuclear sources. more expensive but fuck it. maybe i´ll start using the stuff more carefully.

A BIG WORRY: jobs, i wanna live and don´t want to support a potentially destructive economic system but on the other hand you get paid, you work with fun people, you buy hip clothes, fuck the rest! it´s tempting, you know!

I guess my big thing here is so-called ethical consumpton and the possibility to "vote with your dollar". problem is: who defines what an ethical behaviour is and how do you rate it?

of course it´s essential to just not let go of these concerns and stay informed and talk about stuff like that but it´s really hard to actually do it. I just wanna know what do you DO, maybe i´ll start aping you. I´ve got the spirit now I wanna act. hope that was coherent enough. over and out.

18:54 / 22.04.02

Congratulations on giving a shit. Seriously. Everything else comes from that.

You raise a very good point in regard to the idea of consumer power. I'd guess from your post that you don't have much cash, and are concerned about where it goes. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you need more money before you can entirely cease to support the badness. Understand that if you're in a position to own/use a car, *choose* a veggie/vegan diet, or buy real Levis, your life is built of into that badness and you will never entirely escape it as long as the badness survives. This ceases instantly to be a binding truth the moment you understand that you are a free created sentient entity, and what you say goes in your life. Entirely cease to support the badness.

So, what *do* you do? What does everyone else do? What makes a difference? Activism, whether direct or protest-based, makes a difference because it means that problems cannot be swept neatly under the carpet. Don't let people forget that shit is fucked up. Point at it. Make art about it. Rub their noses in it. Rub your own nose in it, if necessary. Eat your fear and stand up for something. Refuse to sit until something changes. Pursue your bliss, not some sort of 'adequate' life. You almost certainly won't make it all the way but you'll get somewhere. And you will almost certainly have helped other's causes along the way, because you can be complicit in the good stuff, too.

20:21 / 22.04.02

hold your life up to the light, huh?

i try to do this regularly, try not to get complacent. also, remembering why i do what i do, is a good thing: i've been a veggie for so long now that it's easy to forget why and i want to stay aware.

i am lucky perhaps in that i have very little interest in 'stuff', i have to be dragged out to buy even underwear, so it makes life easier, i suppose. BUT i booked a flight to cornwall a few weeks back and now regret it - would've been 'greener' to take the train. so i won't be doing that again.

wembley can change in 28 days

20:51 / 22.04.02

Especially with the veggie thread over in head shop, I've been thinking about this a lot. Last week, I bought two pairs of jeans from The GAP as they were on sale. I think I should be paying more for clothes, and I think I should know where they're made. I'm considering starting to make my own clothes (I learned a bit about the craft in my theatre design course this year), or at least buying from local designers in independent stores, which is more expensive, but I've started doing it lately anyway. It's really hard to make these choices when I have almost no money, but I think it's important.

I'm a bicycle fiend. I adore my bike. Right now someone is taking my bike apart and judging the value of each bit as they prepare to hawk them somewhere in Toronto. When I get my next paycheque, I will have a new bike to love.

I don't have a cell phone. (I consider it noise pollution.) And I don't want one (even though in some ways I doooooooooooo).

I frequent cafes that offer fair trade coffee.

I support local artists as much as I can by going out to smaller theatre shows, the occasional art opening, and concerts. I'm going to try to make it out to a few poetry readings before I leave.

Which brings the next point: I'm skipping the country. I'm moving to a much less consumer-minded place: Finland. I'm sick of the fact that the official work week in Ontario is 60 hours. I'm sick of the fact that I'm supposed to work my ass off in the service industry and celebrate with a load of alcohol on Friday. I'm sick of the fact that this society operates on stress, and that employees are routinely driven into the ground. I don't see that as a life.

I'm totally with you, bastl b, that hearing someone else's list o stuff makes you less likely to give up on it. Sometimes I hate the fact that I constantly feel guilty for walking into a large franchise, and wonder why I can't be normal. I also don't want to sound like I'm on a high horse. But I do believe the current economy is built on violence, and so many Armchair Chomskys agree that Westerners have to change their lifestyle before economic equality over the globe is even remotely possible. Well, who's really willing to change?

21:53 / 22.04.02

Thank you for the inspiration and ideas. I have been trying to do this for awhile, but have always gotten stuck at some point (made it to bike and lowered consumption). I've thought about activism since first reading Barbelith about 2 or so years ago, but can never think of where to start (outside of election time).

so many Armchair Chomskys agree that Westerners have to change their lifestyle before economic equality over the globe is even remotely possible. Well, who's really willing to change?

My 3rd World Economics teacher pointed that same thing out a few years ago. It seems like the most unlikely thing that will ever happen: people here agreeing to actually lower their standard of living for the sake of resource redistribution and whatnot. She also pointed out that if the developing world ever reached our standards, (not taking into account the remote chance of technology saving us all)... I don't remember the specifics, but it was bad. Out of oil, iron, coal, etc. within 10 years.

Congrats on your relocation! Goddamn I need to find a way to permanently stay away from North America.

18:11 / 23.04.02

Finland has some really bad music.
And the winters are dark.

Just so you know.

I've thought about moving to Norway for similar reasons, but never for very long. Can't hack the snow.

