Sunday 30 October 2016

Boycott consumerism



When a entire growth paradign is based on increasing desires endlessly, in the hearts of all, where can one begin to address the problems of inadequacy ?

  • Sivapriya Krishnan
    Not only desire...fear.. hypochondria..too 
  • Jagga Lalgudy
    That is where the advt & marketing professionals come in . WPP is the worst company in the world.
    Rab hai. Karma will not spare advt professionals. Need to check in garuda puranam what punishment is prescribed for such people. 
In a society where there is hunger, excessive display of wealth is a shame. It mocks at that hunger.
If you have to have a car, let it be a small car. If you have to have many clothes, let them be inexpensive. If you have to have a smartphone, let it be low budget.

14 Comments

  • Ananda Ganesh
    Well said.
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    • 5y
  • Jataayu B'luru
    Agreeable. See, this is the same as the *middle class* standard that I mentioned in my comment in my wall
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    • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      This is for starters. Till the last man is fed and clothed adequately no indulgence can be 'justified'. imo. We all do indulge, I do indulge, but at least I will not try to excuse myself.
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      • 5y
    • Naveen Manikandan Periasamy
      There are indulgences and compulsions of profession. If a mode of transport or equipment gets the work done faster then it has to be adopted and is not an indulgence.
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      • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      i am talking of indulgences.
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      • 5y
  • Venkatraman Raghupathi
    I have an Alto. I crave for a SUV, a Honda City.. I wear raymonds shirts and Ramraj cotton dhoti. I dream to buy Valentino Garavani, Burberry. I have InFocus M2 @4990. But I find Apple 7 more worth possessing. This is middle class dilemma. Hard to come out.
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    • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      i dont even know these terms ðŸ™‚ and i am middle class. to each his own.
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      • 5y
    • Prakash Thangavel
      I wanted to drive a german car (Audi/BMW)at least once in my life few years back and own swanky apt. But the price I have to pay to own these were horrible. I had to live in a city with horrible air, water and food, and pay way too much money for these overpriced, polluting vehicles and non sustainable house. To earn that money, both of us should be working and put our son in day care and have bad frozen food daily. I ditched these wishes, bought an alto, rented a small house in the outskirts and went to home town every weekend. And stopped watching TV. Now more content than ever, trying our luck with sustainable living, natural way of farming and traditional ways to avoid getting sick. Life is good and interesting in many ways than I thought possible.
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      • 5y
    • Afsan Chowdhury
      I am from Dhaka Bangladesh. All the middle class here wants to do is own a car. I don't own a car, never did and at 64 I am confident I never will. I am blessed I think because i never desired a car, a house, etc. To me this is exercising free choice. ðŸ˜ƒ
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      • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      That these values are not getting communicated as effectively as the values of individual irresponsible freedom is the collective failure.
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      • 5y
  • Vipin Sharma
    I beg to differ here, I believe that if you have earned it in a virtuous manner through your talents and hardwork, you can well splurge your moolah on such expensive toys and gizmos, but the problem is that hard earned money in most cases does not really allow you to splurge although Venkat is very right that it is the middle class craving these days to somehow own the most expensive and out of reach brands even if it has to be on credit. It is indeed a middle class dilemma, the lower classes do not have the access to such things and the higher classes cease to care after the initial craze for such things fades away, craving is indeed a middle class phenomena and it is the middle classes who are most likely to be trapped in an huge debt after all their cravings are satisfied.
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    • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      serves them right.
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      • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      if they can only want like the 'rich', and not relate to the poverty around them, they deserve to fall into debt traps and more.
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      • 5y
    • Vipin Sharma
      'Maya' or 'delusion' is the greatest tempter and ordinary mortals fall prey to the web of Maya and stay eternally trapped in the cycle of birth-life-death-re-birth, when one should crave only for liberation. Diamond studded crown worn Kings also end as ashes as well as weaker people also end as ashes and enjoin at a common place, still why humans forget this truth and swim in Maya, instead of falling at the divine feet of their Gurus who can help liberate them from this miserable endless cycle.





Aparna Krishnan October 30, 2015 at 3:36pm ·
We have failed in reaching out. It is a personal failure in our personal integrity that we do not inspire, and a failure in communication that we are not able to lead to collective questioning.

I was asking a friend how the Unilever boycott was proceeding, and if a vaster and vaster community was boycotting the products to bring them to making reparations. He shrugged, and said that getting people today to boycott a single corporate item is an impossible struggle.

Boycott is the simplest and most potent tool in the hands of people.

