Wednesday, August 10, 2011

How dumb are we, exactly?


One of our big corporation run supermarkets is at it again. Here's the deal: buy one steak, get one free. The week before, this meat was running about $7.00 per pound. On sale, it was around $14 per pound if you bought one steak, or about $7.00 if you bought two. The second one is "free". Get it? Funny, though. If you'd bought two steaks at the old price, the total would have been... probably less, since they had smaller steaks then.

Where you might have (gasp) bought one large steak, grilled it, fanned it out and served it to two people, now you either buy two steaks for twice as much or go elsewhere.

Welcome to the 21st Century, where everyone is a victim and Corporations are King! We really seem to be living in some sci-fi dystopia, but the real question is which one? Minority Report? Blade Runner? 1984? Brave New World? Little Heroes? All of the above, with a few twists thrown in?

Why is nobody screaming about this? Where is the organized boycott done as a retaliation against being treated like idiots? We're being conned, mislead, manipulated and disrespected, with no end in sight and not even a token protest.

It's not just about pricing, either. What's in that food we're eating? What's the "color added" in the salmon? Why is there sand in my spices? Which foods have ground up bugs that live on cacti added for color? If something isn't sustainable, how come it's renamed instead of discontinued? Greenwashed yet un-green. Does high-fructose corn syrup really need to be in everything? Why can't they ferment and distill the stuff for ethanol to add to my gasoline instead of feeding it to me?

Is is true that as long as we have good televisions, we'll remain pacified and controllable? Like the graffiti in Porto said, "Don't wait for the revolution while sitting in front of your TV" But, figuratively or otherwise, we're ALL sitting in front of our TVs.

Oh, and to all those idiots who think industrial geniuses like the ones in Atlas Shrugged will save us, please remember this: that was a work of FICTION. It also neglected to mention what happens to the ordinary workers, since everyone can't be a genius CEO. Although, if every worker were considered an independent asset instead of a cog in a corporate machine, where the government existed to ensure fair treatment to all and guarantee equal access to services... wait. That would mean re-writing the entire system, taking the power away from those currently at the top and giving it to those at the bottom. Using some sort of just informational system to eliminate concentrations of power and wealth that lead to inequality (yes, I'm also talking to you, Communist Party leaders!). This is only a food blog, not a revolutionary political manifesto.

If it were a manifesto, I'd also mention that it's no wonder that governments are broke, when they have "spend it or lose it" rules that don't reward saving and working within a budget. What if agencies could carry over unspent money, allocating it for special projects like people saving up to buy a house?

But, this isn't a manifesto so I'll stop. Now.

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