12 Months of Anti-Capitalist Resolutions
New Year's Resolutions- some people love them, some people hate them, some people start them and then quit. If you're looking for resolutions beyond fitness or learning a new language, here are twelve months of changes you can choose from to fight back against capitalism and make a more positive impact on workers and the environment.
Break Up With Slave Labor Treats, Starting With Nestle: If you boycott *any* company for *any* reason, you really need to be boycotting Nestle as well. Nestle has a long and sordid history of using child slave labor , water theft , and violating international baby food marketing regulations. It's easier than ever to find affordable fair trade substitutes for products like Tollhouse Chips. Start by avoiding products clearly labeled as Nestle; when you're ready to take it up a notch, download the Buycott app to help you avoid their subsidieries.
February: Break up with your bank, join a credit union. If for no other reason, the fact that major banks such as Chase buried studies about climate change to protect their profits is a good enough reason to make the switch. Plus, your local credit union benefits the community, not shareholders.
March: Join a Buy Nothing group. Buy Nothing groups give you the ability to get items free (and they are not always used- this year I got a locking laptop bag with new with tags!) It also allows you to pass on items you no longer need, keeping those items out of the waste stream and perhaps blessing someone who couldn't have afforded to buy that item.
April: Grow at least one thing you can eat. Yes, I'm the last person in the world to suggest this. But I do grow my own sage and parsley. It's not much, but it's something. Even a potted basil plant from the grocery store is something!
May: Break up with Amazon and start a bookshop.org wishlist. Some people don't have a lot of good options for food or medication outside of Amazon, and that's understandable. Even then, we can buy fewer things overall, and order books digitally instead of physically.
June: Host a Clothing and Household Goods Swap: Another way to keep things out of the waste stream and money out of retailer and manufacturer hands.
July: Paradigm Shift: Gifts can be Second Hand: Shifting our thinking this way not only cuts down on the manufacture of new products, it opens us up to gifting vintage or out of print items.
August: Make a “No Brand New Clothes for One Year” Pledge : Fast fashion is extremely damaging to the environment and exploits workers . One way to avoid being part of this is to to take a year (choose your starting point) where you buy NO new clothing. (Yes, I'd totally buy socks and underwear first!). When the year is up, reassess your relationship to buying new clothing. NPR has some great tips on avoiding fast fashion.
September: Establish a One In, One Out (or one in, two out) Policy: This can be for anything-shoes, shirts, mugs, dice, candles- anything you tend to impulse buy or buy more than you need. Impulse buying can be cut down if you slow down and ask yourself: what item am I willing to get rid of to buy this item? Is the tradeoff worth it?
October: Join a CSA: Of course, you have to eat. And even if you grow one or more things you eat, you probably won't grow it all. Joining a CSA allows food to (usually) be conveniently delivered to your doorstep, reduces your carbon footprint by using food that travels fewer miles, and keeps your money out of big box grocery stores.
November: Give the Gift of Experiences: Before you shop the Black Friday sales, think of experiences you can gift such as an online class, a zoo membership, restaurant gift cards, or concert tickets. (Please keep pandemic safety in mind when making such purchases.)
December: Homemade for the Holidays: Whether you make it yourself or purchase through Etsy or a local craft fair, homemade gifts are meaningful, keep money out if big retailers, and support small businesses or individuals. Just remember- if your gift contains chocolate, make sure it's fair trade!
Labels: anti-capitalism, Boycott Nestle, Buy Nothing Day, fair trade, homemade, minimalism, New Year's Resoluations
This is not a vacation
Last August, I loosely planned out my entire school year for my two and three year olds. While I do deviate from my plan from time to time, especially given the curricula classes I'm taking, I tend to follow it most of the time.
Because I'm that organized, I entered all my lesson titles into Google Calendar. Every morning, usually when I'm finishing my coffee, I get a reminder on my phone of the topic I was planning to teach that day.
A couple of times since schools were closed in our state, a person close to me, and an essential worker, has expressed that I should be grateful for this extended vacation. But this is not a vacation. It's not even like a normal break. It's a completely unscheduled stop to the work that we, as teachers, had planned months ago. Depending on what state we're in, we don't know how long this will go on, or if we'll even get back this school year. The uncertainty may be the worst part, and I check in for news from our office of public instruction every day. I don't miss a press conference from our governor. I want to get back this school year, but I don't think we will, and I just want to know. Meanwhile, we're working from home. Although I don't have to set up an online classroom or grade assignments, I struggle with the fact that early learning is NOT easily accomplished with streaming storytimes and remind messages. I am doing the best I can, and it is so far from what I planned to give the beautiful little people entrusted to me. I ask my readers...does this sound like a vacation to anyone, even if I am baking more and playing Pokemon Go (six feet from other people)?
If you have a teacher- or instructor of any type- in your life, please be sensitive to what they're going through right now. Don't tell them you're jealous of the "break" or "vacation"they're on right now. They can't wait to be back at work, doing what they love.
