Backwards thinking

Why would you choose to be poor?

This family is living with no money, only the good will of other people, "as activists who are on a money strike to protest what they call our “excess-consumption society.”"

In short, they take favors from other people to protest the fact that our society is wasteful and spend-thrifty.

Yes, we are a wasteful society. Yes we have way more than we need, and we waste a lot of it. But how is it a solution to- make no money have no money spend no money- but TAKE from other people who have and make and spend money, on you? As the wife put it: “As consumers, we support the system, and we are all responsible for making a wasteful society,” Raphael Fellmer, 29, told Yahoo! Shine. “This strike is to inspire other people to reflect about our other possibilities.”

What other possibilities? Living off other people? Draining their resources? The man in question took a trip around the world "simply depending on the goodwill and excess resources of others".

So, hmmmm... Instead of maybe, making a billion dollars and sharing it with other people, or using it to help the environment, you abstain from money altogether, unless it comes from someone else's pocket? Smart.

What about this guy? 

Matt Damon is protesting the fact that there are people in various developing countries with no clean toilets. He says that we can give $25 for one person to have clean water for life.

His solution:

"In protest of this global tragedy, until this issue is resolved, until everybody has access to clean water and sanitation, I will not go to the bathroom."

So, Matt Damon? How much money do you have? Maybe give some of that money to buy people toilets, instead of causing yourself bodily harm. The same way that "eat your vegetables, there are starving children in Africa" will not feed those starving children, refraining from going to the bathroom will not solve the global problem you so kindly pointed out.

As one great commentor put it: "So should I flush the $25 down the toilet? Will it reach the right people?" (Beck Beck)

Apparently, Damon was joking, and merely trying to spread awareness. You sure got my attention.

On to Rosa Parks. Yes, the woman who started the Civil Rights movement, and helped African Americans gain equality. We all know the famous story of how she refused to get off a full bus and give her seat to a white person.

On December 1 2005, exactly 50 years to the day that Ms. Parks refused to budge, there were signs on all public buses throughout America stating that she changed history and inspired us all. "It all started on a bus... Please reserve this seat in her memory."

So, there were many many empty seats that day, causing old and young people alike to stand in the isle, in order to commemorate the day that Rosa Parks refused to stand? Does that not sound backward? Maybe they should have put EXTRA seats on the bus, and said, whoever is tired, come rest your feet!

Sometimes it makes me laugh when I see supposedly smart people doing incredibly stupid things.

Maybe they just don't have a 'Yidishe Kup".