Does anyone else feel like the grocery
store has become a complex labyrinth of hidden evils to avoid?
I walk through the grocery store
talking to myself like, “Don’t choose that product, it’s got palm oil which is
destroying orangutan habitats! No, not that one! Look at all the plastic it’s
wrapped in…that will end up in the ocean! You can’t buy that, it was shipped
here from far away, think about the emissions involved in transport! That one
doesn’t say ‘cruelty free!’” It's exhausting.
Major corporations love the narrative
of consumer responsibility. It takes the pressure off of them to make
conscionable decisions and puts it on us instead.
The argument is: if you want to save
the planet, then don’t buy this product.
The argument is not: this product is
pure evil, let’s force corporations to stop manufacturing and selling it.
It’s our responsibility to spend time
researching which products yield the most greenhouse gasses, which companies
waste the most water, which corporations use underpaid child laborers working
in dangerous conditions, which products result in deforestation, which products
are packaged in nonrecyclable/nonbiodegradable wrappers, etc. Rather than make
it illegal for corporations to exploit people and destroy the environment, we
are expected to be hyper-educated and constantly vigilant about the intrinsic
harm built into each product.
We as consumers have accepted this
exhausting job of self-regulation rather than demand our government regulate
the corporations that are creating these products, and somehow this is
reasonable to us.
I see intelligent people throwing
around comments like this all the time:
Facebook comment from some girl on the Alt-National
Park page. She seems smart. She's certainly articulate. Is it not ok to
include her name? She posted this comment publicly so I feel like it's fine,
but I'm not sure how internet etiquette works. I'll leave it in there for
now.
|
Let’s compare two people, tell me who
is more at fault here:
Person 1: A single mother, rushing
through the grocery store after a stressful day at work. She has 15 minutes to
get groceries for dinner before she has to pick up her kids from school. She
has no time to read the labels. She is on a tight budget. She thoughtlessly
grabs the cheapest items, which also happen to be the non-environmentally
friendly options, throws them in her basket and speed walks to check out.
Person 2: A corporate CEO, making
decisions about how to run his company. He gets to decide where the raw
materials come from, where to dump the waste products, how much to pay his
employees, whether or not to exploit the low-paying labor of undocumented
immigrants and so on. He chooses to screw over poor people and trash
environment at every juncture so that he can make the product for cheap, sell
it at a high profit margin, give himself a raise, and hoard billions of dollars
in tax-free offshore bank accounts.
How is it not obvious to all of us
where the problem lies? Why are we blaming ourselves?
I downloaded a tool from the UN to
offer advice about what we can do to help fight climate change. The suggestions
are all alterations to the way we shop. There are colorful little reminders to
“buy local produce!” and “bring your own bag!”. None of these suggestions
involve demanding our legislators put regulations on major corporations that
stop them from lining their own pockets at the expense of the environment.
Why are we so afraid to limit
corporate power? Why is it easier to put the burden of guilt and responsibility
on the consumer?
Not only have we been manipulated into
believing that we are the problem, we've also been tricked into believing it
isn't our place to use the law to fight back. It used to be more common-place
for consumers to use legal avenues to protect themselves and others from harm
caused by corporations. A regular person could take legal action and sue a
major corporation. This wasn't frowned upon, it was glorified. In the 70’s the
unofficial motto of many environmental groups was “sue the bastards.” And it
worked. Many cases were brought to litigation and won, which limited corporate ability
to pollute the planet and harm people.
Corporations have hijacked that
narrative by launching PR campaigns to make it seem like everyday citizens who
take legal action are just petty free-loaders looking to make a quick buck.
It’s amazing how popular culture has
latched on to this notion and sided with corporations, rather than with the
individuals who were harmed by corporations. Probably the best example is the
hot coffee lawsuit against McDonald’s in 1994. According to popular
understanding, the hot coffee lawsuit was a frivolous money grab by a greedy
woman. I must admit, until recently, I also believed this dubious narrative
that McDonalds was somehow unfairly victimized by a 79-year-old woman from New
Mexico. But then I learned that after spilling a McDonald’s Coffee in her lap,
she had third degree burns all over her legs and genitals. Her surgeon said it
was one of the worst cases he had ever seen. She was hospitalized for 8 days
and needed a skin graft followed by 2 years of medical treatment. The coffee in
question was 190 degrees F, which is obviously a hazardous temperature; that’s
nearly boiling. Before this incident, there were over 700 formal complaints
from other McDonald’s customers who had also been burned, so the restaurant was
clearly aware that the coffee was dangerous.
The victim didn’t even want to bring
this case to court, she just wanted McDonalds to help with her $20,000 in
medical bills. McDonalds refused to settle so she took them to court and won,
rightfully. This should have been a heroic tale of a regular citizen who took
on a major corporation and forced them to make a safer product, but our
perspectives were hijacked and manipulated. McDonalds launched a PR campaign to
make this seem like a silly lawsuit from a greedy woman and we all bought into
it.
The worst part is that this very case
was used as a flash point for advocates of tort reform, a phrase I just learned.
Tort reform refers to “proposed changes in the civil justice system
that aim to reduce the ability of victims to bring litigation or to reduce
damages they can receive.”
WTF were we
thinking?! We all sided with McDonalds on this one? Really? And made it more
difficult for every day Americans to protect themselves from dangerous
products? What a huge mistake on our part.
It’s time to get
clear-eyed and take this narrative back. Everyday people with exorbitant
medical bills to pay are not the ones to accuse of excessive greediness and we
are not all equally to blame for the destruction of the environment and the
degradation of human lives, as corporate CEO's would have us think. They are
the greedy ones. They are the ones taking more than they need and putting us
all in danger.
Unregulated global
capitalism has become a real problem and we need to get it under control before
it causes even more irreparable damage than it already has. It’s clear that we
need regulations on corporations.
Here are a couple
of organizations that I believe are doing good work standing up to corporations
of behalf of the environment and putting pressure on politicians to take a
stance against climate change. Please consider making a donation:
Beyond that...what
else works? Anyone have some ideas for me? Does calling your representatives
work? I keep leaving messages for Ted Cruz and Roger Williams but I have no
idea if that actually does anything and if it doesn’t then I’d really like to stop
because I don’t having to talk to their smug aides. What kinds of actions are you
taking that you feel good about? Let me know in the comments or elsewhere.
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