Pro-life patients deserve health care providers who share their values
When news broke of a Vermont nurse who sued the hospital she was employed by for forcing her to assist in an abortion, many pro-choice activists responded with the rallying cry of "If you don't want to provide abortions, don't go into healthcare!" In an op-ed published in Vice on September 3rd,
Monica R. McLemore, an associate nursing professor at UC San Fransisco, goes to far as to say that "we need to be more discerning about who is worthy of serving the public." She goes on to say suggest that the nurse in the above mentioned case should have put her patient's "need" for an abortion (although privacy laws mean we have no way of knowing if there was a medical need or whether it was an elective abortion) over her own "discomfort".
The use of the word "discomfort" to describe the pro-life objection to abortion shows that McLemore, and those who agree with her, do not understand where that objection comes from. It's not about our comfort level. It's about deliberately taking the life of a growing, developing, genetically unique human. This makes refusing to assist in and perform abortions different from other applications of the conscience clause.
There are good reasons the conscience clause has a bad reputation. It can and has been exercised as a form of bigotry- refusing to issue life saving and regular medical care to people on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. There's no instance in which it's moral to refuse life saving care to a patient, for any reason. This would include a case where sepsis or an ectopic pregnancy threatened a mother's life. Nor should a health care provider refuse regular care to someone based on the above reasons. But asking a health care provider to assist in taking a human life (as they see it), is in a different category all together, and suggesting nobody unwilling to do that should avoid the field altogether is unfair to patients as well.
When I was having my children, a couple of decades ago now, I sought a midwife who shared my values. This was important to me because I wanted the person managing my pregnancies to value the children I was carrying as patients, as people equal to me, who she viewed as worthy as protection as born human beings. I know many other mothers who have done the same, in some cases driving an hour or more to find and OB or midwife who shared their values. Advocates for reproductive choice must understand that includes the right of parents to receive obstetric care from providers who share their values- and that means including pro-life doctors, nurses and midwives in the field.
Not This Teacher's Favorite Mom
It's not even August, and that video is making the rounds again. A mom walking through a store, ranting about the parents who complain about back to school shopping, telling the world all the things she'll happily buy for teachers because she can't stand being in the same house as her kids.
What bothers me most is not the egregious show of privilege that is evident when when suggests parents should buy teachers anything they put on their list, although parents with means should remember that parents with kids the same age of theirs may right now be deciding between paying the rent or buying food, and actually CAN NOT buy Kleenex for the classroom. What bothers me most is the multiple times this mom frames her joy in buying for her children's teachers in term of school getting her kids out of the house, with only a nod to the teacher's expertise. I, too, am glad that my kid has teachers who have studied things I can't or don't care to teach, and work hard to teach those subjects to their students.
But it hurts my heart to know that if they haven't already, her kids will one day see this video, complete with such loving lines as "Do you know how much I would pay them just to get my kids out of my face" , "...they're not even allowed to hit your kids" and "because this means I don't have to talk to my kids anymore".. How does a parent explain that to their child? "But kids, I did it for the views! And enough money from my monetized account to buy some of those little bottles of likker you see me sipping from on my kid free shopping trip!"
I want parents to appreciate teachers. When possible, partnering with schools is the best way. If parents can afford it, helping with school supplies is great. Asking your elected representatives why schools aren't fully funded is absolutely vital. (Coffee from time to time is nice, too).
But this isn't true appreciation, and it plays into the stereotype that teachers, especially in elementary school, are babysitters. And most of all, it's not funny. It's exploitative of her children (other videos of hers even more so). It's cruel.
You don't have to solve it yourself, but you do have to support the solutions
By now, there's a good chance you've seen Pennsylvania rep Brian Sim's
video, posted to his own twitter, where he harasses a sidewalk counselor in front of a Planned Parenthood. We don't know what the protester was doing before he went live, though it's interesting that he didn't film it
(maybe she was just praying, and not shouting at women?). There's been a lot said about his completely unprofessional, Trumpian behaviour, so I don't feel a need to add much to that. Instead, I'm going to focus on one of his early-rant accusations.
Sims, like many other pro-choice activists, asks his
constituent if she'd personally put shoes on the feet of a child that day, or put a woman and child up in her home. We see this suggestion a lot: that a person can't be against abortion. This is ridiculous on the face of it. We see the same suggestion from far right, anti-immigrant agitators: You can't support offering sanctuary to immigrants if you aren't opening your home and couch to them. The idea that you have to be personally opening your home to people that you want to live and thrive limits the number of people who get to have an opinion, and essentially cuts off the poor from having an opinion.
But, more conservative pro-life activists have an equally unhelpful response, which is to say "You don't have to solve a bad thing to oppose it", then shrugging their shoulders and going on to oppose any sort of social safety net. While not everyone is in a position to take people into their homes or donate large amounts of money, it's less than pointless to oppose something AND the solution to that problem. A truly pro-life person will support free, accessible contraception, free college, Medicare for all, and robust supports for families like paid family leave, food and housing aide, and ANY OTHER supports that make it easier for pregnant people to choose life. Otherwise, you're part of the problem.
