Money
Our economy is bad, yes. But we’re still better off than many. I’m not an easy touch for donations, but I feel very guilty when I see pictures of kids missing arms and legs because they stepped on landmines when going out to gather sticks to make a fire, or read stories of African parents who are faced with starving families or temporarily (hopefully) giving a child to an individual who needs a virtual slave in return for a few dollars (For five more hours, Mark bailed water to keep the canoe from swamping.He had last eaten the day before. His broken wooden paddle was so heavy he could barely lift it. But he raptly followed each command from Kwadwo Takyi, the powerfully built 31-year-old in the back of the canoe who freely deals out beatings. “I don’t like it here,” he whispered, out of Takyi’s earshot. Mark Kwadwo is 6 years old. )
We have so much STUFF available to us if we choose to buy them. And we do have the chance to choose, since we have more money than those firewood gatherers. Apparently just because people have so much money to spend that we can choose from about fifty kinds of toothpaste on the shelf.
Shampoo? A shelf showing all those would look the same, and add in conditioners, gels, waxes, and all those things the hair salon calls “product” – good grief. (Are there just so many things that hair stylists now refer to one word for everything?)
Can you think of anything else that there are lots and lots (and lots) of choice for when you want to buy a particular product (like the toothpaste example) when there doesn’t seem to be a particular reason except that many companies want you to think their product is better? And do you buy anything where brand truly doesn’t matter to you?
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People in America are very lucky to have this life. They have computers, TV’s, and radios. These are amenities that people in those Sub-Saharan countries can never get or earn in a lifetime. We can’t waste money on unneeded or expensive items. Also, in social studies, we learned about blood diamonds, when African workers have to labor very hard to make diamonds for us! We could help them by not buying those diamonds.
Yes, I can think of something.
Cell phones, computers, and televisions, which we don’t need for survival.
In a world like ours, cellphones, computers, and televisions play very important roles in life.
In response to your first comment, I think you should never think the most obvious solution. It’s hard to know what diamonds are bloody, and not buying them is unrealistic. It is not very possible to get the whole population to stop buying a product.
Justin L. Reply:
March 16th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
“It’s not very possible to get the whole population to stop buying a product.”
Well, maybe and maybe not. First of all, you can have those clothes and cell phones that are very fad, so the population itself will hate it.
cellphones are important, I think, because companies expect to make money, money, money and want their employees to be on call constantly. The feeling of “Oh, I’m indispensable” has filtered into the general population until everyone thinks they have to be reachable. Diamonds? I hope neither of my children ever own one (ever since they read the book Blood Diamonds they were totally turned off). You can buy clean diamonds, should you want one, from Canada. You’re right, an entire population is not going to be convinced. But it’s worth a shot.