Oh, and * vegetarian, * drive a recycled car, * general tightwad, * planning to adopt. And * write for local fledgling left-wing rag about the issues, when not trying to convert fundamentalist Sun readers to gnosticism.

wembley can change in 28 days

18:29 / 23.04.02

Believe me, I'm aware. My aunt and uncle, who live in Helsinki, are in a New Orleans-style jazz band that just happens to get funding for such projects as "Reine Rimon eiusque papae fervidissimi" (Reine Rimon and Her Hot Papas), who take the poems of Horace and Catullus and set them to jazz standards like "Who's Sorry Now?" or "Careless Love" (amor, amor, qui me despicis).

You think I'm kidding? That's my aunt falling out of her dress.

Not that I think that's necessarily bad music. They're not responsible for the Eurovision piece of sorrow the Finns tend to come up with every year. Maybe soon they'll get on their horse and send in Jori Hulkkonen. I'm planning on going up north in the winter for an all-night-day nordic ski trip with the northern lights. Mmm-hmm. Barbemeet, anyone?

(Sorry for the threadrot, but I have to defend my ancestry, right?)

18:40 / 23.04.02

I put an edit up there that hasn't gone through yet. Hmph.

Veering wildly off-topic: I grew up surrounded by Finns - Lake Worth has the highest population density of Finns outside of Helsinki, or so I've been told. It makes no sense. Our high school soccer team was all Finnish, and the (old friend of a longtime friend) handyman helping fix up my house is named Heikki. One of the biggest businesses in town is a tourist bus line and hotel named "Midnight Sun." Heikki recently played me some Finnish rap. It's... it's exactly what you'd imagine it to be.

18:41 / 23.04.02

Is your aunt connected with the Finnish dude who did the Latin Elvis translations? Cuz that was cool as hell.

16:01 / 23.05.03

I was thinking about starting an 'Act Locally' thread, but lo and behold...

I've been feeling a lot more inclined to actually do things lately - as opposed to just sitting reading about them and getting more and more frustrated and angry.

One thing I have been doing (fell down a bit today, but it was because I was buying a birthday present) is asking not to be given plastic bags in shops. I've got a cloth bag for the supermarket, and smaller things like books fit in my work bag.

I haven't been buying many clothes lately because I don't have much money, and I think this is a good thing - it's not as if I haven't got tons of them anyway. I regret not being able to buy nice new stuff, but I find that if I stall for a while and don't buy on impulse, the impulse does go away. Eventually.

I'm fortunate in having a decent cobbler nearby, so I can get boots reheeled until the uppers collapse.

Food I'm bad about, because I can't cook elaborate things from scratch with one saucepan, and electric hob and a microwave (and an extraordinarily sensitive fire alarm). I go to the Covered Market and gawp at the beautiful fish, and then go to Sainsbury's... also, given the stuff I eat, it is marginally cheaper to go there than the market. But I might try and buy more organic stuff if possible.

Books - I am thinking of starting a gazetteer in Books for good independent bookshops - fed up with feeling bad about buying mass-market stuff from chains. I don't feel too ghastly if I get something published independently from a chain shop, but... I'd rather not, on the whole.

Don't drive.

Vague ambitions to start studying local wildlife with a faint view to getting involved in some kind of conservation whatsit.

Are there any other things people can do? I remember Leap saying he had an allotment - not really practical for me at this stage, but it's a good idea in principle...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:50 / 24.05.03

I try to allay my guilt over the plastic bags thing by saving them and using them to clean up my dog's shit... plastic may be being consumed, but people's kids aren't going blind if I can help it. (Yes, I know there are scoops and bleach and stuff, but that level of responsibility unfortunately escapes me).
I drive rarely, and use unleaded petrol.

Thing is, as Flame said ages ago, we're all kind of locked into this. It's hard to opt out totally and still make a difference. Every little helps. I remember a few years back when all my vegan friends had a real downer on us vegetarians because we "weren't doing as much" (fortunately, those days seem to have passed, at least in my circles). You can't expect everyone to do everything. One of said friends was later busted under the PTA for being caught driving a truck full of explosives with the intent of blowing up an abattoir. I can't, in my heart of hearts, say he was wrong in his conviction. What I can in my heart of hearts say is that I wouldn't be doing that.

It isn't an all or nothing situation. Doing little things is often all we can do immediately. And it may grow into more and better stuff. One office worker not getting their lunch from McD's every day may only be a tenner a week of profit, but it's still better than nothing, and a hundred not doing so makes a grand.

Michael Moore has a good point, though, when he says that recycling often isn't actually done and serves as a sop to make people think they've done their bit. (I've also seen rubbish trucks just emptying out the recycling bins round the back of our place into the compactor. Not saying it happens all the time, but it's kind of disheartening.)

Acting locally's only part of it. Never lose sight of the global thinking, and your local actions will become more frequent and more effective.

12:27 / 24.05.03

Vegetarian. Hey, know what you mean about the vegans- but the thing is, not only THEY try to guilt trip me, but also fucking meat-eaters. So i get it from both sides- the meaty people with all their "its pointless, wont change a thing, your going against human nature."

SFD, i tend to forget why i dont eat meat, but as i reach for that chicken nugget... images of chickens with nugget shaped chunks out of their sides, bleeding slowly and painfully to death. No matter how much i dislike chickens, it always makes me not eat them.

That sux about the recycling. Round here theres virtually no recycling points. I'd like every house to get the different bins for collection, like in germany. Have a compost bin and normal bin in my house.

And i cant drive.

13:58 / 24.05.03

Yes congrats on giving a damn, hope you don't end up as one of those animal rights activists who wold step over a man dying in a puddle of his own piss to spit on a woman wearing real mink, or dynamite a guy just because he runs a slaughterhouse...