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Boycotts not Bombs, or How to Crash the Economy and Save Our Lives
An open letter to the Islamic and Arab world...
by Rob Freeman
16 November 2003
(Legal notice: In saying "don't send money to Bush and Sharon" I am of course not advocating breaking the law. I am aware that it is illegal under U.S. law to boycott Israel, and I am not advocating breaking the law, therefore, in saying this, it is a figure of speech and not a specific incitement to boycott Israel.)
Let me begin by saying that I am not scolding the vast majority of Muslims or Arabs for terrorism. What I am scolding you for, especially those of you who live in the U.S. and in Europe, is failing to do every bit of passive, peaceful resistance that is available to you, and I promise to go into detail later in this article. Just don't dismiss me until you read to the end, and if you like it, please pass it on to any newsgroup or list or web page that you please. Remember, there are six million Muslims in the USA, representing tens of billions of dollars of purchasing power.
The second prefatory point I want to make is that I understand that what's happening in Iraq is not terrorism, but rather guerilla resistance. It breaks my heart to see U.S. soldiers killed, but using bombs and grenade launchers against an occupying military force IS NOT TERRORISM. It's war, simple as that. The fighters of both sides are not villains, but victims of the U.S. civilian leadership.
We need to save American soldiers, and we need to save Arabs and Muslims from this violence. To do this we have to strike the root of the problem, and not with physical violence, but rather with all-encompassing economic resistance.
I am not a principled pacifist. My only problem with physical violence is that it won't work outside of a military occupation situation. I'm not a big fan of Jews, but I don't think the synagogue bombings in Turkey accomplished a damn thing. On the other hand, suicide bombings in Occupied Palestine seem to be working, but again, that's because they are under military occupation. When soldiers are shooting rock throwing kids in the groin, then violent resistance is not terrorism; it's simply guerilla warfare.
One final prefatory remark; White people as a whole aren't doing everything they could be doing either. I'm working on them, but believe me, I understand that too many of us who don't like the war are still failing to take up all possible economic resistance. But there are many Arabs and Muslims who are aware of the problems, and are frustrated enough to do something, which is why I am writing this letter to you. Perhaps even six million of you would get involved to some degree or another. The Jews are already afraid of the demographic power of the Muslims in the U.S. They will have much more to fear if you begin economic resistance.
The System, the Establishment, the U.S.-Israel Axis, the neo-conservative cabal, whatever you want to call it, that is murdering U.S. soldiers and Arabs/Muslims, that is getting us to murder each other, is dependent on our daily economic support.
There's no point in trying to figure out which large corporations are "good" and which ones aren't. Corporations are a mindless, amoral force, but a powerful force -- the most powerful force in the world. And since the System has a tight grip on power, the corporations all over the world follow in lockstep with whatever the System wants.
Since we blindly consume, corporations don't need to be afraid of us. They can take us for granted, but they can't take the System for granted. Our only hope for ANY political power is to make the corporations more afraid of us than they are of the System.
I got a clue as to the unused power of the consumer from the case of the Japanese. The Japanese have an average savings of 250,000 dollars. The Japanese economy was supposed to be suffering because Japanese weren't spending enough. The Japanese government actually handed out money to the Japanese people and begged them to go buy something! Whenever the government is begging the people to take some action, you know there is something unusual going on, something that needs to be studied.
There are a lot of things we will need to purchase no matter what. We certainly aren't going to be making our own shaving razors, or fabricating bicycles for ourselves. However, many consumer goods can be purchased second hand, or not at all. I will get to the "not at all" idea a bit later.
There are many things we purchase every day that we could be producing ourselves. You have to go after the easiest things first, and the most obvious is food.
In America, food has come under the Industrial model of production. Food is treated just like widgets or gadgets -- produced centrally and then distributed via trucks. This is a very stupid model for food, but that's not the point I am making.
The point I am making is that we all need to boycott corporate food. This is both possible and desirable. You will save several thousand dollars a year, and if millions of you do that, and you expand the number of people who practice this in your own community, it will eventually crash the agribusiness, advertising, and food retail sector of the US economy. It will also enrich you, since you will save money and will trade amongst yourselves. You should be buying bread and cheese and butter and vegetables from each other, keeping money in the community.
