Itxu Díaz: Buy Local Again
There once was a time when you could feel proud as you pondered the rapid expansion of large corporations in your country.
An American could celebrate how his countrymen were dominating the business of operating systems, sports footwear or even beverages. There once was a time of excellence and talent in the first wave of globalization.
But that time has ended.
We have already given too much money to multinational corporations that work against our culture and our way of life.
You know what I mean — I’m talking about those giant companies that, being among the most polluting in the world, dedicate huge sums of money to campaigns that pressure you to stop driving to work or to stop using anything plastic.
They assure you that the issue in today’s world is not their forcing you to upgrade your cellphone, car and computer every year, but rather the fact that you bring your groceries home in a plastic bag.
That same green obsession is now being reproduced in other areas such as the family, or the way in which countries must handle the multiculturalist fantasy. Your children can’t even eat their breakfast in peace now that cereal boxes are being used to market perverse lifestyles.
But it’s not just about cereal: From morning to night, we live under an advertising invasion financed and sustained by large digital corporations, food giants, energy companies, furniture manufacturers, clothing stores and every other industry that involves you reaching for your wallet. I don’t know when these people forgot that consumers don’t pay to be lectured.
Many, even those aware of what’s happening, tend to avoid it because they can’t be bothered with taking action, and they don’t even know how to take action.
Actually, it is much easier and more satisfying than you think. It’s not about boycotting anyone — even though some companies deserve it — but rather about something even simpler:
Consider the number of things you buy from large corporations each day, products that are also sold in small local businesses.
You might be surprised to discover that when you buy them at the corner butcher, the hamburgers really taste like hamburgers and not like multicolored hair gel.
Or that the clothes bought in the small local store have an unprecedented resistance, which allows your shirts to be passed down from generation to generation.
Or even that your church manages your donations much better and with more integrity than all the large corporations in international solidarity combined, and in addition spares you the feminist monstrosity in its monthly letters — among other reasons because it does not send those tedious monthly letters.
Let me be clear. I’m not suggesting that you buy a nuclear reactor at your neighborhood store. Nor that you swap your favorite brand of beer for the thick crap that hipsters call home-brewed craft beer so as to not call it livestock feed paste.
There are changes that would always be worse. But it is about reconsidering, in this time of post-pandemic crisis, who you want to support with many of your daily purchases: the multinational companies that spend the day beating you over the head with their woke follies, or the small neighborhood hairdresser, the traditional restaurant, the entrepreneur in your town.
There are a lot of extraordinary people fighting the giant mills of multinational corporations.
And it’s a bunch of extraordinary people who care about doing their jobs well, not about brainwashing you with your own money and then boasting afterward about it being part of their valuable policies on corporate social responsibility.
In addition, supporting our own — those closest to us, the artisans — is also doing justice. Local stores were there before big corporations turned any business into a plastic burger factory.
Try them out — you will see. And you might even find out what meat really tastes like for the first time, and you might laugh at the thought of Bill Gates’ synthetic steaks.
This article first appeared on The Western Journal en Español.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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