The Ways To Change A World Part 2

... You know, I became a vegetarian. Not a real one, no, I like meat, but I decided, after watching a presentation of a classmate on the horrors of the meat industry, both at the business, the worker and the stock level, to never again buy store bought beef and pork. And I haven't. Not once. I eat fish and eggs. You see, I've known for a long time about these problems, but they were always too distant for me to care, too immaterial in my eyes. I never questioned, never argued, because it was simpler to not think about where my meat came from, where my water comes from, where my gas came from. I never questioned. I NEVER CARED.

Well, now I do. I care because I've discovered a simple and undefeatable trick to make a difference. These companies, these governments, they are actually quite powerless against the united front of the citizens they serve. If we were to all look at them, simultaneously, and stare them down in silence, they would crumble. But because we don't, because we think them too big to be taken down, because we've never thought of all at once rising up in silent protest, we've been living in this dream world of comfort, and ease, eyes closed to the silent screams, ignoring reality like we we're actually in some kind of capitalist Matrix. Sadly, the world I see isn't far off from that.

So this is my undefeatable trick; I'll just reject them. Refuse to support conduct, attitudes and values that clash with my own. I'll boycott everything that pisses me off, everything I disagree with, everything I feel needs to change. I'll send back the flyers with a picture of my middle finger. What'll the corporate world do then, when the people decide to kill off the companies just like that ? I don't like how they make cheap meat, so I won't buy any. I don't like how they make Nike shoes, Wall-Marde clothes, how they shoot greenhouse gases and other kinds of shit in the atmosphere, the water. I don't like how they cut down forests and pretend to plant them, I don't like this decandence, how people go by ignorantly doing things the easy way, without a care in the world. I don't like how they hunt whales for sushi without a care in the world. They hunt them with rocket propelled crossbows. Rocket propelled crossbows.

You know, if every human being banned together in quiet rebellion, in a month we could make a company like Nike close down. A month of empty stores and full factories, 0 cents in sales worldwide and every employee on time for his shift and his salary. Like this, the trash could literally take itself out. Do you know why the world is as it is? Because we demanded cheap meat, cheap clothes, cheap toys, houses, etc. Because WE, the consumers, the ones with all the buying power, asked for it. Hunted down deals, bought things the easy way so we could save and have our comforts. Having no choice, the corporations complied, sacrificing whatever so that they could survive. And they became incredibly good at it, better than we could have thought. Well, what if now we demanded that they fix up? What would they do, when faced with bankruptcy? Would they change? They would have to, no? It's not like they would all just die - humans don't like dying, nor do their companies.

Too long have I lived with my eyes shut. 18 years. And I think that's enough. I'm not altruistic enough to go out of my way to find scandals to rebel against. I'll eat beef if someone else puts it on a table at a party. I'll take the clothes if its a present. But I'll make sure the person who gave it to me knows what I think. I don't think it's possible to convert others, but maybe they too will see that what I'm doing isn't far fetched, and they too will start to believe in something better. I won't say that I'm only going to do my share, but I won't say that it's my responsibility to take up everything myself either. I'm just one human being. And if I can't stop those old fools from doing what they're doing, that's fine too. Death will take us all just the same. But the old ways will fall and give way to the new, no matter how long it takes. I have faith, and that's enough of a reason for me to do what I can, and dream of a better world. Neil Gaiman writes that a mere 1000 dreamers can shape the world. I wonder... if a mere 1000 of us dreamed the same dream, all at once, what kind of solidarity could we conjure? What kind of change could we enact?

Maybe, we really could... change this world.