Choosing a place to begin is the hardest bit about this because there are so many injustices that it's hard to choose which one is most important. Let's start with the environment. If a person ate at mcdonalds every day and used tap water they would defend that until their death because that is how they know to survive. If a person lived off their land and used water from a stream every day, they would defend their means of living just as well because that is how they know to survive. What we know and what we are told go hand in hand as we are constantly bombarded with information from our communities, peers, television, magazines, etc. When a person lives in an environment where they are only told that they would be happier IF they had this and this and this, then that message is drilled into their brains. It's an easy concept to follow. But what about the concept of ones environment? Why are we destroying the only place we can live in? Because certain people succeed in financial gain? Because the people being used at the bottom don't know any better to revolt? Oil companies will do anything within and out of their means to drill every fucking drop of oil available on this planet. At the expense of the planet. Off-shore drilling has resulted in some of the worst man-inflicted damage to our environment. 200 million barrels of oil were leaked in to the gulf coast last may. Did the government mandate any sort of regulations as to what is required when a company drills off-shore? Fuck no. Why? It means more money they have to spend to insure the security of our coast, when in fact, the cost of cleaning up an oil spill of that size costs way more than putting a goddamn cap on the drill in the first place, not to mention 120 miles of the coast line lost business during travel season and thousands of birds, fish, sea turtles and dolphins died.
Why do we, the most intelligent species, treat the rest of the entire planet as our own personal property? Why do we force our animals into a holocaust within slaughterhouses just because we can? Just because they can't escape our greedy grasps, does that mean we should poison them, eat them and thrust them into extinction? And we don't just stop there. No, we take the slave labor we force upon animals and transfer it into the work place. Ever wonder why the clothes on your back or the items in your household are cheaper than you would ever sell them for if you had to supply them for sale yourself? Because people in India, Guatemala, China, Taiwan, Japan, Cambodia, etc all make your shit while they work overtime for a dollar a day and if they even think about reporting the negligence and dangerous work environment, then they are fired immediately and replaced. And don't think for a second that the faceless corporations who create factories in foreign countries to ship their products back to the U.S. treat their American employees much better. When a company like Walmart tells their employees they need to sign up for Medicade and Welfare programs it's because they will not pay you enough to survive off of, ESPECIALLY for the amount of work an employee does. But this my friends, is a capitalist society. It puts people like the Waltons on top and people who work at Walmart on the bottom. It's the American Dream. They tell you that one day you could be rich and famous and live a life of luxury if you follow the rules and do as you're told. What they don't tell you is that it's unsustainable and at the expense of others and your environment. Who needs an expensive car? Who needs a new car? Who needs carbon dioxide emissions giving them lung cancer and creating a world where there's less air to burn than there is gas. You do. Because it'll make you happy. It'll make you happy to live with the wife or husband you secretly despise with 2.5 children you desperately want to strangle in a large house in the suburbs with a white picket fence in back. It'll make you happy to never see the face of the child who carries a 40 pound bucket of water on their back miles across a rocky path barefoot twice a day so their family can stay hydrated because their country can't afford clean water. It'll make you happy to see the men and women too old to have to work, slugging around over-sized bags of food onto the shelves of your favorite "made in america" store. It'll make you happy to see a calf forced into a cramped, dark, compartment awaiting it's death. It'll make you happy to realize that you were the cause of your own demise.
Why do we, the most intelligent species, treat the rest of the entire planet as our own personal property? Why do we force our animals into a holocaust within slaughterhouses just because we can? Just because they can't escape our greedy grasps, does that mean we should poison them, eat them and thrust them into extinction? And we don't just stop there. No, we take the slave labor we force upon animals and transfer it into the work place. Ever wonder why the clothes on your back or the items in your household are cheaper than you would ever sell them for if you had to supply them for sale yourself? Because people in India, Guatemala, China, Taiwan, Japan, Cambodia, etc all make your shit while they work overtime for a dollar a day and if they even think about reporting the negligence and dangerous work environment, then they are fired immediately and replaced. And don't think for a second that the faceless corporations who create factories in foreign countries to ship their products back to the U.S. treat their American employees much better. When a company like Walmart tells their employees they need to sign up for Medicade and Welfare programs it's because they will not pay you enough to survive off of, ESPECIALLY for the amount of work an employee does. But this my friends, is a capitalist society. It puts people like the Waltons on top and people who work at Walmart on the bottom. It's the American Dream. They tell you that one day you could be rich and famous and live a life of luxury if you follow the rules and do as you're told. What they don't tell you is that it's unsustainable and at the expense of others and your environment. Who needs an expensive car? Who needs a new car? Who needs carbon dioxide emissions giving them lung cancer and creating a world where there's less air to burn than there is gas. You do. Because it'll make you happy. It'll make you happy to live with the wife or husband you secretly despise with 2.5 children you desperately want to strangle in a large house in the suburbs with a white picket fence in back. It'll make you happy to never see the face of the child who carries a 40 pound bucket of water on their back miles across a rocky path barefoot twice a day so their family can stay hydrated because their country can't afford clean water. It'll make you happy to see the men and women too old to have to work, slugging around over-sized bags of food onto the shelves of your favorite "made in america" store. It'll make you happy to see a calf forced into a cramped, dark, compartment awaiting it's death. It'll make you happy to realize that you were the cause of your own demise.
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