Bringing commerce back to the local level will have the effect of creating more political awareness. Economic transactions are an opportunity for human contact. If you are working at the local supermarket giant, you don't have the freedom to say anything bad about the System or the War on Terrorism -- you might get fired. If you work for yourself, even if it's a part-time business after you come home from your day job and on weekends, you can say anything you damn well please! Do you understand the implications of this? Economic liberation must be accomplished before we will have political liberation, and this is how to begin.
When you help your neighbors save money, they will open their minds and hearts to what you have to say. I'm not saying to convert them to Islam, but rather just to take a more active role in peacefully resisting the U.S. government. They need not be Muslims. I'm not advocating intimate contact with people who are alien to you, but you should replicate economic resistance to whoever is open minded to it, and for whatever motives. Take an extreme situation -- if you have a neighbor who is poor but hates Muslims, perhaps you could show him how to save money and not buy from the supermarket. If you succeed in this, you will have used him to contribute to the cause of peace and he will never know it. I have observed that Muslims have a somewhat aloof manner with us "infidels" and I respect that, as I too am a separatist after my own fashion. But you need to overcome shyness and aloofness just enough to replicate economic resistance WHEREVER AND WHENEVER POSSIBLE. The beginnings of a mass political movement must start with our taking back our economy wherever we can do so.
It means work. This sort of work must be your joy, your sport, your hobby, your passion. When you are planting a large garden, or dehydrating vegetables and fruits, or making your own bread and cheese that didn't go through System middlemen, you are punching a nail into the coffin of the System. When you go to the supermarket, you are sending money to Bush and Sharon. Simple as that.
You will need to purchase a Kitchenaid mixer and a grain mill attachment for it, which you can find on http://www.ebay.com and an Excalibur food dehydrator from http://www.drying123.com or from Ebay.
It all depends on your diet, and the diet of those around you, so I will be as extensive as possible, and of course you ignore whatever doesn't apply to you. Here's a sample of what's out there and what you can be doing:
Butter http://webexhibits.org/butter/doityourself.html
Cheese http://www.cheesemaking.com/default-cPath-85.php
Mayonnaise http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/relais/techniques/sauces/mayonnaise.htm
Bread http://www.breadrecipe.com/default.asp
Join a local Community supported agriculture in your area -- you will find one here: http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/csa/csastate.htm
The CSA will offer you either a cash share or a work share for a share of the harvest. I can tell you from experience that even though you pick up your harvest share only about 20 weeks a year, they give you so much that you can dehydrate and or root-cellar the surpluses and have fruits and vegetables and preserves year round. The CSA will support the farmer and that's about it. No money to Bush or Sharon, more money for you. And if al-Qaeda makes a really good go of it and knocks out America's infrastructure, you will have a better chance of not starving to death than your average supermarket consumer.
If you have money, for heaven's sake buy up some rural land and start a CSA farm of your own. If you don't like manual labor, find some unemployed guys who do. There's a huge reserve of unemployed out there who will be damned glad to have a job.
As far as finding a source for locally produced milk and eggs, contact the people at http://www.nofa.org if you are in New England, or just approach the local dairy and egg farms. They are around, though dwindling,and they need your patronage. Don't be shy, and if you are in New England and want some help with any aspect of this project, don't hesitate to contact me at rfreez@gte.net.
As far as consumer goods that we can't produce for ourselves, here are a few suggestions. A lot of people in the Western world, including Arabs and Muslims who immigrate here, spend money on junk to entertain themselves. Yes, I have seen it. I have done work for Muslims and seen Disney videos on their shelf. As an American who is very familiar with the problems associated with being an American, the way out of this is to take up high-effort activities such as playing your own music, martial arts, art, or outdoor activities such as bicycling, roller blading, hiking, fishing, and reading history. If you are still bored after all this, you aren't trying hard enough. There are an infinite number of things to do that are more interesting than Disney videos and movies and mall walking. Take it from a former "TV baby." Anything you buy at a department store or mall, ask yourself, "Do I really need it?" and "Could I get it cheaper secondhand from eBay?"
If you continue to take the path of least resistance and go to the supermarket and send your money to Bush-Sharon, then don't whine about the so called war on terror, or racial profiling of Muslims. If you read this and don't take action, well then you might as well join the Paul Wolfowitz fan club.
