I'm living off the backs of Third World slaves

[BenjaminTheDonkey]

The Buddha (though some disagree)
Said suffering is our life’s key,
And who am I
To say that’s a lie?
He was right, as far as I see.   

[SabreKai]

It might help assuage you guilt a little bit is you stop and realize that you're not living off the backs of third world slaves, you're just trapped in a system that more or less forces you into doing that. The guilt belongs to the fat cats that have moved all those jobs to the third world, not to save you money, but to increase their profit. What many don't realize is that goods are sold at their market price, not bases on manufacturing costs. Case in point: In the documentary "The Corporation" there's a scene where a guy is showing goods made by near slave labor overseas for literally pennies, but the Liz Claiborn jacket still sold for $199. Nike sneakers are made for less than 30 cents in third world slave labor, but sell for over $100.

You're not profiting, you're just living your life. The scumbags running corporations are the ones profiting from the slave labor, not you.

Finally, someone who actually gets it!


Sabre
7 days n a wake up

[mtlouie]

It might help assuage you guilt a little bit is you stop and realize that you're not living off the backs of third world slaves, you're just trapped in a system that more or less forces you into doing that. The guilt belongs to the fat cats that have moved all those jobs to the third world, not to save you money, but to increase their profit. What many don't realize is that goods are sold at their market price, not bases on manufacturing costs. Case in point: In the documentary "The Corporation" there's a scene where a guy is showing goods made by near slave labor overseas for literally pennies, but the Liz Claiborn jacket still sold for $199. Nike sneakers are made for less than 30 cents in third world slave labor, but sell for over $100.

You're not profiting, you're just living your life. The scumbags running corporations are the ones profiting from the slave labor, not you.

Finally, someone who actually gets it!


Sabre
7 days n a wake up

Yes, but they only profited because we bought the crap.  Well, not me.  But if everyone bought second-hand  or garage sale or made their own or paid the extra dollars to buy one good pair of U.S. made shoes and not ten or fifteen pair made in a third-world sweat-shop, these idiots wouldn't have made it.

But most people bought the advertising.....then bought the crap.

They are only in business because somebody bought the stuff.  Mostly crap they didn't need to begin with.

What is that old saying?  "We buy stuff we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don't like."

[Librarian]

Grower & Pamela,

that is an EXCELLENT idea: the "doable list of things that people could actually DO."

i've often thought about trying to boil it down, put some steps in order, and write it in plain language in a way that would be open to people regardless of education, political or religious affiliation, etc. i even wrote a couple drafts several years ago with the idea of posting it as a blog and also of putting it out in the old paper 'zine format--something you could leave around for free in bus-stations or fast-food joints for random people to pick up out of curiosity or boredom and maybe share if they found it useful. if we want to reach *real* people, it has to go off-net as well as on, and it has to be something they might just accidentally find without looking for it.

i started with a page or two of background and explanation, using my own life as an example or a template for sitting down and taking stock of what you really *do* with your day, how much of it is actually your own, and how to begin shifting the balance more in your favor. and then i started on the most basic, important, simple and easy things a person might change about how they are living, that could initiate a positive feedback loop for them to move in a direction of more freedom and more control over how they interact with the world. this thread inspired me to check and i still have the docs and would be happy to hand them over for updating and editing to be used as anyone sees fit.

for the most entrenched, stuck, typical modern western "wage slave"...how can they break out of that cage?

before you can do much about disconnecting yourself as an exploiter of *actual* slaves in the "third world" you have to realize your *own* place as both an exploiter AND one who is BEING exploited for someone else's gain. i say this because until you start to get yourself a little bit free of that role, you won't probably understand how complicated and BIG the whole mess is on a global scale. how do you set out for a better place if you don't first realize where exactly you ARE now?

with that in mind, i'd say that any list needs to begin by giving that hypothetical "average" person who has no background in the kinds of things taken as common wisdom here, a few simple tools they can use to give themselves some TIME and some ENERGY to really THINK about their own situation, and also to improve their health enough that maybe they CAN begin to think clearly about it all.

so i would start with things like improving their sleep, dumping some of the big big time and money sinks like cable TV, and at least cutting out the most obvious poisons they likely consume daily by habit. at least, that's where i started, myself. you're looking to begin an avelanche by finding the easiest stone to push, that is most likely to start some others rolling along with it.

anyway, i'd be happy to contribute to such a group effort here--where should it go? my list--and i'm totally open to changing things around, in the order i think it could be most helpful to someone who is starting totally from Square One and is completely stuck in a 40+ hour mad hamster wheel of wage-slavery and mindless consumption:

1. fix their sleep
2. stop paying for television
3. pick a poison--like diet pop--and give it up at least on a trial basis

the "stones" get bigger after that, and require the ability to think more critically about your actions, and the time & resources to start doing some things in a way that will seem at first to be harder--i'm thinking here first about food in general, and exchanging fake pre-packaged convenience poison "food" for ACTUAL food. we all have to eat, and most of us can't possibly grow it all at home, but when we're talking about global level exploitation of the truly poor, a lot of them are being exploited to create end-products like McNuggets or Lunchables, right? but the closer you get to eating real food, the smarter you'll be, and the more energy you'll have, right? i'm sure a LOT of people on this forum can personally attest to that. i think just quitting diet sodas gave me back around 10 IQ points and dropped around 15 pounds from my weight before i changed a single other thing in my life!

