Dissidence, advocacy, activism - do you stick it to the man?

[Kazbah]

I have a few t-shirts I wear that get people talking (free betty being one of them!) and stickers / fridge magnets I put up at work.

Also my coffee cup - it's a BB one, but I use it for my coffee every day from the cafe, and they now charge you 20c less if you BYO cup (I'm about to ask them to change their sign to "COFFEE - $2.80. Disposable cup - 20c extra" instead of "get 20c off for your own cup"). Because it's a big cup, people look at it and realise it's more than the medium size coffee (for $3) and possibly bigger than the large coffee ($4.50) so they start to bring their own cup. Nobody who sees me going to get my coffee is game to be seen with a disposable cup in their hand! Oh yeah, and people ask what BB is too, and I tell them its about empowering parents and those who want to be parents etc about safe birthing and child raising ...

With food, well, at our table at the Melbourne Mega-meet (queens' birthday) I asked if people would mind not ordering grain-fed meat because it's ethically bad (given the amounts of antibiotics fed to the cows to actually keep them alive after changing their diet from pasture to grains - it's horrid).

I also sell my own eggs (ummm chook eggs!) at work with photos of my happy chooks on them ... a lot of people ask how many chooks I have and when I tell them that 4 chooks is more than enough to supply us with eggs, and sell a dozen / week which pays for their food - and also that they follow us round the backyard and are so relaxing to hear that people are asking me for advice on getting chooks!

What else ... BFing - I make a point to say when I see a newborn "oh well done on your son/daughter, I just love their little breastfeeding lips! You can always tell when they're on mumma's gold!" and if anyone expresses interest in my cloth addiction, I lend them some nappies to either try out or get an idea of (if they're preggers and don't have a child to try them on).

Oh, and I lend books. I've been known to buy multiple copies of books just so I can lend them out (I follow the maxim don't lend what you can't afford to lose) to people. Specially stuff like Peter Singer ethics books etc.

Oh yeah, and I petitioned my boss to buy fairtrade coffee instead of nestle instant evil.

Great ideas with the post-it notes!!!! A friend of mine (in a wheelchair) carries pre-printed notes and a tube of super-glue to stick on the windows of rude people in carparks!

[~Saram~]

mrsmac - yep read the McLibel thing on the internet but for me - that is a company that I agree has issues but I think they are doing OK compared to others - at least they try and yes charities etc. As for their preservatives - we get the happy meal with nuggests, apples and water - yes their is preservative in the cooking oil but my DS doesn't seem to react to that preservative. Hubby and I used to take our own brumby's rolls and hand them over and ask for our buger to go on them and they have always been pretty helpful. Compared to the others they have a lot less preservatives and other food addivitive!

Starrysky - woohoo! That is wonderful that you were able to help so many people

[Kazbah]

Some bloke (can't remember his name) petitioned McDonalds about the battery hens it was using for its meat production. The theory being that if you move McDonalds, the rest of the industry will follow. He was quite successful, unfortunately after his death, in that the chooks McDonalds buy now have almost twice as much room to stand in (unfortunately it's still very cramped, but better than before) and the egg production is the same with standards.

Oh, and I forgot to mention before - we buy ex-battery hens and keep them as our chooks, and when people ask me about them, I tell them how we have to teach them to walk, to scratch, to be chickens.

[Trillian]

With food, well, at our table at the Melbourne Mega-meet (queens' birthday) I asked if people would mind not ordering grain-fed meat because it's ethically bad (given the amounts of antibiotics fed to the cows to actually keep them alive after changing their diet from pasture to grains - it's horrid).

Great ideas with the post-it notes!!!! A friend of mine (in a wheelchair) carries pre-printed notes and a tube of super-glue to stick on the windows of rude people in carparks!

Do you mean feedlotted beef? Because there is a huge difference to feeding your cattle grain in a regular farm situation to feeding cattle grain in a feed lot situation. Not all grain fed beef is evil

And as for using super glue, well that's vandalism and I have a very low opinion of people who vandalise stuff, even if it is to get a message across. If that were me who found something SUPER GLUED to my car I would be absolutely white with fury.

[christy]

I'm a passionate woman, with passions for justice and equality for all living things.

We make choices in our houses as far as being responsible for what is in our cupboard and our toilet.
Often when we have people over, they notice stuff... like the chickens out the front that they have to wade through the mulch that the chickens spread over the walk way... every fricken day.... and then when they come inside our house, stumble over the herbs in pots. Most of our toys are wooden or home made, most of our clothes are second hand or home made, and we don't have packaged food around. Our cupboard is full of spices and different sources of flour/seeds/legumes/oils. We pull the cloth nappies off the line & they ask "so what do you wash them in?" and I answer "soap nuts" no really nuts that you put in the washing machine!

It goes on and on, and with every reply I give, I give our reasons why we have chosen that.

As with every aspect of our lives, we live it first, and then we educate through love.