ROB FREEMAN
An open letter to the Islamic and Arab world...
by Rob Freeman
16 November 2003
(Legal notice: In saying "don't send money to Bush and Sharon" I am of course not advocating breaking the law. I am aware that it is illegal under U.S. law to boycott Israel, and I am not advocating breaking the law, therefore, in saying this, it is a figure of speech and not a specific incitement to boycott Israel.)
Let me begin by saying that I am not scolding the vast majority of Muslims or Arabs for terrorism. What I am scolding you for, especially those of you who live in the U.S. and in Europe, is failing to do every bit of passive, peaceful resistance that is available to you, and I promise to go into detail later in this article. Just don't dismiss me until you read to the end, and if you like it, please pass it on to any newsgroup or list or web page that you please. Remember, there are six million Muslims in the USA, representing tens of billions of dollars of purchasing power.
The second prefatory point I want to make is that I understand that what's happening in Iraq is not terrorism, but rather guerilla resistance. It breaks my heart to see U.S. soldiers killed, but using bombs and grenade launchers against an occupying military force IS NOT TERRORISM. It's war, simple as that. The fighters of both sides are not villains, but victims of the U.S. civilian leadership.
We need to save American soldiers, and we need to save Arabs and Muslims from this violence. To do this we have to strike the root of the problem, and not with physical violence, but rather with all-encompassing economic resistance.
I am not a principled pacifist. My only problem with physical violence is that it won't work outside of a military occupation situation. I'm not a big fan of Jews, but I don't think the synagogue bombings in Turkey accomplished a damn thing. On the other hand, suicide bombings in Occupied Palestine seem to be working, but again, that's because they are under military occupation. When soldiers are shooting rock throwing kids in the groin, then violent resistance is not terrorism; it's simply guerilla warfare.
One final prefatory remark; White people as a whole aren't doing everything they could be doing either. I'm working on them, but believe me, I understand that too many of us who don't like the war are still failing to take up all possible economic resistance. But there are many Arabs and Muslims who are aware of the problems, and are frustrated enough to do something, which is why I am writing this letter to you. Perhaps even six million of you would get involved to some degree or another. The Jews are already afraid of the demographic power of the Muslims in the U.S. They will have much more to fear if you begin economic resistance.
The System, the Establishment, the U.S.-Israel Axis, the neo-conservative cabal, whatever you want to call it, that is murdering U.S. soldiers and Arabs/Muslims, that is getting us to murder each other, is dependent on our daily economic support.
There's no point in trying to figure out which large corporations are "good" and which ones aren't. Corporations are a mindless, amoral force, but a powerful force -- the most powerful force in the world. And since the System has a tight grip on power, the corporations all over the world follow in lockstep with whatever the System wants.
Since we blindly consume, corporations don't need to be afraid of us. They can take us for granted, but they can't take the System for granted. Our only hope for ANY political power is to make the corporations more afraid of us than they are of the System.
I got a clue as to the unused power of the consumer from the case of the Japanese. The Japanese have an average savings of 250,000 dollars. The Japanese economy was supposed to be suffering because Japanese weren't spending enough. The Japanese government actually handed out money to the Japanese people and begged them to go buy something! Whenever the government is begging the people to take some action, you know there is something unusual going on, something that needs to be studied.
There are a lot of things we will need to purchase no matter what. We certainly aren't going to be making our own shaving razors, or fabricating bicycles for ourselves. However, many consumer goods can be purchased second hand, or not at all. I will get to the "not at all" idea a bit later.
There are many things we purchase every day that we could be producing ourselves. You have to go after the easiest things first, and the most obvious is food.
In America, food has come under the Industrial model of production. Food is treated just like widgets or gadgets -- produced centrally and then distributed via trucks. This is a very stupid model for food, but that's not the point I am making.
The point I am making is that we all need to boycott corporate food. This is both possible and desirable. You will save several thousand dollars a year, and if millions of you do that, and you expand the number of people who practice this in your own community, it will eventually crash the agribusiness, advertising, and food retail sector of the US economy. It will also enrich you, since you will save money and will trade amongst yourselves. You should be buying bread and cheese and butter and vegetables from each other, keeping money in the community.