(sorry, this is an area where i'm prone to rant a bit!)

and yeah, we do feel guilty once we are able to really look around, and maybe that is good, maybe not, but the more important thing is what we DO, or, in a lot of cases, what we STOP doing, once we can no longer un-see the ugliness in the picture and how we fit into it!

you know Grower, if we could come up with an easy to understand, doable list of things that people could actually DO, I think that would be really helpful. I know we've had scattered discussions about it around the forum, but what if we had a real actual list and could help people do some of the things. I think that would help, don't you?

[Grower]

YOU MUST START DOING THIS IMMEDIATELY!

Start a new thread! Put it in General Discussion or something.

Set up what you're doing. When you think it's time, post a new list. I love the idea of 1-3 things at a time.

People can chime in with how they're doing, more suggestions, or ask for moral support!

Not exactly a LATOC 12-step or anything. Just a new step. Or company for those on the path.

[Librarian]

woah...that's like a command from On High or something 

you think in General? what do we call it?

what we're talking about at first anyway is really too basic for most people on a forum like this one--i bet actually that lots of people here would have their own simple steps they used that worked, that could be built into the 'novice' level which i'm really thinking is aimed at that guy who rides my bus, or the lady at the grocery check-out, you know? my own thought back when i toyed with the idea myself was that i might somehow just skip right OVER the usual hang-wringing and political/economic/philosophical arguments and go directly for their pocket in a manner of speaking--"this is your life, YOUR life...what the hell are you doing letting someone else *own* you this way?" i wanted to include links or citations for fairly simple, non-controversial mainstream press articles to back up any assertions (like how many people are sleep-deprived and how bad that is for your health, etc.)

the usual problem i've run into when trying to sell any 'hippy bullshit' Doomer/prep ideas to my redneck family types is that they look at the 'hippies' in question and those folks don't seem very happy, either! but what most folks really need is just some time, some energy, better health, and access to information, so they can break free of the media hypnosis and make their own damn choices. i honestly believe that if people in general just slept and ate a little better, they'd get smarter and maybe start to get excited about seeing through some of the bullshit on their own. i've been very happy to see Michael Pollan and other food-issues people get some attention, as that  is something most people can agree is important. lately i worry more that those waters just keep getting futher muddied (Wal-Mart claims to sell "natural" whatever-the-hell, but that turns out to be no different from the Lunchables, and it turns people off from trying to navigate that rather complicated markeplace, afraid they are wasting their time and money.)

busy, over-stressed people like fast, obvious results when they're asked to make any changes or put forth any effort. i'm kind of applying librarian-logic here: if i give the student the book or article they need for their project right now, they are more likely to come back and make the effort to learn more of what i can teach them. give them a fish or two, then they see the value in learning how to fish on their own.

i couldn't begin to tell folks what to do past that novice level, though! but we all have specialties, areas we've read up on, skills we're learning that are more advanced. i think at first this would be a project where we put together some strategies in a way that people here could share with people in their lives who are more stuck?

when you get into these areas, it is easy to forget how life-changing some of the first and most simple changes can be for someone who is where i was 7 or 8 years ago, living on vending machine food, diet soda and useless RX's, watching hours of cable tv "news" every day, and wondering why i felt so unhealthy and angry and stupid all the time.

i think a lot of us make the mistake of trying to debate family, friends, whomever, into doing something to save themselves (and all of us) by *first* making a philosophical argument for WHY to do it? "listen, mom, Peak Oil, Bird Flu, yadda yadda" and mom just shakes her head 'cause she already knows you are The Black Sheep of her family! but if you can skip that part, find some other lever...that actually *gets* mom to change something, then the rest of it will come along naturally.

so anyway, more like the 12-step for the NON-Doomers in your life, first. when it gets more advanced, then the experts can take over!

thoughts?

YOU MUST START DOING THIS IMMEDIATELY!

Start a new thread! Put it in General Discussion or something.

Set up what you're doing. When you think it's time, post a new list. I love the idea of 1-3 things at a time.

People can chime in with how they're doing, more suggestions, or ask for moral support!

Not exactly a LATOC 12-step or anything. Just a new step. Or company for those on the path.

