Cursed Tongue: Homeless to the Extreme

Posted by CursedTongue on September 14, 2007

There are those who scoffed. Those who thought that homeless people couldn’t afford to have a philosophy. But one day a bunch of vegans changed all of that.

Vegans are people who choose not to eat or use any animal products. This includes cheese, and wool, and other commodities that don’t inspire the untimely demise of farm animals (as opposed to rib eye). The theory is that by sheltering cows, feeding them, providing health care, and protecting them from predators in exchange for milk they are being exploited. The cows didn’t give the farmer express permission for the collection and consumption of their milk. Therefore vegans eat arugula, flaxseeds, soymilk and tofu.

Anyhow, a group of these vegans, obviously suffering from essential fatty acid deficiency and therefore lightheaded, thought it would be a good idea to live like parasites on the wooly backside of the engorged system of American Capitalism by dumpster diving. They prefer the term “urban foraging.” I prefer not to think about the bacteria and germs swarming on an organic banana someone picked out of the trash and then ate.

In their hunger-impaired state they managed to come up with the clever name freegan. “What is a freegan?” you may ask. Well, a freegan is an enigma wrapped in a piece of greasy paper with a bit of melted cheese stuck on it that someone fished out of the dumpster behind a Burger King. They’re one egg short of a dozen. Which also happens to be something they come across frequently in dumpsters.

They buy as little as possible. They share their scrounged treasure with others. Loath to finance a culture of exploitation and waste, the freegans recover usable food and goods from the trash.

Since reduce, recycle and reuse is still not catching on in the mainstream, freegans came up with three new R’s for Americans to ignore: reclaim, recover and repair. Their goal is to keep as much out of landfills as possible.

Adam Weissman, a promoter of freeganism, felt that living as a vegan was hypocritical. How meaningful is a boycott on products that exploit animals if the shirt on the vegan’s back was produced in a sweatshop? Frustrated with attempting to boycott products from especially exploitive, wasteful and environmentally abusive corporations, freegans decided all corporate entities were inherently evil. Corporations serve investors and their own bottom lines, not consumers, their employees or the public good.

Corporations go “green” to sell environmentally friendly products to tree-huggers and to cultivate images of social responsibility, with the end goal of generating marketing buzz. Any benefit to the earth is incidental, and therefore unworthy of recognition by the extreme homeless.

One of the evil things corporate fat cats do is implement scams, like the sell-by date. Grocery stores and individuals dispose of perfectly good food that has past its sell-by date. Freegans steak out the dumpsters of organic grocery stores and recover almost expired, sell-today and barely expired food. Some of these grocery store, run by evil corporations, even throw out food that perfectly good, but that they don’t have enough room on their shelves for.

The back alleys of health food stores are not the only places plagued by freeloaders. Not all freegans are vegans. But there are, apparently, vegan freegans who will eat eggs and cheese if they have been thrown out. The rationalization being, that it would otherwise go to waste and they are not supporting the system of animal oppression with their hard earned money (assuming they have any). I think it confirms the suspicion that all vegans secretly yearn for big, juicy double cheeseburger with bacon.

Housing is considered a right by freegans, who often squat in abandoned apartments and buildings. Why should actual homeless people huddle in the doorframes of buildings, when there are abandoned Wal-marts all over the place? Freegans reason that callus businesses that sit on resources like empty buildings don’t deserve to have them.

Likewise, “You eat that brussels sprouts, young lady, there are starving children in Darfur who would be grateful to have slimy green balls that smell like rotting stinkweed to eat.”

By practicing “voluntary joblessness,” freegans avoid being, “cogs in a machine of violence, death, exploitation, and destruction.” Why risk being bored, bossed around and sustaining psychological damage if you might accidentally contribute something to society?

Although the freegan lifestyle is anti-corporation, they have no objection to seeking media attention. Even though the media is the biggest producer of cheeze, exploiting the sensibilities of viewers everywhere with substandard jokes, stupidity, misinformation and product placement. True, they get their publicity for free but they had to do something more odious than wade though dumpsters—interfacing with TV news reporters that have the I.Q.s of tofurkey. Which is smarter than a brussels sprout but dumber than a toaster pastry.

The freegan lifestyle is a rebellion against the vulgar over-consumption that is rampant in the U.S.. Of course, if Americans became conservative consumers, buying less and wasting less the freegans would have to get jobs, and be exploited by the system just like the rest of us cows. Moo.

- Sarah Letnes

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