I’m very curious to hear your thoughts on this topic. What can we do to fix this? If you’ve already tried something what were your results? What worked and what do you think could be done better?
My thoughts on this are that we keep electing politicians who support billionaires and elite instead of ordinary people like you and me. In addition people are loosing a sense of community and are isolated at home. I think these two things can be fixed simultaneously by getting out and talking about class and corrupt politicians in person and having mutual support networks.
These corrupt politicians typically get elected by exploiting people’s fears and biases. For example a corrupt politician might blame your problems on immigrants or minorities. Meanwhile people won’t notice that they are being robbed by the billionaires.
I read interviews of people who used to be part of hate groups. The consistent theme I noticed is that they had past traumas and issues which draw them towards hateful ideologies. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/12/opinions/former-white-supremacist-how-to-tackle-hate-buckley/index.html
When talking to people it’s important to listen and respect them first before you say your points. This article has a good technique for talking with people: https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-to-change-a-voters-mind-is-deep-canvassing/ I’ve been using myself and I can vouch for it.
Quite simply, we need a financial revolution. If a company pisses me off, I stop shopping there. Even if it hinders me in the long run.
There is a local grocery store chain in the Cleveland area called Marcs. It’s a low budget store. The running joke is that Marc Glassman is selling stolen/counterfeit goods, due to how cheap they are, and how fast they break/rot.
Everyone in my family agrees that I should shop there. It would probably benefit my wallet to shop there.
But in 2003, Marc Glassman was doing a store inspection before I even started my shift. They had NOBODY scheduled in my department before 4pm. They blamed me for why the shelves looked so bad, because I closed the night before, nobody worked the morning shift, and now here I am at 3:45pm, shelfs are a mess, CEO is asking questions, store manager blames me, and I get fired before I even got to the employee area to clock in.
Still to this day, I say that was bullshit. I refuse to shop at a place that took a paycheck away from me whdn I was like 20 years old, living in my first apartment, and needed money the most. They hurt me when I was vunerable. I’d shopped at Marcs since I was a kid. I’d still be shopping there now. Instead, I’ve never given them a dime since that day.
Here’s the thing about people. They have no principals. They will not do whats right if it hurts them. Nestle uses literal slave labor, but here they are, a huge company with so many brands it’s hard to keep track. If EVERYONE stopped buying nestle products, nestle couldn’t use slave labor because they wouldn’t exist.
But that’s not gonna happen, because some people just need those cookies, and hot pockets, and a bunch of other unhealthy products that continue to keep us in a disposable human life cycle. Nobody wants to take responsibility. Everyone just wants fast cheap things. Because nobody has any principals anymore. So CEOs will continue to get rich. Enjoy your hot pockets, fuckers.
Oh boy is that my passion topic. You know why this doesn’t work? Because you as a freaking consumer are not responsible! It’s just capitalism that indoctrinates this BS into all of us.
You can’t check the ethics of every service and product you consume. Nestlé is actually a good example. Yeah they suck. But so does every other nutrition mega corp. Don’t believe me? Check out how ethical “Danone” and “Kelloggs” is. Now go grocery shopping and avoid these three companies. Good luck.
It should not be the responsibility of the consumer to ensure that a company does not kill infants, fuel war, engage in slavery etc.
Just think about what you have bought recently. Did you double check the supply chain? Do you really know the ecological food print? Do you know where this stuff has been produced? Which workers, factories, and other entities have been exploited to make these? The scissors that your hair dressers use are most likely unethical.
They play you, because as long as you think “man I’m not the problem, they are” you will never realize that you have to look up to spot the asshole.
Edit: the responsibility of the customer is more like “what contains less sugar,” “what tastes better,” “what is of better value,” “what is produced more locally” etc. Not literally “are they killing babies,” “do they engage in genocide” etc.
Companies that are equally rated as bad as Nestlé contain:
Among thousands of others.
Beautiful. Truly poetic.