What led a nation to burn Manchester cloth, and adopt the rough khadi ? What happenned to the same country some six decades later ?
Mano Chinna History is neglected, not only by educational institutions but also by educationists. True, boycott is the simplest and most strongest tool in the hands of people. The change is possible through emotive communication processes. In the case of boycotting Uniliver, I think we are failing to show the potential alternative. For instance, in Tamil Nadu, Bovonto (Kali aerated water works) is being projected as potential alternative in order to boycott Pepsi and Coca Cola. Bovonto, being the local brand, was disappearing and now is reappearing.
Aparna Krishnan
Aparna Krishnan The alternatives to unilever products are very easy. And there were no great 'alternatives' to manchester cloth. people burnt it, and did what best they could. The kadhi was certianly not designer khadi !
Like · Reply · October 30, 2015 at 4:36pm
Mano Chinna
Mano Chinna Yes, alternatives to Uniliver are easy. But it is not just about providing people with potential alternatives. The life style needs to be decolonized. The impact of colonized mindset seems to be much more vigorous now than when English people were ruling us. The counter-hegemonic process has certainly begun. It takes time.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · October 30, 2015 at 5:30pm
 
Suraj Kumar Boycott is just a tool. It was effective back then when the enemy was clearly in sight. Now,people are too educated to see that only the power centers have changed but nothing fundamentally different than western philosophy dominates us.
Like · Reply · 1 · October 30, 2015 at 6:20pm
Narayanan Hariharan
Narayanan Hariharan The inevitable taste of consumerism killed the Khadi spirit from 1991, I guess
Like · Reply · October 30, 2015 at 7:27pm





Unless we simplify our lives completely, unless we reduce our dependence on industrial products, ours are the invisible hands that aimed the guns on the protestors in Thoothukudi.
We need to get to the heart of the matter. Industrulization. Consumerism. Our stakes in these.


Unless Industrilization, and its sibling Centralization are challenged, many more Sterlites wait in the wings. Our conumerism is both the root and the leaves.


All talk of renewable energy and green alternatives diverts us from the real issue.
The elephant in the room, we choose to ignore. Our overconsumption.
That we, the privileged, are sucking the earth dry. And need to reduce.
Drastically. Now.


One cannot live the "good life" and speak for justice.
The earth only provides for a basic for all. When we take more, we start the cycle of inequality, and malnourishment.

When one reaches the edge of the cliff, the only way forward is backwards.
Is Sterlite the edge of the cliff ?
Or will we wait for more Sterlites before facing our lifestyle based on Industrialization. And all the implications of that.


"Unless we as individuals, as communities and as a larger nation finally reduce our needs, and reject consumerism , and bring back austerity as a value , we might as well accept that every river will be destroyed and every poor community sacrificed. Otherwise we are simply entertaining ourselves by wailing together."



Those who live luxurious lives and yet 'fight for the rights of the poor'.
Do they really not see that it is only redistribution that is possible now and not any more drawing from the earth.
The earth has been mined and dammed well beyond her capacity. Groundwater is exhausted, the stratosphere is torn.
Can intellectual honesty be dulled at will, when one wishes to protect ones own pelf.

4 Comments

  • Aparna Krishnan
    Each of is overdrawing beyond our share. That basic intelligence tells us. Its our own soul we need to answer to, as we raise the bar - personally and collectively.
    •  When we see the poverty and malnourishment around us, we realize how much of our needs are 'excess', and how much of our share belongs elsewhere. And how much fear and greed is making us compromise with what is morally correct. It needs honesty, a brutal honesty to see ourselves. it does not need great intelligence.  It doesnt matter to me if others do or not. Thats not in my hands. These are finally spaces where we need to answer to ourselves.  And someday a public movement for austerity may happen. It did in Gandhi's time. An honest societal acknowlegement for the need for utter simplicity. So that others may also have simple needs met.

ltSdJpugoanes nshhso1rmeef6, 20std17g 
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To claim a full swimming pool in summer in an elite apartment complex. When the country reels withour water.
Is it brainlessness, or sheer selfishness ?
Arun Kombai, Karpagam Vinoth and 15 others
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9 Comments

  • Amalorpavanathan Joseph
    More.Sheer indifference
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    • 4y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      Their sense of entitlement baffles.
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      • 4y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      More baffling are those who while laying full claim on their excessive share of the pie, wtill also hold long intense discussions on the 'sad state of the poor farmer'.
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      • 4y
      • Edited
    • Aravinda Pillalamarri
      Aparna Krishnan who are "those?" they/we must beware lest our discussions become just more pie on our plates.
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      • 4y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      'Those' is each of us , the privileged, Aravinda. To greater or lesser extent.
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      • 4y
  • Naveen Manikandan Periasamy
    Reminds me of a scene in the 2007 movie Evano Oruvan starring Madhavan and directed by Seeman, where an MLA cuts the ribbon for a new swimming pool during a summer draught. Highly recommend it since you liked Pizza.
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    • 4y
  • Vidhya Subramaniyan
    Here whole pool water is heated , whole room around it is heated . every time I regret .
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    • 4y

Just saw a petition to ask Amazon to use less packing.
I thought how typical of the times this was.
Where we want our consumption and conveniences unchallenged, and still was to do that little something 'for the earth'. Like starting a petition.
The neighborhood shops is where I get all my things from. Groceries, clothes, cell phone charger. The shop lady/man survives, I survive. And also there is the human touch. Works better than Amazon ...
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