Are You Willing To Sacrifice Convenience To Oppose A Genocidal And Ecocidal System?

At a certain point you have to ask yourself if you’re going to live your life in support of the system or in opposition to it. Whatever rewards that might be gained by supporting the system, it is hard to choose to support it once you’ve realized that the system is in opposition to the well-being of human beings, animals, and the very planet which enables our survival.

I am no hero, no martyr, no warrior. So for many years I hesitated to oppose the system, believing I must place my body on the tracks for me to do any good. But I’ve come to believe it is not the great symbolic actions that will change the world so much as the everyday behavior modifications we can each of us achieve. That we don’t need to lead a revolution but can work towards a lifestyle that does not feed a system we find repressive and destructive.

I look for ways to oppose a system that is altering our climate, find what ways I might withdraw my support for militarism. In such ways that I can find to step outside the system to work with my fellow humans to mutual benefit, I will. In such ways that I am able to sacrifice convenience for connection, I shall. In many ways, I do not feel as if I’m living under the same reality or rules as I did a decade ago. As wiser minds than mine have pointed out, the first step in liberating oneself is to liberate one’s mind.

So much of the existing hold the system has upon us boils down to a single motivating factor: convenience. How often do you hear someone utter sentiments such as: “I know I shouldn’t shop at X, but it’s so convenient.” Or “I know I shouldn’t use this product because it’s bad for the environment, but it’s so convenient.”

It is the same designed convenience that dictates the actions of livestock. Their surroundings are so constructed as to make obedience as easy as possible, even as they are herded towards the slaughterhouse.

What is this system that pens us in like animals and urges us forward to our own doom? It is an economy created to serve corporations, it is the placing of corporate profits above human needs. It is a determination that all actions must be based upon bringing the greatest possible wealth and control to those who are already the wealthiest and the most powerful.

Perhaps it can be argued that giving more wealth to the already wealthy provides greater wealth for us all. But it cannot be argued that giving more power to the most powerful among us provides more power to us all. Money is power, power is control, and control can only be given to some by taking it from others.

To suggest that we withdrawal support from such a system is not violence, nor is it bad behavior on our part. It is simply an exercise in free choice, the very basis upon which our democracy and even our free market are professedly founded. But when enough people are willing to exercise their free choice, then the system based on corporate dominance will demonstrate ITS bad behavior in response. When the barriers of convenience no longer serve to pen you in, the cattle prods will come out. And at that moment you will realize that although they wish to keep you subdued through convenience, they will use any means necessary. You will realize that subtle means of control, in the end, are still means of control, that you are mere livestock to those who value gold over love.

The system needs to be revealed for what it is. Oppose it in the very ways the system tells you are suitable ways of expressing your wishes, and the pleasant propaganda they use to color the situation as being something other than what it is will be discarded. At that point, it will be a lot easier for all of us to decide if the system that now rules over us is one we wish to support or oppose.