The Life Changing Magic of Accepting Your Pants Size
I am a big fan of Marie Kondo's "Life Changing Magic of Tidying UP", though I've certainly failed to implement it in my own home. But I decided that at the end of this summer, between summer quarter and the start of my school year, I would go Kondo on my clothing. It takes quite a bit of self acceptance to accomplish this.
I believe one of the biggest stumbling blocks for people attempting to declutter their clothing is unwillingness to admit that certain clothes no longer "fit"; whether that means actual size, or one's current personality. Giving away that clothing is admitting that you have moved on- that you will never be that size again,or never be that person again.
It helps, too, to be a thrift shopper. When you know it's time to purge the closet, it's so much easier to do so when the most you've spent on a pair of pants is $4. And if by some miracle I ever get back down to the size of the wish pants I gave away? Then I get to go thrifting again.
I turned 45 yesterday. Except for a slight weight loss related to my summer's GI crisis, I've maintained a fairly steady weight for years, no matter my eating or exercise habits. This summer's clothes purge contained about 6 bags of clothes that fell into either category of "not fitting", from the pants that won't close to the micro mini and velour lace up tank. (I still kept the gold lame leggings a friend got me at the Goodwill by-the-pound outlet-I'm pretty sure I'll find a cosplay application for them someday.)
It was freeing to let go of all those clothes, to accept I am and where I am, and to know it'll be that much easier to find what I want to wear during the busy school year.
After many years, my health issues diagnosed and treated
Friends and followers know that for some years now, I have been plagued by health issues that have remained undiagnosed and therefore untreated health issues. These issues started possibly as fare back as fall of 2009, when an undiagnosed illness caused me to be incapacitated by headache and fatigue for six weeks. Following that, I developed intolerance to gluten, a nut allergy, and increased issues with dairy. By spring of 2011, I was suffering from severe constipation, debilitating abdominal pain, periods that left me doubled over and anemic, and an increasing number of foods that seemed to aggravate my abdominal pain, sleep patterns, candida, and arthritis of the hands and wrists. In 2014, I pulled my IT band running, causing another source of pain and debility that I had trouble getting treated.
In the past 6 years, I could not even tell how much time and money I have spent at doctor's offices, or the total number of specialists I've seen. I have had multiple CAT scans,ultrasounds, fecal occult tests, X-rays, nerve conduction tests, a colonoscopy, and more complete blood panels than I can count. With the exception of ultrasound showing that I have
adenomyosis, which was treated by endometrial ablation. Let me take a moment to say, enthusiastically and without reservation- of you menstruate and kids are not in your future, look into an ablation. It's one of the best choices I've ever made. It changed my life greatly, and I believe I would not be able to work on a daily basis now if I hadn't had it.
On my quest for diagnosis and treatment, I found myself switching doctors several times, as it took those changes to find the help I needed. Early in the process, I asked my then primary care provider if an endoscopy could help find the problem. She replied that my pain was "too low", and it would be years before I got one. One doctor I saw said that the pain in my leg (from hip to foot) wasn't due to injury, but due to "anxiety", which she based upon the fact that my teeth were gritted and my shoulders hunched. She offered anxiety medication instead of the physical therapy I was seeking. Another doctor, a rheumatologist, asked if the pain caused me to miss work and when I said no, told me to come back "when you're disabled". I gave up for a while after that, with my only medical help coming from chiropractors and from Alleve.
This spring, the combination of IT band pain/debility and the abdominal pain sent me searching for a new doctor. A friend recommended one, and while that doctor had no openings, another doctor in her practice did. I set up an appointment,and she immediately diagnosed me with
trochanteric bursitis and set up physical therapy. We set up a follow up after the school year to deal with the GI issues, though I would finds myself dealing with them long before that.
Over the spring, my GI pain had been getting worse and worse. I took painkillers, I watched what I ate, I used a heating pad and a TENS unit; nevertheless, I ended up back in the doctor's office at the beginning of June. The doctor who was in suspected diverticulitis,and ordered a CT scan. I went in for that in the morning, but by afternoon was vomiting bile, and my husband took me to the ER. The ER doctor told me I had diverticulitis, an ovarian cyst, and what looked like a gastric ulcer.I was given heavy duty antibiotics, morphine, and sent home. He noted that if they can see an ulcer on a CT scan, it's large and has been developing for a while. I was given antibiotics, and a referral to a GI doctor (this would be my third).
Without sharing every detail, I ended up in the ER two more times, didn't eat or poop for a week, but came out on the other side on the path to healing. I finally have a GI doctor who knows what he's doing. I finally got the endoscopy, which confirmed the ulcer and ruled out anything scarier. It turns out the Alleve I was taking to deal with my many types of pain *caused* the ulcer, which makes me even more upset at the years my pain issues weren't treated.By treating the sources of my pain, I now need to medication for pain. I am on ulcer medication, and in addition I'm on a low FODmap diet, which has made a huge difference in how I feel. How I eat has been such a huge part of my healing that it deserves a separate post. Oh, and I graduated with PT, with much higher flexibility and strength.
If you have ongoing, undiagnosed medical issues, please keep searching for help, as much as your resources allow. You deserve respectful care from doctors who won't brush you off as hysterical or a drug seeker.
