New Project: Chapter 24
Twenty Four
In the election’s aftermath, I watched scores of Facebook friends share ways to get involved, make a difference, and organize against the threat Trump presented. I witnessed protests, attended a few rallies, and even held a town hall meeting of my own. The call to action was strong and, for me, violence sang a siren’s song.
I wanted blood, wanted it to rain red, paint our cities the color of life lost and hope quenched, wanted it to wash away our arrogance, smug surety, and fear. As rural America took stock, hoped, and prayed, I drank, ate macaroni and cheese, raged and cried and counseled others to be strong, brave, and more than me.
I said, “We need to be our best selves.”
I said, “We need to focus locally and ensure that our community is resilient in the face of unknown, but certain, change.”
I said, “Would you really not help Mrs. Johnson, though her husband died last year and she recently underwent surgery, because she voted for Donald Trump?”
And I encouraged people to get off their social media and get to work.
And yet, even as I counseled, part of me wanted it all to collapse, wanted the crumbling infrastructure of a nation bloated with its own sense of self topple so that light and air and bright new seedlings might fill gaps in the rubble and we, reborn, might wonder like children at the world we’d wrought.
Then, with the nation collapsed, perhaps we could sing an anthem not of war, racism, or dominance, but of tolerance and economic change.
Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
To save a wretch like me…
Outcomes are always uncertain. We only control one thing. All the polls and pundits, economists and scientists and generals, presidents and senators, church leaders and community organizers wave their magic microphones and spin a version of a truth that’s supposedly written in stone, but seldom concretely proved.
We’re all just guessing, hoping, and trying desperately to carve some sense of purpose and direction, to rend from chaos a calm order that defies or justifies our inevitable mortality.
Get more. Get heaven. Get money. Get property. Get married. Get peace. Get free. Get respect. Get a drink.
I once was lost
But now I’m found
Was blind, but now I see.
Trump’s election may just pull the tourniquet off our collective wounds and blood may flow before we’ve cleansed and healed them. But, and I emphasize this, we have more power than we think. All of us. We are humanity. We have more in common than what divides us. We mostly want the same things. If we can look past our culture war and into our hearts, we know we are bigger than our fears. David Hume said, “Force is always on the side of the governed.”
In his book, Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order, Noam Chomsky furthered Hume’s sentiment by saying, “If people would realize that, they would rise up and overthrow the masters.” Hume and Chomsky concluded that government is founded on control of opinion, a principle that “extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.”
Economic independence is attainable. We can free ourselves from corporate control. Over time, and through political action, we may be able to secure some protection under the law, but that’s a long way off and, again, outside our direct control.
For all intents, the democracy we knew toppled in 2016. Our two party system showed itself to be hollow. America elected its first true Independent President and that man walked all over protocol as he prepared to take office.
However, his ascendancy is not that of Nero. Rome is not yet burning. We are, if we’ll allow ourselves to embrace it, already free. We have exponential amounts of empathy. We can harness these to build a model where equality is more than promise or possibility, but it’s going to take some risk, hard work, and courage.
All over the world, micro economies prove that different models are possible. We are not locked into a neo-liberal nightmare. We can’t be. As Naomi Klein says, “We are in the zero decade.” If we don’t act soon, we won’t be talking about anything beyond basic survival and that, too, may prove tenuous. Climate change is happening. It’s real and it will be catastrophic if we don’t arrest the raping and pillaging of our world.
When I first opened my store, I tried to be the least expensive option on just about everything I carried. I scanned my products on an Amazon app to ensure I remained competitive with the giant and worried constantly that my customers would leave if they discovered better prices elsewhere.
Then, about a year in, I saw a video produced by Eileen Fischer that depicted the travesty of Fast Fashion. Until then, I had never heard the term. I didn’t know that big retailers manufactured clothing designed to only last for a little while. Shoppers could stay in front of fashion trends without doing serious damage to their budget. What most shoppers don’t know, however, is that these clothes are terrible for the world. Fast Fashion is the second leading polluter (behind oil and gas) and is the number one employer of slave labor. Fast Fashion should be a crime.
Horrified, and unwilling to be a part of something so bad, I rethought my business strategy and vowed to shop with ethics and sustainability at the forefront of my buying decisions.
Prices in my store went up. They had to. If I was to sell products made by people receiving a fair wage, working in healthy environments, and making products from sustainable fabrics, I had to pay for it and so did my customers. The average price on merchandise went up fifty percent – from forty dollars to sixty.
I told customers what I was doing and why. Most stayed with me. Some didn’t, but I have to stay true to my moral compass and it’s my job to raise awareness where I can. The choice was worth the risk. I have fewer customers who buy fewer things, but we’re all doing what we can for the planet and the increase in price covered the loss of revenue from additional sales.
I can hear some of you screaming, “Privilege!” You’re right. I have it. I didn’t always. My life, too, has been one of intersections and being white has always helped me to take risks others can’t or won’t. Nevertheless, my privilege was taken, not granted. I made my place in this world and I didn’t do it by focusing on what I got or could get. I focused on what I had to give and how, and to whom, I could give it. That is something we all can do.
