Renegadery in 10 Easy Pieces

The blogosphere, which increasingly includes otherwise sober and well-staffed publications, tends to express its ideas in short bullet lists. Not to be left out, here's ours.

We want to make sure that new visitors (and continuing visitors who haven’t yet read through the basic material) understand exactly what Renegade Consumer is all about. Here’s the cheat sheet.

Five Things We Aren't

Let's dispel misconceptions first, since it's easy to mistake renegadery for other things.

• We aren’t consumer advocates.

We aren't here to tell you the best thing to buy. We're here to tell you not to buy it at all.

• We aren’t about frugal living.

We're not about bargain-hunting, coupon-clipping or scrounging. That's just playing the consumer game from a different chair. (It's also a marginal solution; see below.)

• We aren’t financial advisors.

We're not here to sell you a fantastic investment scheme or hot insider tips. We're not trying to tell you how to beat the game; we're telling you how to get the hell out of the casino.

• We aren’t a political movement.

Period. We span (and underlie) the entire political spectrum. We're about people and economics, not political dogma.

• We aren’t about marginal solutions.

We're a total-war, big-fix movement. We aren't advocating ways to live a radical life on the fringes of “normality.” We're out to reorder the notions of normality.

Five Things We Are

Now the important stuff: what we really are, and seek, and stand for.

• We are advocates for a fundamental reordering of individual, family and national interests.

Our goal is nothing less than a complete rewrite of the foundation of modern life, something far more basic than mere politics or religion.

• We are advocates for individual economic freedom.

You're a slave and probably don't even realize it. Worse, you're a slave who thinks you're happy. Here's the key to a freedom — and the potential for real happiness — that is your birthright.

• We are believers that people have a function other than to consume their share.

And you think WikiLeaks blew the lid off some secrets. Here's the biggest of them all: you're just an economic battery whose function is to expend your life staying charged to power the consumerism cycle. All else is window dressing... until you decide it's time for a change. Like, now.

• We are against the use of advertising to foster unneeded consumption.

Advertising and marketing have their place, but it's not in convincing you that you need a 5-bladed razor. Or that the world needs to drown in more crap.

• We are implacably committed to the destruction of the consumerist cycle.

It's an all-out war for individual self-determination and economic freedom. Right now we're losing big time. You're losing big time. Time to start chalking up wins.

Any questions? Try here next.

— JKG