A Minor Epiphany of a Consumer Nature

Some People I Know Are So Radical They Wouldn't Wipe Their Ass with a Koch Bros Product

In trying to remember why I shouldn't shop at Home Depot while not shopping at Loew's because it feeds Meryl Tisch's family coffers I believe I had a minor epiphany. Not a major one mind you but one I believe will simplify, simplify, simplify as Thoreau advised us all to do. A few weeks ago I suggested to a friend that shopping at Target was ill advised because Target supports the corporate charter/privatization machine. Well so does Wal Mart and between them, with a little help from some other corporate entities, they've eradicated pretty much any other competition. Unless, of course, you want to throw in Dollar General whose overburdened employees -- never more than 2 per shift -- and top heavy CEO salary still leave a conscientious shopper without a place to spend their money in peace.

My epiphany? Screw it. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. 

There's a pretty concise little chart floating around with all the Koch Bros products on it. I can do that. Just not buy any of their shit. And I guess there are some other resources too I've stumbled across that will tell which corporate scum lurk behind which brightly packaged, smiley little products. I guess what I realized is that my little contribution or lack thereof isn't going to put any charter chains out of business or put their shareholders in a new Lear jet. But to make the life I have more complicated, more stress and grudge filled than it already is, to drive my family nuts with my little protests ends up making me and my causes look lame, petty and absurd. I will try within reason to avoid patronizing the easy ones. Loew's is an easy one. 

As for the rest of it, I will do my part and when I can't I will sin with courage as Martin Luther advised the woman who came to him desperate that she couldn't stop sinning. There's also a nifty app called Buycott that you can get in the App Store. Unless of course you despise Apple and its awful mistreatment and exploitation of Chinese workers in its factories. See what I mean?