Boycott Everything is the embodiment of Poison Planet. At face value these two words may seem absurd in conjunction with one another. You can't possibly boycott everything and why would you want to? But when taken in context the premise is sound. If you don't believe in something don't support it.

Within capitalism, goods are exchanged for capital. The cheaper the production costs, the higher the profit margins, and the greater the consolidation of power in the hands of those with the most capital. But how would the world differ if we deliberately denied capital to those who did not deserve it? How would the world change if we invested our own capital in businesses and individuals that we believed in?

Factory farming and the atrocities that go on behind closed doors in the world of agriculture are the direct result of unregulated capitalism. Animal agriculture does not see itself as dealing in living breathing creatures, instead those at the top see dairy cows and egg laying hens as machines, producing product like a print press or a box scorer. Put them in one place, give them food, and let their bodies do the rest. Once regard was lost for them as living, breathing creatures deserving dignity and respect, the most disgusting developments took place. Smaller cages and pens to maximize space in facilities became commonplace, as did using antibiotics in their feed to reduce disease rather than providing veterinary care, discarding any animal that didn't directly benefit the operation like trash, and mangling the animals without anesthesia to prevent them from damaging themselves and each other. These are all actions taken in an effort to increase efficiency and produce more product cheaply in order to net larger profits, thus rationalizing the system. If all of this sounds unreal to you – look into it. Watch Earthlings or Fowl Play. If you feel that these movies offer some sort of bias you can get your first exposure to the horrors of factory farming through a movie series from the 80's called Faces of Death – a supposed visual study of death, packaged as a form of B movie entertainment. That was my first exposure to factory farming and it was appalling to behold. My knowledge of the industry was then reinforced through books and documentaries. The saddest part of this development in animal agriculture is that we are its biggest advocates. With every dollar spent you reinforce this atrocity. You are the consumer – you are just as responsible if not more so. You are making this possible and your demand for low prices drives the cost cutting changes: larger sheet metal windowless barns with smaller cages, more animals per cage, experiments with genetic modifications to create larger or more productive animals, forced feeding, forced molting, cages stacked so the waste from animals above rains on those below, the list goes on. You are not only funding this, you are demanding it. If you don't like the idea of animals being tortured and treated like objects, you need to take action in your own life and do something about it. The logical conclusion is to embrace veganism. You may think that vegetarianism is enough of a step forward or that buying free range absolves you and the animal agriculture industry from guilt, but the industry is only interested in taking half steps. These modified systems are no less rationalized. They are still seeking maximum profit and are thus formulating how they can present the image of happy meat, eggs, and dairy. Egg layer hens for instance have been taken out of their cages in some barn facilities only to still pack 20,000 birds into one open room where they frequently pile in corners crushing the bottom birds to death. They still wallow in their own filth. They are still debeaked without anesthesia to prevent pecking each other to death. All of the tenets of factory farming – rationalization, efficiency, and profit margin still hold true. A sheet metal barn may be a larger cage, but all of the over crowding and abuse still occurs. These animals are still treated as objects to be destroyed for our pleasure, rather than as the beautiful living sentient beings that they are.