Bringing commerce back to the local level will have the effect of creating more political awareness. Economic transactions are an opportunity for human contact. If you are working at the local supermarket giant, you don't have the freedom to say anything bad about the System or the War on Terrorism -- you might get fired. If you work for yourself, even if it's a part-time business after you come home from your day job and on weekends, you can say anything you damn well please! Do you understand the implications of this? Economic liberation must be accomplished before we will have political liberation, and this is how to begin.
When you help your neighbors save money, they will open their minds and hearts to what you have to say. I'm not saying to convert them to Islam, but rather just to take a more active role in peacefully resisting the U.S. government. They need not be Muslims. I'm not advocating intimate contact with people who are alien to you, but you should replicate economic resistance to whoever is open minded to it, and for whatever motives. Take an extreme situation -- if you have a neighbor who is poor but hates Muslims, perhaps you could show him how to save money and not buy from the supermarket. If you succeed in this, you will have used him to contribute to the cause of peace and he will never know it. I have observed that Muslims have a somewhat aloof manner with us "infidels" and I respect that, as I too am a separatist after my own fashion. But you need to overcome shyness and aloofness just enough to replicate economic resistance WHEREVER AND WHENEVER POSSIBLE. The beginnings of a mass political movement must start with our taking back our economy wherever we can do so.
It means work. This sort of work must be your joy, your sport, your hobby, your passion. When you are planting a large garden, or dehydrating vegetables and fruits, or making your own bread and cheese that didn't go through System middlemen, you are punching a nail into the coffin of the System. When you go to the supermarket, you are sending money to Bush and Sharon. Simple as that.
You will need to purchase a Kitchenaid mixer and a grain mill attachment for it, which you can find on http://www.ebay.com and an Excalibur food dehydrator from http://www.drying123.com or from Ebay.
It all depends on your diet, and the diet of those around you, so I will be as extensive as possible, and of course you ignore whatever doesn't apply to you. Here's a sample of what's out there and what you can be doing:
Butter http://webexhibits.org/butter/doityourself.html
Cheese http://www.cheesemaking.com/default-cPath-85.php
Mayonnaise http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/relais/techniques/sauces/mayonnaise.htm
Bread http://www.breadrecipe.com/default.asp
Join a local Community supported agriculture in your area -- you will find one here: http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/csa/csastate.htm
The CSA will offer you either a cash share or a work share for a share of the harvest. I can tell you from experience that even though you pick up your harvest share only about 20 weeks a year, they give you so much that you can dehydrate and or root-cellar the surpluses and have fruits and vegetables and preserves year round. The CSA will support the farmer and that's about it. No money to Bush or Sharon, more money for you. And if al-Qaeda makes a really good go of it and knocks out America's infrastructure, you will have a better chance of not starving to death than your average supermarket consumer.
If you have money, for heaven's sake buy up some rural land and start a CSA farm of your own. If you don't like manual labor, find some unemployed guys who do. There's a huge reserve of unemployed out there who will be damned glad to have a job.
As far as finding a source for locally produced milk and eggs, contact the people at http://www.nofa.org if you are in New England, or just approach the local dairy and egg farms. They are around, though dwindling,and they need your patronage. Don't be shy, and if you are in New England and want some help with any aspect of this project, don't hesitate to contact me at rfreez@gte.net.
As far as consumer goods that we can't produce for ourselves, here are a few suggestions. A lot of people in the Western world, including Arabs and Muslims who immigrate here, spend money on junk to entertain themselves. Yes, I have seen it. I have done work for Muslims and seen Disney videos on their shelf. As an American who is very familiar with the problems associated with being an American, the way out of this is to take up high-effort activities such as playing your own music, martial arts, art, or outdoor activities such as bicycling, roller blading, hiking, fishing, and reading history. If you are still bored after all this, you aren't trying hard enough. There are an infinite number of things to do that are more interesting than Disney videos and movies and mall walking. Take it from a former "TV baby." Anything you buy at a department store or mall, ask yourself, "Do I really need it?" and "Could I get it cheaper secondhand from eBay?"
If you continue to take the path of least resistance and go to the supermarket and send your money to Bush-Sharon, then don't whine about the so called war on terror, or racial profiling of Muslims. If you read this and don't take action, well then you might as well join the Paul Wolfowitz fan club.
ROB FREEMAN