How high is your social-consciousness meter?

I knew I was making a difference.

 

I'm lucky in that being apolitical saved my a_s once.

Some hack got into my online .edu account in school, wrote some threatening stuff to the First Family. Small wonder Secret Service came and got me and asked me what was going on.

I told them I didn't do it, but what stunk is there was no way I could prove it, since there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of sets of fingerprints on the terminals on campus.

Lucky for me, they found a good friend of mine, interviewed him for a spell and fully believed him when he said I was the most apolitical person he knew. My online account was nothing but music - marching band and several other forms - and sports.

Back on topic. I know of Nike's practices, but I end up buying them anyway because they're one of the few companies that makes a comfortable shoe that fits my wide foot. As for food, I don't go out of my way to buy the worst junk on Earth, but then again I drink Mountain Dew by the gallon and eat too much sugar, so that pretty much takes me out of the healthy eating clique. I recycle when the opportunity presents itself, but that's not too often in my corner of the world.

As for eating leftovers, pretty much a life staple. I grew up in a household where cooking was exceedingly rare. So while everyone else dreads Thanksgiving leftovers, I'm usually scarfing them down on Black Friday and the weekend.

 

The recycling thing always gets me - even if I'm totally careful to sort my stuff, how do I know it's not just ending up in the landfill anyway because of some lazy sanitation worker?

Used to work at a place that had separate bins to recycle paper. Dutifully filled it until I worked late one night and saw the janitor empty the regular trash and then the recycle bin into his bag. Became disillusioned.

 

Threatening the president? You're on notice.

 

I'm trying to do what Al Gore suggests: turn the temperature down a few degrees in the winter, up a few in the summer. Buy energy efficient light bulbs. And I'm the crazy chick who brings empty plastic bags to the grocery store so I can re-use them. (It's slightly more dignified than carrying them in my pocket to pick up dog crap.)

I recycle everything, and get upset when my family out west doesn't. I don't give money to people on the street, but I have bought many a meal for the homeless. The other day a woman who clearly was on crack said she needed money to buy "supplies" for her babies. We went to a bodega and I ended up spending $98 on formula, diapers and crackers. The cashier was convinced I was somehow being scammed, but you know what? If she sold the stuff on the street for drugs, I'd have done it all over again. It's all about putting good energy into the world.
That's also why, like Dooley, I can't stand littering. I tell people who litter that they've dropped something. It usually shames them into picking it up. Some of my friends won't date men because of their clothes, or the size of their salary; I won't date men who litter or drive Hummers, because those are the ultimate f-you to the world.
I guess I am sort of a snob when it comes to preserving the earth, even though I consume far more than I need, wear and eat animals and sometimes drive when I could easily walk. Being aware of the world around us and what we can do to make it, I don't know, LAST, is to me what it means to be socially conscious.

 

I now only drink fair trade coffee and have converted my hummer to run on used french fry oil. I've put a brick in tanks of all my toilets so they don't use as much water. Oh and I listen to NPR as much as possible for more socialy conscious ideas. I always double down on soft 17.

 

Awwwww Boom, you're going soft.

 

I am no Greg Marmalard.

Memo to all you cannucks - come talk to us about recycling soda cans after you've taken a stand against the brutul beating of baby seals and females- eh.

 

Pop cans.

 

if you're socially conscious about anything, i'd recommend not posting here. it looks like a thread where the apathetic can unite.

 

I willfully ignore that my mutual fund holds quite a bit of Altria Group Inc. I use way too much hot water in the shower. I drive a gas guzzler to the train station. My effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has been token at best. I eat red meat, poultry and fish with little remorse and I never got around signing up for Greenpeace. The list could go on for a while.

But, as I mentioned in the other thread, I think most of us try to pick our spots to affect postive change. It doesn't make one hypocritical if one doesn't follow through on every good cause available. Not even Ryan Sonner is that good. However, like Jones, I do get a little sad when folks proudly proclaim their apathy.

Me? I've invested a lot of my life in the labor movement and I do a lot of volunteer work with special needs kids. But those things come easy to me because I grew up in a family that's been heavily involved in labor and my oldest kid has Down Syndrome. It would have made my life more difficult NOT to be involved in these things

And as tempting as it is sometimes to go all libertarian, like Ragu, because it makes things real simple in a lot of ways, I can't because, to me, the greatest test of any economic system is how well it takes care of its most vulnerable -- the young, the frail, the elderly. Apathy doesn't cut it.

 

When I was stationed in Connecticut, where recycling isn't quite "mandatory" yet, I took the time to recycle my aluminum cans, simply because I got money back on them and it was relatively easy.

Now? Eh. I don't drink very many things that come from aluminum cans anymore. I do eat leftovers, mainly because as a single dad carrying a mortgage by himself, I've got to stretch to stay ahead.

Do I let most social influences have an impact on my purchasing choices? Not really, although I sneer and growl at people who sell Mary Kay (animal testing), I do the same to people who don't get their pets fixed, I avoid merchants/stores if I feel they have something against the military and I despise people who throw cigarette butts on the ground or out of their car window. I use the energy saver light bulbs, not because they're "green" but because it saves me on my electricity and I have to buy fewer bulbs. And since I prefer my house to be relatively dark anyway, all unused and unneeded lights are turned off.

Let's face it...most of us don't have the time/money/ability to be completely social-conscious like we probably should. So we pick and choose our battles. Does it come off as hypocrisy? Absolutely. Are we all guilty of it? I'm sure.

And I'm OK with that.