Fighting the Good Fight (In your everyday life)
By Zerstorer

One does not have to throw molotovs and break windows to fight the good fight against those evil corporations. In fact, one can smash the system from the comfort and safety of one’s own home! It’s fun, easy, and you’ll quite likely be a better person for it.

“Am I a consumer?”

Am I a statistic that consumes products as described by some marketer’s study? Does my life revolve around purchasing the next cool product? Do I actually treat shopping as a recreational activity? Do I have to be just another powerless drone in this consumer economy? (No bias in this article!)

Certainly acquiring possessions is a necessary and important part of life – but it does not have to be such an all-consuming destructive obsession as it is today in western culture.

Here are few simple things you can do to stop being a consumer:

- Stop watching TV, or at least cut way down on it. Television is nothing more than a subtle form of narcotic brainwashing; it is addictive and, for the most part, feeds you meaningless tripe.

- Be aware of advertising’s effect on your mind. From childhood advertising molds our perceptions of the world. Stop taking it all for granted and approach advertising critically so that you are not manipulated as the advertisement has been designed to do.

- Choose your purchases disregarding the spin of ads. Are you buying something because of the advertisement as opposed to its usefulness? Approach the product from a practical angle, avoiding the spin of its advertising campaign.

- Ask yourself: Am I buying this because I need it or is it just an impulse? It tends to be a waste to buy crap you don’t really need on a whim.

We consume far more luxuries than necessary.

Take, for example, meat. It takes ten pounds of grain (and a lot of water, land, and labor) to produce one pound of beef. It is far more efficient (not to mention healthy) to limit one’s intake of meat down from the American three-meals-a-day rate.

Another example of typical over consumption is in our clothing. Do you buy clothes because they are cool or because they are functional? (It must be noted that I don’t expect everyone to live a completely ascetic lifestyles, just to be aware of how much is put into purely luxury items and to cut down on it).

Some suggestions:

- Repair old clothes that get a small tear in them instead of buying new ones. If you don’t know how, learn. Or use duct tape, like me, if you have no class.

- Note: Clothes that you buy already worn out are stupid. Earn your worn out jeans!

- How many pairs of shoes do you own? If you have more than 5 and aren’t an Olympic runner, then maybe you are buying too many.

Consider growing your own food. It’s exceedingly cheap and healthy- not to mention that you could get outside a little (and this pack of computer geeks could probably use it). Growing your own garden also undermines evil agro-corps!

There are many more ways to fight the good fight in your day-to-day life, these are just a couple of suggestions. It just takes a little willpower and self-control. You don’t need so many wasteful luxuries; help the environment and help yourself. Stop living like a consumer and start living like a human being.

The If-you-haven’t-read-these-books-you-should-read-them-right-goddamn-now Reading List

No Logo by Naomi Klein: Thick and extremely informative, no anti-corporate type should go without reading this. Don’t be put off by the length of this book, just force yourself to read the whole thing.

Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn (the Adbusters guy): Thin and easy reading. It’s like No Logo but a hell of a lot shorter and with less hard information.

The Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian: Become aware of from who and where you get all of your information. Sure we know that most mainstream media is corrupted, but we must know exactly how and why – read this book.

By Zerstorer