The usual common sense words from Not Buying Anything:
Our much touted freedom in so-called democratic countries is an illusion. It is an over hyped lie. Except for one area - we are free to do as much consuming as our bank accounts will allow.
Where else is the freedom?
Are we free to protest without harassment? Free to travel a world without restrictive borders? Free to live anywhere we want? Free to quit work and live off the land?
Are we free to put into our bodies what we want, or keep out of our bodies those things we don't want? Free to marry whom we wish? Free to use the bathroom we feel most appropriate for our gender situation? Free to read about the truth in the mainstream media?
Instead of gaining any freedoms, we are increasingly being stripped of any vestiges of liberty that we have left. In some parts of the world you are not free to harvest rain water, or grow a garden where you neighbours can see it, or without being taxed for the privilege of putting a bit of distance between you and the system.
Our system is broke. Unless you are rich, in which case you are more free than those less monetarily blessed. In today's world money is the way to freedom, not the ballet box. And if you don't have money you don't deserve to be free because you just aren't trying hard enough.
Now whole countries are being forced to accept the freedom to be plundered, privatized and pirated. How are you enjoying all that Western capitalist consumeristic freedom Iraq? Libya? Syria? Honduras? Brazil? Argentina? Egypt? Are you feeling it yet, all that juicy freedom? When we stop the violence, you can go shopping.
Robin Mathews, author of “The Trans Pacific Partnership: Canada and Imperial Globalization”, describes our current situation:
Are we free to protest without harassment? Free to travel a world without restrictive borders? Free to live anywhere we want? Free to quit work and live off the land?
Are we free to put into our bodies what we want, or keep out of our bodies those things we don't want? Free to marry whom we wish? Free to use the bathroom we feel most appropriate for our gender situation? Free to read about the truth in the mainstream media?
Instead of gaining any freedoms, we are increasingly being stripped of any vestiges of liberty that we have left. In some parts of the world you are not free to harvest rain water, or grow a garden where you neighbours can see it, or without being taxed for the privilege of putting a bit of distance between you and the system.
Our system is broke. Unless you are rich, in which case you are more free than those less monetarily blessed. In today's world money is the way to freedom, not the ballet box. And if you don't have money you don't deserve to be free because you just aren't trying hard enough.
Now whole countries are being forced to accept the freedom to be plundered, privatized and pirated. How are you enjoying all that Western capitalist consumeristic freedom Iraq? Libya? Syria? Honduras? Brazil? Argentina? Egypt? Are you feeling it yet, all that juicy freedom? When we stop the violence, you can go shopping.
Robin Mathews, author of “The Trans Pacific Partnership: Canada and Imperial Globalization”, describes our current situation:
"A characteristic of Imperial Globalization is criminal manipulation of people and events for the profit of a few. It includes massive ‘disinformation’ about equality, benefits, social development, law, improved standards of living, etc.You see, it is all about enriching the few as a result of the consumption of the many. Have money? Want stuff? This new world was made for you. Your dollars will buy you the freedom to consume, plus a bit more, depending on how much cash you have. More cash - more freedom.
The disinformation is spread by ‘authoritative’ news sources. In the hands of gigantic, wealthy, private corporations, globalization is a process which works to erase sovereign democracies and replaces them with ‘treatied’ sub-states, economic colonies ruled by faceless, offshore, often secret, unaccountable powers."
I don't know about you, but that is not a system I am interested in joining or supporting, and I will do everything I can to ensure that I am doing nothing to contribute toward this dismal distortion of our infinitely good and abundant planet.
Freedom can not really be bought. Or given. Or forced. It just is, and we have to actively live it for ourselves. After all, consumption is not legally mandatory. Yet. We still have a choice.
I am free to consume, but, well, no thanks. Consuming is enslaving us all. Therefore, I see unconsuming as the answer. As always, simplicity yields true freedom, and if more of us adopted such a lifestyle, we could negate the power of the criminal manipulators, and turn this thing around.
I'm not buying anything. Not their stuff, or their bullshit, for I am free to unconsume.
