New Year's Resolutions

...it's that time of year again...time to start anew...time to change...time to act...

...time to become the man I want to be...

My New Year's resolutions, for Food Justice, for Los Angeles, for beyond:

I WILL BRING MY EATING TO THE PINNACLE.  When I moved to Los Angeles, I ate exclusively Doritos and drank exclusively soda.  After my liberal arts education changed my life, I discovered the amazing world of fruits, whole grains, and tea.  After moving into FOOD JUSTICE HOUSE, I discovered the incredible potential of home cooking and conscious grocery shopping.  Now, it is time to bring my devotion to FOOD JUSTICE even further, for myself, for my city, for my world...

I've realized that I only succeed if I set absolutes for myself, so, starting this year, I will follow new strict rules of personal FOOD JUSTICE.

NO NON-LOCAL, NON-FREE-RANGE, NON-ORGANIC FED MEAT.  No longer will I corrupt my soul and body with the slaughter of diseased and suffering factory chattel, the dying leeches of our nation's and world's ever-draining natural resources.  MEAT IS LUXURY, NOT NECESSITY.  I will make fewer exceptions, hold myself to a higher standard.  I will eat less meat, and be more fulfilled because of it.

GREATER COMMITMENT TO LOCAL MARKETS.  Convenience is apathy, convenience is denial, convenience is the slow whimper of suffocation.  National grocers are less expensive, more abundant, more consistent...I deny these false virtues.  Whenever possible (what is possibility? a restriction? a denial of infinite potential?) I will purchase my food from farmer's stands, urban agriculture, independent organic markets.  I will pay more, but in doing so I will escape the clutches of the indulgence, the inaction, the self-aggrandized greed of the supermarket, that all-encompassing totality of capitalistic imagination.    

NO MORE DISPOSABLE SHOPPING BAGS, NO MORE DISPOSABLE FUEL.  I will ride my bicycle to the market, and on my back I will carry a cloth tote.

BUY LOCAL, BUY AMERICAN.  No longer will I purchase clothing made on the broken backs and brittle fingers of foreign, sweatshop slave labor.  I will support my nation, my economy, my heritage.  The American economy cannot fail if its participants, the AMERICAN PEOPLE, turns its collective back on the unsustainable history of free-trade importation.  Support America, support American industry, support American manufacturing.  Let MADE IN THE USA cease to be a joke, cease even to be a banner of pride...let it become a necessity.  The need for more possessions, the desire for greater diversity, the right to unlimited choice, is the fallacy of liberalism.  MORE MONEY SPENT LESS OFTEN IS BETTER MONEY SPENT.

FALL IN LOVE.

WRITE MORE OFTEN.  For we must be heard.

The future is now, the end is not near.  Unite beneath the principles of the FOOD JUSTICE HOUSE.  Unite under JUSTICE, and through JUSTICE be freed.

Gone from FOOD JUSTICE HOUSE, but not from FOOD JUSTICE.
Fight on, fallen comrades.  
 #occupypetersburg #occupycapetown #occupythailand #occupygrenada 
#occupyhyderabad #occupyallstreets #FJworlddomination

-Ben "The Best" Tuthill