4.16.2015

Starve the Vampires, Save the Earth - STOP CONSUMING NEEDLESS CRAP - Refuse to Comply

Ignite your inner rebel, refuse to comply!

The message of wanting and consuming less may not sell, but it doesn't really have too. In reality we're already seeing how the limits to growth are creating deflation and slow degrowth caused by both debt and wealth inequality. What the economists call a drop in discretionary spending is to me a drop in spending on needless crap. That drop is now curtailing the demand for all types of commodities including fossil fuels by the manufacturers and shipping industries without consumers having to buy into the concept of choosing less consciously.

Slow degrowth is inevitable in a deflationary world. Avoiding the alternative - a massive environmental collapse - can happen through 'cooperative self-limitation' but it can also happen when, for whatever reason, consumers choose of bread over oreos, needs over wants. Even the most addicted consumers, living in a slowly degrowing world with a modest 2%-3% defationary economy, like we're seeing right now in many 'developed' economies', will learn a new trick.

Less may not sell, but needs must trump wants. Living simply can be a revolutionary act, but it also can be as involuntary as shading your eyes in the direct sun. Humans can refuse to participate in a dead society gone shopping. "Once we understand what feeds it, it becomes possible to think of stopping the Machine. I puzzled over this one for a long time, only to suddenly grok the obvious: the fodder for the Machine is our precious life energy! This is the crux. Any machine can withstand tinkering, but no machine can run without fuel." - Joe Bageant

Our life's energy, feeds capitalism's craw. Hedges thinks: "We have the capacity to say no, to refuse to cooperate", and that, ..."only this refusal to cooperate that will save us." Adding: "Any boycott or demonstration, any occupation or sit-in, any strike, any act of obstruction or sabotage, any refusal to pay taxes, any fast, any popular movement and any act of civil disobedience ignites the soul of the rebel and exposes the dead hand of authority."

The human world teeters on the brink of war i fear. The news becoming to depressing to watch, unable to change any of it that "give them bread and circuses" was the Roman Emperors' answer. Monetized, profited on and traded, our life's work - chicken feed for the vampires. Ignite your inner rebel, refuse to comply, STOP CONSUMING NEEDLESS CRAP starve the vampires, save the environment.