(Excerpted from Chapter 6: Mercenary Shopping: Stickin’ it to the Matrix)
Shopping for frivolous and unnecessary items consumes way too much of
most people’s time and budget, while chaining the new owner of this
junk to a cluttered garage, a storage unit and general sedentary misery.
Still there are certain tools and entertainments we wish to procure
and there are many good ways to get them other than at a store.
Again it is all about attitude. You must develop a resistance to
shopping. It should be viewed as morally reprehensible. When you need to
attain an item, do your research and find out where to get it at the
best price, preferably – except, I would argue, in the case of
electronics – used. Remember, the system has declared war on your
family. Don’t shop much. And fight like a mercenary of the revolutionary
army when you must shop.
Barter is an ancient and excellent system which should be taken up
across the land. Here, the palpable stench of their bloody fiat currency
is absent.
When we lived on that 20 acre place near Peace Valley, we always had a
bumper strawberry crop.
Everyone likes strawberries, so we traded our
excess for pasture-raised poultry, eggs and honey.
We also did a community-supported agriculture swap with a local
dentist, whereby we exchanged a weekly run of in-season fresh vegetables
from our garden for a good amount of dental work.
Most people have been trained to be timid when it comes to asking a
“professional” to barter their service for your goods/services. In doing
so, you are undervaluing your own efforts. It doesn’t hurt to ask.
Remember, be audacious.
This spring, my wife organized a seed swap where gardeners from all
over the area came to trade seeds and plants. The 35-40 people in
attendance all came away with lots of free garden seeds and plants,
while passing on their extras to others! We met some great new people
and got to hang out with some old friends.
And the matrix was shut out.
On another recent occasion our good friends Phil and Amber got a
bunch of trees from the Missouri Conservation Department. Phil then
proceeded to dislocate his knee. Unable to plant all those trees and
being the generous guy he is, he organized a tree giveaway. A handful of
people showed up and each of us in turn brought various plants of our
own to give way. Some of us brought food to share. Phil shared his
excellent home-brewed dark brown ale. Everyone came away with something
new to plant. No money was exchanged.
When we lived in Missoula, MT there was an event every May which came
to be known as Hippy Christmas. This was the time when all those
college students left their dorms and apartments to go home for summer
break or move elsewhere. The alleys, parking lots and streets near the
University of Montana would gradually fill up with all manner of goodies
that these youngsters had left behind.
Since college has become very expensive, the kids that do attend
universities nowadays are sadly from increasingly wealthy families. As a
result, chances are good that their parents have bought them everything
they could possibly need – and more – to fill their college abode, so
what do these
trustafaris care if some of these almost brand new
pieces of furniture, appliances and gadgets go sitting curbside come
summer break because it wouldn’t fit in their shiny new Subaru Forester?
Dumpster diving is always above average in college towns because of
this ongoing gentrification of our higher education system. But keep
your eyes open in any town.
Another good opportunity for “ground scores” occurs when people move
out of an apartment. They usually can’t fit everything in their vehicle,
so they tend to leave many excess items sitting beside the apartment
complex dumpster. Look for the big piles.
I’ve known people who made a living off of this phenomenon, scooping
up these unwanted items and selling them on Craigslist or at a yard
sale.
We helped pioneer Missoula’s anarchist market in the mid 1990’s.
Anyone could set up a table and sell whatever for free. It may have been
the biggest of its kind in the country. It was too free for the white
fathers on City Council and has since been corralled and added to the
city balance sheet.
Our friend Erin used to dumpster dive stuff and bring it to the market to sell. How’s that for audacious?
Speaking of Craigslist, if you need a specific item, it is often a
good place to get it at less than half the store price. It is an even
better place to
sell unwanted items, since there is no commission like there is on EBay.
A good rule is, if you need to buy a more expensive item, go through
your house and find something to sell to offset the purchase. You’ll be
surprised how easy it is to find such an item.
Auctions can be another great place to get things on the cheap. My
wife and I had just moved into our new place here last fall and had
previously been traveling ultra-light.
After we sold the Alton place, we ditched nearly everything. I bought
us a series of one-way tickets that took us from Chicago-Dublin-Abu
Dhabi-Johannesburg-Katmandu-Bangkok-Vancouver.
We fulfilled a lifelong dream of going on a safari in South Africa’s
Kruger National Park and during our five-country tour of southern
Africa, also got to visit the majestic Victoria Falls on the
Zimbabwe/Zambia border.
After another 8-month stint in Thailand, Laos and Malaysia, followed
by consecutive summers in Missoula and Spearfish, we were ready to get
back to the land.
