Take Responsibility
You and You alone have control over who you are, where you are and what you are doing. Take that control.
Take responsibility.
Word has reached us that our home, the only one we have, is in jeopardy. What could be more urgent than the effort to sustain it? And yet everywhere we look the indicators point contrariwise.
The irony of this predicament from the perspective of the so-called consumer nations, is that the pressure of ever-increasing GDP, jobs-growth, etc... along with it’s exponential destabilization of planetary resources, gives the lie to the goals it advertises: it is clearly not happiness fueling this spiral of demand, it being a well-documented fact that this persistent increase in personal wealth is not commensurate with any increase in personal fulfillment; nor is it a credible fear of real need, but an abject prestige anxiety that not to join this self-defeating competition would be to fail. Perhaps it is the fear of waking up one morning with no one telling one what to do?
In light of the above, we see no reason why we should not think for ourselves, finding happiness where it is actually to be found: in the unmediated processes of the social rather than this tiresome redundancy of lack where desire merely chases the tail of a failed imagination. The political has now encroached into the space of almost every decision. Let us begin then to decide in our own best interest, which is to say, is in the interest of us all.
Here are some of our motivating concerns:
Treatment of Animals:
"In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought."
— Isaac Bashevis Singer
— Isaac Bashevis Singer
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
- Henry Beston
Poverty:
We STRONGLY advise that you click this LINK and watch this video. The perspective given by the individual interviewed beautifully reflects and expresses our philosophy regarding poverty and human nature.
Global Warming:
Ethical Shopping (Watch what you buy)
When you buy something, you are speaking to companies directly as a consumer. It is for this reason that it is important to stay away from products that do not reflect your own ethics. It is in a business' interest not to disclose unethical practices, so discerning what goes on behind closed doors can be difficult. Don't let this dissuade you from doing your homework about products and companies. There are many environmentally friendly companies that promote high values and wish to treat humans and non-human animals alike as friends, not commodities.
http://www.foodincmovie.com/
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
http://www.ethical.org.au
The Ethical Consumer Guide gives you the low-down on the environmental and social record of companies behind common brand names. Shop at the supermarket with a clear conscience!
The Ethical Consumer Guide gives you the low-down on the environmental and social record of companies behind common brand names. Shop at the supermarket with a clear conscience!
http://www.thesavedplanet.com.au/
The Saved Planet is a Green Directory for Australia. On this useful and informative site you can find a glossary of terms, green tips, green shops, green brands, green products and even green services. GO GREEN!
http://search.caringconsumer.com/
http://www.caringconsumer.com/resources_charities.asp
Money is human happiness in the abstract: he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes his heart entirely to money.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
- Arthur Schopenhauer