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what's with boycotting venezuelan oil? kingdoms are more politically palatable?
i can imagine some bizarre-o rationale for the venezuelan boycott--far right politics for one---but i ran across another point earlier in the thread that made no sense to me at all, so i'll ask about it:
where did the idea come from that sweatshops are good for workers and for the places they're located? what planet did it come from? what language was it in?
anyway: i don't have specific boycott actions that i carry out. i avoid industrial food whenever possible because i not only object to monsanto, cargill and dow, but also because i object to the entire production model they're part of. also for health reasons--flavor reasons as well. local sustainably produced food is a bit more expensive, is often a pain in the ass to get (depending on where you are) but it in general tastes better, if only because the distance separating the source from you is smaller. the food is raised to be consumed, not for shipment on trucks. industrial food is raised to be shipped over long distances without getting fucked up in the process. if, say, industrial tomatoes taste like something beyond wet paper, that's a side benefit. what's important is that most of these flavorless red things arrive without being bruised.
there's a problem of scale within "organic" or "sustainably produced" food that's more complicated than i initially thought, so while i prefer not to go to starbucks because i dislike the atmosphere, i don't oppose them for the procurement practices in quite the way i once did. they're not great, but at least they make a gesture (research the cafe system via their corporate website)---at the same time, they only get a small amount of their coffee via fair trade collectives, but they plaster the stickers all over everywhere. that's lame. that's starbucks. as flaccid as the music they hawk.
similar logic informs my refusal to shop at walmart--that plus i think they do in fact engage in a range of predatory practices, and their labor policies suck.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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