Tag Archives: Consumerism

An Earth Day Post-The World We Want

April 22, 2017Climate Change Responsibility, RapoliticCapitalism, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Colonization, Consumerism, Desire, Earth Day, Exploitation, Inmperialism, Journey, Racism, spiritual, Want, WorldRenaissance the Poet

#EarthDay

What kind of world do you want? Do you want a world where there is no arable land, where there are no fish in the seas or oceans, where islands have been submerged, and where the government’s science division designated to forestall these occurrences flourish? Do you want to live in a world where impoverished people, Black People, and Other POC folx globally are disenfranchised, marginalized, exploited, invisibilized, and considered to be expendable externalities?

Or do you want to live in a world where your future and the future of your children matter, where people are not after thoughts in economic equations, where it is not big business and illegitimate governments who do not represent the PEOPLE who are making decisions about our lives and our futures?

Zahara and I have been talking a lot lately about consumerism and consumer culture, and how so many of the mainstream environmental solutions are consumer based. Consumerism in the United States, where the people here have a carbon footprint of four times the Earth’s resources do not need to be developing plans for us to consume more, but rather to consume less. However, what we often see is that attention is focused on the point of extraction, instead of the point of consumption as the problem. Real talk, the Global South would not be suffering exploitation, imperialism, or the harmful effects of #ClimateChange if the West was not so hell-bent on consuming all their resources. Consuming more is not the solution.

“It is like the philosophy of a man having a headache who beats himself on the head with a hammer to get rid of the ache.”

#Capitalism, #colonialism, #patriarchy, #racism, #consumerism, #imperialism, major #agrobusiness, #PrisonIndustrialComplex , anon… essentially the structural underpinnings of our entire system need to change if we are to actually achieve the world most of us, and most certainly the most impacted, seek to achieve.

Each one of us shares some responsibility, some much much more than most others, for the world we create. External change begins internally, this is a spiritual journey. Consumerism is fueled by a fabricated and facilitated feeling of incompleteness. This society is designed to make people feel incomplete. And so, it leads people to reach without, to take, to consume to seek to try and make themselves complete; and the very thing we think will satisfy us and bring us life is that which is killing us.

#PowerToThePeople #Liberation #ClimateJustice

American Values?

May 3, 2015RapoliticAmerican, American Values, Consumerism, Dollar, Fractional Reserve Banking, Lies, Marginal Propensity to Consume, Money, MPC, Spending Power, Standard of Living, USA, Values, Well-BeingRenaissance the Poet

The 'Almighty' Dollar — The ‘Almighty’ Dollar

One of the most prominent failures of United States society is that we try to measure how well we as a people are doing by reference to how much money we make in a year: GDP . When in reality, although the spending power of each individual does contribute to our standard of living, an economic reference reveals nothing of the relevant value of our spiritual or emotional well-being as a people. On top of that, the index does not include domestic labor, parenting and so on, in other words, positions and task traditionally fulfilled by women in this country because our patriarchal society discounts the labors of women.

Money has value, but only the value that we assign to it (there is not even a gold nugget backing up the “Federal Reserve Note” and don’t let me get onto the Fractional-Reserve Banking system and the Marginal Propensity to Consume, which make money out of thin air; this flimsy pieces of paper and digital ones and zeros only have the value we assign to them.

However, money is so low on our collective hierarchy of values; trust, love, friendship, acceptance, honor, honesty, parenting, the capability to care for loved ones when ill, a government that respects us and is answerable to us, promises, and happiness; that using a GDP or a salary to measure our well-being is utterly lacking, it is invalid and unreliable.

We have been bamboozled into believing that money will make everything okay, that it is all that we should be concerned with and that it will answer all of our problems, but that is a farce, a fallacy, and an utter and disrespectful lie.

But a GDP is not the only way to measure the well-being of a people, nation, state. For another model check this out:

Gross national happiness in Bhutan: the big idea from a tiny state that could change the world

“The World We Want” by Sarra Tekola & Renaissance (((Music Video)))

April 12, 2015Music Videos206, Capitalism, Climate Change, Coal, Consumerism, Environment, Environmental Justice, Fossil Fuels, HipHop, Music, Music Viseo, MusicaDiction, PNW, Politics, Rap, Rappers Equal Nerds, Renaissance the Poet, Seattle, Social Justice, Spoken Word, Underground Hip Hop, Underground Music, University of WashingtonRenaissance the Poet

And this is the video that we put together. Initially, it began as a project for a competition at the University of Washington, and although, it will still be submitted, as we began constructing the project we realized the potential for helping to make a real difference. We are both seniors at the UW, both musically inclined, both activists with a heart fro justice and a sustainable planet. Everything just fit together. I am also a photographer, videographer, producer, studio technician, poet, spoken word artist, and so much more. So, in the short time period we had to get this accomplished, I threw everything I had into this with Sarra, including the kitchen sink. It was simultaneously, both the hardest and most rewarding project that I have ever been part of.

Climate Change is all the more pressing at this particular junction in time, in Seattle specifically because Shell Oil is planning to bring a seafaring oil rig through Seattle’s harbor, which will serve as a lay-station as it forges its way to the arctic to drill for oil. If this occurs, then the dreaded two degrees of change the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 360, Rising Tide, and a host of others have been warning about will be crossed. This will doom the planet to catastrophic failure. Hence, the “Draw The Line” logo. We are standing up and yelling NO!!!

We hope that this song and video will cause you to consider what is happening and to foster some creativity on your part to learn more if you are not already hip to the situation.

Peace & Love

~Renaissance

“The World We Want” by Sarra Tekola & Renaissance (((SONG)))

April 12, 2015Music206, Capitalism, Climate Change, Coal, Consumerism, Environmental Justice, Fossil Fuels, Hip Hop, Music, Renaissance the Poet, Shell, Social Justice, Spoken Word, Underground Hip Hop, Underground MusicRenaissance the Poet

This is the song we have been grinding on for a couple of weeks now and I think it came out very well.
We hope that you enjoy it enough to pass it along to others.

You may also download it for free.

Renaissance Revolutionary

All Power to the People

Tag Archives: Consumerism

An Earth Day Post-The World We Want

American Values?

Gross national happiness in Bhutan: the big idea from a tiny state that could change the world