[Chesyre]

nothing like a catastrophe to get people to reorient their idiotologies, people in the zurich of the middle east sure as fuck were not thinking about BAU when the explosions started and kept on coming for the last few decades.  barring that people will be stuck in BAU mindsets until something forces them not to be.

[Librarian]

oh, don't get me wrong here, i'm no Pollyanna, and i don't disagree with your take on it, Chesyre.

but there *are* at least SOME people who *might* do things a BIT differently now, before anyone starts bombing them, that *might* make them better equipped to behave like humans if and when the s truly h's the f in their neighborhood. personally, i'd prefer to maximize that number where i live. call it a purely selfish survival strategy on my part.

i think this is what they mean by triage. realistically, it may already be too late--We May Already Be The Losers.

but it does the soul some good to at least try, even if what difference you can make in the end won't be enough.

pretty much ALL the people i know and love personally in this world fall into that BAU category, even the most insightful and educated ones are in denial. so, i do what i can. i'll wait and let reality convince them i was right all along. meanwhile, i'm looking to trick them into prepping anyhow, so at least we've got something to work with, should it come to that.

(okay, maybe there IS a little Pollyanna still, hiding deep inside my angry, cynical exterior! WRAWRRR!!!)

nothing like a catastrophe to get people to reorient their idiotologies, people in the zurich of the middle east sure as fuck were not thinking about BAU when the explosions started and kept on coming for the last few decades.  barring that people will be stuck in BAU mindsets until something forces them not to be.

[IndianGirl]

The cure for karma is dharma, so immediately find a way to directly help one person in third world slavery conditions. 


+1 to the joewp, also.

Anything u can do to help is welcome - by all third world slaves...

BTW - Us thirdworld slaves are actually benefitted by the NIKE's of the world - 8 dollars a day is decent low income survival money here...don't feel guilty - feel proud that the nike's u buy are helping some third world slave educate his children..so that some day they can grow up and buy their own nike's...

[jerrypenguin]

The cure for karma is dharma, so immediately find a way to directly help one person in third world slavery conditions. 


+1 to the joewp, also.

Anything u can do to help is welcome - by all third world slaves...

BTW - Us thirdworld slaves are actually benefitted by the NIKE's of the world - 8 dollars a day is decent low income survival money here...don't feel guilty - feel proud that the nike's u buy are helping some third world slave educate his children..so that some day they can grow up and buy their own nike's...

Are you implying that the third world slave cannot purchase Nike's from their company store?

[Madnsassy]

This thread reminds me of a situation many years ago.  I had been in a pretty serious car accident, in the hospital 2 mos., two surgeries, broken bones, etc.  So, after getting out of the hospital, my brother invited me to spend some time in New Hampshire (I was living in Boston at the time) with him and his girlfriend.  This was in the late 70's and they were WAY ahead of the curve in energy conservation.  I was/am a smoker, so because I was not very mobile, they relegated me to a back room in this very large farmhouse.  That was okay, (even though they both smoked pot anywhere in the house when they wanted.)  There were lots of rules about when to flush the toilet, using kerosene lanterns in the evenings, etc., all of which I thought were reasonable and actually I was quite impressed by their awareness.

But, the first time I hobbled out to make a cup of tea, the girlfriend said, oh, we don't use the stove to heat water until we are ALL ready for a cup of tea.  Can't waste energy, you understand of course?  So, I said, "okay, would anyone like a cup of tea?"  They each said, "No."

Not sure what point I'm making, but this memory just popped into my head.     Oh, and I called my roommate and asked if he'd mind fetching me back to the city the next day.   

[IndianGirl]

well- the 8 dollars a day is better spent on food clothing housing and some of the other stuff...u know we tend to be be rather basic here..and we get the same nike without the logo for peanuts - who wants the logo..

[annapurna]

well- the 8 dollars a day is better spent on food clothing housing and some of the other stuff...u know we tend to be be rather basic here..and we get the same nike without the logo for peanuts - who wants the logo..

If you go to places like Pokhara and Boudha in Nepal you will see new, beautiful houses being built - many of them have the Kalachakra symbol or a Buddhist flag flying on the roof. Most are owned by Sherpas who have become one of the most prosperous groups in Nepal doing rough, dangerous, some say demeaning work carrying Westerners' gear (and sometimes the Westerners themselves) up mountains for $20/day. When families pool their resources even what we see as 'peanuts' can provide a much better life than they could afford otherwise. 

[onemintomidnight]

need all that often. 

23 years of brainwashing up against one year of baby-step enlightenment, this will take a while.

That is a brilliant line....i will have to remind my self of this every day....many times a day.

[Katz]

Consumer electronics and clothing are small expenses in the grand scheme of things. Focus on life's big expenses:

Housing.
Food.
Energy and utilities.
Transportation.
Health.
Education (variable).

These are the big money sinks and tend to be locally produced to some degree.