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We are living in turbulent times worldwide. In every corner of the world are happening different events that are making people go out to the streets for protest. The Spanish revolution, the Arab spring or the last protests in Catalunya or Latin America are showing us the social processes we are experiencing.
However, are these protests having a real effect? It is something very difficult to measure. My opinion is that all of those protests are having a very mild effect. People are fed up with everything that happens at the political, economical and social level, so they decide to go to the streets. We protest, face the police, destroy urban furniture... Sates contain the protests with police meanwhile they measure the social tension. Protest last few days, best of the cases some weeks, but it is strange the endure for a long enough time to make the changes we seek. Those moments will remain in our minds, but we will need to deal with the upcoming frustration.
It is then when the reflection process starts. The fight has to be more intelligent, organized, constant and peaceful. Going out to the streets and being violent could work in the past but it is not the best method today. So, how to be more effective in our purpose to change things? Society has huge power for transforming things but we need to be united and organized. As I said before, it is not about making war but creating a global intelligent and peaceful movement. Technology and the system have given us a perfect tool for this new movement: Consumption.
Nowadays, the market controls the economy, the economy drives politics, and the politic controls society. So if society realizes that it has tremendous power because they are the consumers, there is a real possibility of making a big change in few years. Capitalism has made the consumer the most important thing on the economical pyramid. What the consumer decides is where the market and society goes. Marketing companies invest fortunes not only to know what the customers want but how to influence them in their shopping. Most of marketing campaigns are design to touch us at an emotional level.
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Nevertheless, the consumer is changing and it is starting to think more about what it buys and how to invest its money. This is a consequence of our human evolution. We are becoming more rational instead of so emotional. This is why there is a strong power of transformation society if we just change our shopping habits and how we invest our money. It never was so important to take responsibility in this sense and knowing who we are financing by shopping. For example, we know today that most of the plastic that is floating in the ocean comes from The Coca Cola Company. The plastic ecological disaster has a name, but we cannot forget to take the responsibility as a consumer. If I buy Coca Cola, I am part of the problem and we are co-responsible for the ecological disaster. If every single person who buys those products is conscious about the problem it brings and takes an action by not buying them, we would create economical pressure on the company to take actions in order to solve the problem they created. I can imagine millions of people stopping to buy coke before the companies move a finger for what they have already done. The key factor is the consumer to stop buying those products. If they do that, the marketing departments of those companies will study why consumers do not buy anymore their products and it is only when the companies would react. Don´t get me wrong, they won´t clean the oceans because is just what is right to do, they would do it because they lost millions of sales. That´s why the consumer has the key to the social revolution we are waiting for.
Why is this not already happening? It is happening. There is already a lot of people being more conscious about those facts and they are taking better-consuming decisions. However, it goes slow and we need to increase the critic mass. Media serves the interests of big corporations. Marketing in TV is very aggressive. Publicity is a world where the only interest is to sell more, whatever it is, to whatever price. Most people are in the hamster wheel and they do not even not it. They are victims of the system. That´s why social networks are playing a big role in spreading another kind of information although I think these platforms haven´t really achieved the real potential they have. We sadly use the social network to spread poor content or look for entertainment instead of cultivating our intellect. Whatever form you look at it we get to the same conclusion, we are responsible for what is happening in the world
In the last protests in Catalonia, I checked in the news that many people went out to protest in the streets with beer cans and beer bottles. The brand of these bottles in many cases was Estrella Damm. I doubt very much that this beer brand supports the Catalan independence movements, however, the protesters were giving their money every day to this company that is contrary to the thinking of the protests. This is the incoherence that leads all humans to disaster.
With this text, I do not intend to point to anyone or make him guilty. That is useless. But it should be a call to awareness, responsibility and conscious action. Today we have a unique opportunity in the history of mankind. As consumers, we have the power to reverse the situation in a short time. But the truth is that the crisis of values that we suffer is what will determine if I stop thinking about myself, and begin to make decisions and actions that benefit the whole of society and therefore myself. If we want governments and companies to fix problems so that we can keep the party going, the future of humanity is blacker than the armpit of a cricket.
In my humble opinion, it would be very sad if the next great extinction is human. But it seems that we are inevitably going to that destination if each of those who realize it (and from what is seen in the demonstrations there are many), does nothing more than simply protest. The most effective action lies in changing consumer habits and for that, you don't have to break anything, get angry or face the police. What is necessary is to take responsibility and do it. I invite you to think about and take an action for the good of all.
Blessings
Fer