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Commenters on the HuffPostFood article insinuated that women aren't lining up to be with me, a freegan. I humbly suggest that perhaps it's only a matter of time. As the US government quibbles over which programs it will cut and/or whether it will raise the debt limit or default on its loans; as the two remarkably similar sides attempt to distinguish themselves from each other to  keep the farcical melodrama going; as we are continually distracted from the real moral crises we face, being bombarded with political trivialities; as the middle class becomes poor and the poor are forgotten; as we continue to fight needless wars abroad (how many now?) and spend 1.4 TRILLION dollars this year alone on the military; as we feel the real effects of climate change and environmental degradation, having overstepped so many ethical, technological, and ecological boundaries; as the desperately and abjectly poor around the world produce our goods for pennies a day while we are increasingly unable to afford those same goods ourselves…

Three things are happening:

1) The fat cats are getting fatter and cattier.
2) I'm eating (and in many other ways living) for free.
3) This lifestyle isn't looking so strange to most people anymore.

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You see that paragraph above? It's only the tip of the iceberg. Western Civilization (as we know it) is plummeting into oblivion. Our consumerism has got the best of us, as every single one of those problems is directly caused by corporate greed, government collusion, and consumer complicity via ignorance, apathy, and/or ambivalence.

Well. Starting around June 2010 it was my conscience - not consumerism - that got the better of me. I refused to be complicit any longer. After having tested the waters for about six months, I dove head first into freeganism. 

I saw very clearly that something had to give; if corporatism and consumerism were causing our ship to sink - if these are, in fact, the source of most problems our world currently faces - then why not throw them overboard? With an abundance of good food, clothes, furniture, even suitable housing going to waste, why not live off it?

So here I am just over one year later, along with freegan.info, still doing just that; more and more people join our ranks. 

"But," some have protested, "if everyone became a freegan, then there wouldn't be any food left for you." OR "You hope for waste to end. If you attain your own goals, you'll have to quit this lifestyle yourself, for there will be nothing left for you to consume for free!"

My answer to such objections is as follows:

If/when 

1) everyone becomes freegan (note: this does not simply mean eating food from the garbage; there is a certain consciousness and ethic involved with freeganism) 

and/or

2) all waste is eliminated, 

then (and only then?) will we be living in a society quite different from the one in which we live. 

In such a society, the people would...
  • ...no longer be held in bondage by their own materialism, consumerism, and debt. Generosity would spring from deep within their souls and overflow with abounding abundance to any who should ever have need.
  • ...love and serve each other regardless of race or gender (I need not mention nationality or class, since nations and classes would not exist), precluding any need for war, competition, institutional health care or housing. None would be homeless, sick, hungry, thirsty, or lonely.
  • ...have no need for governments at all, since governments were only ever needed to protect power and wealth for the privileged few (it should go without saying, I guess, but since we're so used to it… privilege does not exist in this society either).
  • ...interact with their ecosystem(s) only in sustainable and compassionate ways.

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What I've described here is what many tribal people have called home; what humanists have called Utopia, what so many others have called Heaven, what Yeshua called the Kingdom of God

The Hebrew Prophets alluded to it; the Church has clumsily tried its hand at instituting it all these years; and I tirelessly work toward it every. single. day. 

Still, I get the feeling it's a long ways off, and unless or until this society (be)comes, I'm sure there will be more than enough unnecessary waste for me to consume, compost, reuse, and/or recycle (something must be done about the waste, it represents in itself a very serious problem).

So don't worry about me. Go back to that first paragraph. Join me in worrying about all of that, working to change all of that

We've got a lot of work to do!


This is the last entry for the freegan series following the HuffPostFood article published last week. If you have further questions or comments on these issues, please subscribe to this blog! I will continue to discuss freeganism, busking, volunteering, and my musings on how and why we ought to reject the global economic empire whose idealogical cornerstones are exploitation and greed and to submit instead to a God whose kingdom is built on peace, justice, and generosity.

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