Redemption Song

Okay, reading the last post, I can come off as blaming Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola and restaurants and mega-factory-farms and ...

Okay, this, this shit that we're all mired in, it isn't any of their fault.

It's our fault.

Look, Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola and McDonalds and your local Irish Pub, and, and ... sbux (Oh, God, I'm crying!) are in business to make money, and they make money by serving us what we want, and the successful businesses are the best servers.

So. It's not their fault I satiate my tongue with salt and sugar until I desensitize it. They are just giving me what I want, and when I want more, they give me more. If not them, then somebody else would step up and serve me, because, God-damn-it, it's my American-born right to be pleasured, and right now, at that.

Oh, and to be clear, I'm not writing this footnote to defend Corporate American, Inc, nor am I writing it because I'm afraid of being sued by them.

The ones who are afraid are them, not me.

First of all, if they sued me, they'd lose their shirts in legal fees.

But that doesn't give me carte blanch (that is Latin) to slander: if I want to be responsible (for, like, my health), well, responsibility is everywhere in my life, and I can't say that it's McDonalds fault for the diabetes epidemic.

Nobody forced me to supersize my order, nor even order in the first place.

And, in fact, these corporations, following the profit motive (because if they don't, then they won't be corporations for long), also are good citizens, like I try to be, too.

After all: I don't own foundations to assist orphans or save polar bears or any of that.

But they do.

So, they are there, and they serve the mass of people, and they serve them very well, indeed, and are justly, or magnificently, compensated for it.

And I still want to have a choice in my life as to what I put into (any part of) my body.

How can I do that with these megaliths overshadowing everything?

Easy. You live in the city, like I do? Easy.

There are nooks everywhere. Restaurants cater to their clientele. So: live a little. Go to a hole in the wall ethnic place and do a quick check of the patrons. More than 50% white? Well, they are now catering to middle America. Move on.

But if you go to an Afghani place, and there are all locals there, or if you go to a Vietnamese place, and they're all Vietnamese, or if you go to a Korean place, and they are all Han.

Then you're onto something. Something good.

Then, ... well, usually it's a mistake to ask the waitress what to get in these places, and here's why.

She'll look at you (at me), and say, 'Hm, white girl wants ...' and suggest something vomitous that one of the usuals wouldn't be caught dead eating.

No, you're American, you're rude, by definition, so: use it.

Point to the next table and say, 'I'll have what they're having.'

If the waitress looks shocked and says, 'No, no! You no like that!'

Then you've probably struck gold.

Or you'll hate it, but at least you tried something you never tried before.

That's a win in my book, either way.

USUALLY you strike gold.

I went to an Afghani place, and said I wanted a pita sandwich, and the owner said, 'No, you want the lamb kabab!'

And I was like, incensed! but then I saw all the patrons eating kababs, so I was like, okay, you're the boss.

He was. SO. RIGHT!

Okay, that's the city: eat the real ethnic food.

But you say you don't live in the city.

Sister, then you've won, big time.

You do have a farm near you, did you know you can order directly from them?

You win.

And then, your yard? All that space, that city dweller me doesn't have.

Just try a 6-sq foot garden, just start it, and then, a year later, you'll be like, '`phfina, you can't touch me for the food I make, and it's so easy to do. Why aren't you doing it?'

Yes, there's a McDonalds and Walmart in your town, or tri-town area, but just because you don't have a Thai restaurant or whatever, you're not deprived. You, too, don't have to go to McDonalds nor Walmart to get everything you need, when you can go to your local farm or you can be your local farm, for goodness sake!

You know, I think, part of the reason for this food-crisis we're having, is because we are so blessed with bounty, we don't even see the beautiful because the plentiful satiates then dulls our senses.

All you have to do to see is to take a wee bit of time, and to look, and to see.

... and then, when you see beauty, to be grateful for what you've seen.

We are not slaves to Corporate America, Inc, nor to Gov't regulation ... they are so big and grand, and care about the little mouse that is me insofar only as much as it can get me to give myself, my body, and my mind to them, so they can continue to exist.

That's why Corporate America, Inc, is afraid, and always will be: they are there to serve, and nobody knows that better than them, even little me, a (willing) Corporate slave of one of them, didn't get that until now.

Their jobs, their existence depends, always depends on a happy consumer.

So, we don't get all Fight Club on them. We don't need to.

An educated consumer? The one who says, "Hm, I want to taste the taste of tomato in my sandwich, not this bland cardboard taste"?

Who votes with his feet?

One of them?

Pfft! Who cares!

But one becomes two, and two, three, and three, more, and more, a movement, and that's how sbux started, one cup at a time. That's how Whole Foods started, that's how Walmart, that's how all of them started.

And that's good.

And that works well enough.

And then, there are the people who stand up, and say, "I am going to make that sandwich I want to eat."

And that's how 5 guys started, and now they are growing across the country.

And you read this, and you say, "But not me."

You say that. "Oh, I can't write like you." "Oh, I can manage a restaurant, but I can't own one and sell the food I already make with my own hands because ..." or "Oh, I'm not going to vote for any of the candidates: they are all crooks."

But what about you? Forget the 'if not you, then who?'

Forget that.

Just this: the next time you say 'If I were running this country, ...'

Or: "Who's the manager here, do you call this service?"

Or ... whenever you're not getting served the way you want...

Do you know people are paying good money, feeling exactly as you do, and they are willing to pay 8x the price they are paying for a cup of coffee made the way they really want it, not that dishwater they are drinking right now.

Or WHATEVER it is that you are settling for as a consumer.

Are you going to live a 'settled for' life?

Yes, you are. But now you know that you are settling for, every day, several times a day, you do settle for.

Knowledge, ... sight, ... is a beautiful, cursed thing. Because you see now what you see, and what you do with it: you either leave well enough alone and settle for 'Well, that's the way things are, ...'

Or, you're going to plant the first apple seed on your walk across the country,
Or, you're going to design clothes that are both elegant and comfortable and fashionable and affordable,
Or, you're going to run for State senate, and lose, and then, like Lincoln, run for President: the first woman President of the United States: you,

... and change the world.

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Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our mind
Woh, have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fullfill the book
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs

BOB MARLEY - REDEMPTION SONG