We arrived at our new place with literally a couple of backpacks. I
had never owned less in my life and it felt great. But now we needed to
furnish our new home.
In October, we went to an auction nearby. I bid on five different
lots of stuff. We jammed it into the car and still had to tie some
things on top. We got numerous pieces of furniture, blankets, Corning
Ware, baking sheets and pans, dishes and all kinds of other stuff for a
grand total of $8.
There are a couple of things to remember at auctions. You have to
realize that the auctioneer is trying to maximize his/her commission by
pushing up the prices on items. Though a friendly dance, you must
realize that he is your adversary for this day.
Show up early so you can survey the entire premises and see what’s
for sale. If you see boxes of stuff you want you can nudge those
different boxes together. If you do so, the auctioneer may very well
sell those boxes as a single lot.
Once you’ve lined out your bid targets, move well away from those
items so as not to draw the interest of other bidders or the
auctioneers. Stay extra cool and disinterested because you don’t want
either other bidders or the auctioneer to think you really want those
items.
Otherwise, there could be a bidding war or the auctioneer could
activate a straw bidder, and the price goes up. Wait until well into the
bid process on that item has commenced to cast your first bid. Let at
least one other person bid first.
If a bunch of people start bidding, walk away. The item will sell too
high. If it’s just you and one other person, let time pass before your
second bid. Slow the process down. Sometimes if you wait long enough to
cast that first bid, no one else bids. Then the auctioneer will say,
“Who wants it all for $1?”
You do! Score!
In this area we have several radio stations that do shows with names like
Tradio and
Swapline,
where people call in to buy, sell and give away their items. This is
another excellent way to sell and procure items outside the matrix store
system.
Bulletin boards at libraries, universities and stores are also
excellent places to sell big ticket items that won’t fetch enough money
at a yard sale. Make a list of items you wish to sell on a sheet of
paper. Write “Must Sell!” at the top. Beside each item give a short
description and your asking price. Write your phone number on the main
sheet, then also write your number sideways on several little tear-offs
at the bottom.
Bulletin boards can also be great places to find deals on stuff you
need. Again, check university bulletin boards at the end of semesters
when students have burned through their cash and want to lighten their
moving load.
A major benefit of all of the above ways to acquire stuff is that you don’t have to pay sales tax.
No store represents the evils of the matrix more than Wal-mart. As
such, you should avoid shopping there.
But it is an excellent place to
“borrow” things.
How often do you need a certain tool or whatever for one project? You
buy the thing, use it once and it sets it your garage taking up space
and gathering dust for the next fifty years.
This is where the Chinese sweat shop, otherwise known as Wal-mart, comes in.
This particularly nefarious beast just happens to offer a 90-day
return policy on most items. Make sure to keep your receipt. With it,
you get cash back and won’t need an ID. Without it, you’ll get a
Wal-mart store card for the amount and a bad mark on the matrix “naughty
kids” list.
Get what you need, use it and return it with receipt for a cash
refund. There is nothing illegal about it. It is Wal-Mart’s policy and
was their idea, not yours or mine.
You can abuse other Big Box stores in a similar manner. During that
first meager Ozarks stint, I bought a mower at Walmart, used it for a
full three months, returned it in totally hammered condition for cash;
then bought one at Kmart and did the exact same thing three months
later.
It is very important that you NEVER do this to a Mom & Pop store.
This should go without saying, but it’s amazing how many people don’t
get that distinction. Mom & Pop are not the owners of the matrix. In
fact, they are clobbered by it daily, just as you are.
When you abuse these matrix corporate stores – who have gutted every
Main Street in this country – you actually help the smaller stores by
taking a bite out of Wal-Mart’s bottom line. Equally important, you are
also helping to set yourself free from the matrix.
The only better policy than mercenary shopping is no shopping.
Chronic shopping will only take you further into the matrix prison. My
wife and I go to town once a week. For us, it’s not, “Buy Nothing Day”,
it’s “Buy Nothing Week”– EVERY week.
It’s not just that shopping keeps you in debt, penniless and anchored
to the grid via a job. Material possessions also severely limit your
mobility, increase your worries (since with each new item purchased you
now have more to lose), and have a generally dampening effect on your
potentially revolutionary spirit.
As Henry David Thoreau so eloquently put it, “Material possessions are a positive hindrance to the elevation of mankind”.
http://hendersonlefthook.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/how-to-starve-the-illuminati-beast/
Dean Henderson is the author of five books:
Big
Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight
Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network,
The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries,
Das Kartell der Federal Reserve, Stickin’ it to the Matrix &
The Federal Reserve Cartel. You can subscribe free to his weekly
Left Hook column @
www.hendersonlefthook.wordpress.com