Similarly, the quest for low cost goods has resulted in many factories moving out of the industrialized world and into poorer countries. As a cost cutting exercise, many major manufacturers don't manufacture their own goods. Instead they hire a 3rd party manufacturer to get them the best cost on producing their goods. Often times these third party services don't do the actual manufacturing either, they make it their business to farm production out to the lowest bidder they can find. The end result being that your sneakers and apparel are manufactured in a facility several degrees of separation away from the brand that you are supporting, These factories are in some of the poorest countries with the worst labor laws. Child labor, slave wages, indentured servitude, violent union busting, forced overtime, and no job security are all rampant in the global production chain. After all, production in the industrialized world means corporations are expected to pay a living wage, offer benefits and offer job security, so it makes more sense to find cheaper labor elsewhere – the cheaper the better. Some nations even set up what are called Export Processing Zones. These zones are like industrial “free cities” not governed by local labor laws and where unionization is strictly forbidden. Within these EPZ's the corrupting nature of capitalism is readily apparent. As 13-year-old girls sew for as much as 12-14 hours a day only to go back to a barracks facility where they sleep on a section of concrete floor taped off like a human parking lot, in the vain hope that they will earn enough wages to send home to their family, we complain about the price of mundane goods and shuffle off to Wal-Mart to buy the very goods those girls were making. It's a sickening cycle that we support day in and day out. Mega-corporations put Codes of Conduct on their websites to create the illusion of responsibility, but read deeper into these documents and you'll find that they start off sounding strong, until you realize that when they say they comply with all regional labor laws. Then it becomes apparent that these Codes of Conduct have no teeth at all. The only teeth they advocate are those of the meat grinder we put the world's poorest men, women, and children through and we make this possible. For a deeper understanding of how manufacturing works in the modern age read No Logo by Naomi Klein. It gives a good explanation of sweatshop labor and Export Processing Zones, but also explains in detail the complexities of marketing, the co-opting of subcultural interests, the seizing of public/free space and ways to counter it.

The alcohol and tobacco industries market products that we know are harmful to us. They are insidious organizations that capitalize on the slow death of their consumers, hoping that potential addiction will give them life long customers. Though the tobacco industry fought hard to avoid the labeling of their products in the US stating they are known to be harmful to the health of their users, they still actively market their products, making billions of dollars in other nations with lax laws or by marketing to youth and minorities here, since the former are impressionable and the latter are often disenfranchised, searching for a cheap and easy way to battle the stress of living in our capitalist nation. Responsibility only goes as far as it is required – beyond our borders all bets are off. Meanwhile, as our loved ones are dying from cancer we wonder what went wrong. The alcohol industry is even more predatory. Unlike tobacco, alcohol is a social lubricant and can dull our senses into oblivion. Alcohol is aggressively marketed to everyone. Its sold with sex and class to the wealthy and the cheapest swill is marketed to the poor to take the edge off of their daily struggle. Walk through a poorer neighborhood in Chicago, where we are from, and you'll see grocery stores often called “food & liquor” stores plastered in alcohol and cigarette ads which might lead one to believe that these are the only things they sell, which isn't far off since often the only “food” they sell is junk food. Everyone is exploited, The gay community is targeted because society has yet to accept them. Their world is filled with doubt and tension that is easily smoothed over by a few drinks and the right atmosphere – usually a bar. Men are sold on ladies nights and parties because alcohol makes women more submissive and pliant. Women are given free drinks to get them in the door as a lure for male patrons. Women are also marketed their own drinks that aren't perceived as “manly” and vice versa. While our homes are littered with a sickening mix of alcohol fueled domestic abuse, alcoholism, and tobacco driven lung cancer and related diseases, the very companies we support with our money are often funneling that money into the coffers of political candidates who demand smaller government and a stripping of government regulations. Republican candidates get the lion share of support from the alcohol and tobacco industries, a study a few years back showed them as 2 of the top 3 sources of lobby dollars. As a show of support to these politicians, the alcohol and tobacco industries also support causes such as the fight against a woman's right to choose. When you are supporting the alcohol and tobacco industries with your money, you are supporting the exploitation of minority groups and women, the continued submission of the poor around the world, and a powerful lobby for the most reactionary causes here in the US. If you don't agree with their support of these things, don't buy it.

This philosophy does not end here. Consolidation of wealth is the most powerful force in our globalized society, If you want to take power away from the oil companies, do all of your daily commuting by public transit or by bike. If you don't like chain stores moving into your community and wiping out the diversity and character of your neighborhood, then don't support chains. Ever. Not in your neighborhood, and not in anyone else's – if you can help it. Explain to others the impact of their actions and this very simple well known but undervalued adage, “money is power.” Use it wisely. If we can change ourselves we can change the world.