Guest Post by Daisy Luther
A term coined in 1985 by an unnamed staffer of the Reagan administration was “Starve the Beast”. This referred to a fiscally conservative political strategy to cut government spending by paying less in taxes. So, in the original sense, “the Beast” was the government, and people were to starve said beast by spending less and using loopholes to pay less in taxes.
Now the Beast is a whole lot bigger.
These days the Beast has a lot more tentacles than just the government.
The system now consists of the government and all aspects of corporatism. Big Agri, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Food, Big Banking, and Big Oil, to name a few. It seems that now it’s the Beast that’s doing the starving, as small businesses close because they can’t compete with WalMart, bigger chains are run out of existence by Amazon, the family farm is on its way out because it can’t compete with the huge, subsidized mega-farms, and people are going bankrupt because they can’t pay the outrageous medical bills…
These mega-corporations aren’t there to make our lives better or easier. They’re there to make as much money as possible and they’ll run you over if you get in their way.
(Please note that there are Amazon links in this article to show you the books I recommend. You may be able to find these books from local sellers.)
When I first wrote this article in 2013, Big Tech wasn’t quite as prevalent. I’ve added some recommendations from the comments over the years to expand this list.
Perhaps more of us need to starve the beast.
Is it convenient to starve the beast and avoid doing business with mega-corporations or to work around funding endless wars that kill and maim our young people while enriching the Military-Industrial Complex?
No, but it’s time.
It’s time for another financial revolution – one where people group together and use the power of the pocketbook to starve all the arms of this Beast that would swallow us whole. If we vote with our dollars, eventually there will, of necessity, be a paradigm shift that returns us to simpler days, when families who were willing to work hard could make a living without selling their souls to the corporate monoliths.
Every penny you spend with small local businesses is a penny that the big box stores won’t have. Everything that you buy secondhand or barter for is an item on which you won’t pay sales tax. Disassociate yourself completely with “the system” that is making Western civilization broke, overweight and unhealthy.
Here are 55 ways to starve the Beast.
Starve the Beast by taking as many of these steps as possible…
- Grow your own food.
- Shop at local businesses with no corporate ties.
- Use natural remedies instead of pharmaceuticals whenever possible.
- Homeschool your children. If you can’t homeschool, at the very least, spend time undoing the indoctrination by giving them the tools to think critically.
- Walk or bike instead of driving when you can.
- When possible, get care from naturopaths and healers instead of doctors.
- Make paper logs from scraps for free heat if you have a wood-burning fireplace or stove.
- Boycott all processed foods.
- Shop at local farmer’s markets or buy directly from the farms themselves.
- Don’t buy from corporate stores: Wal-Mart, Costco, Best Buy, Home Depot. Instead, pay a few extra dollars and buy from local vendors.
- Give vouchers as gifts for an evening of babysitting, a homemade meal, walking the dog, doing a repair, or cleaning
- Join a CSA or farm co-op
- Ditch television (and all the propaganda and commercials). If you want to view programs, enroll in a streaming service without commercials like Netflix.
- Participate in the barter system – although remember that even if no money changes hands, the government would like for you to let them know so you can be duly taxed.
- Buy secondhand from yard sales, Craigslist, and thrift stores
- Sell your own unwanted goods by having a yard sale or putting an ad on Craigslist
- Repair things instead of replacing them
- Avoid fast-food restaurants and chain restaurants
- Dine at locally owned establishments if you eat out.
- Brew your own beer and wine.
- Cook from scratch to avoid all those Big Food chemicals and additives.
- Grow or gather medicinal herbs.
- Give homemade gifts.
- Attend free local activities: lectures, concerts, play days at the park, library events.
- Dumpster dive and pick up things from the curb.
- Play outside: hike, bike, picnic.
- Mend clothing.
- Invite someone over for dinner instead of meeting at a chain restaurant.
- Throw creative birthday parties at home for your kids instead of renting a venue.
- Travel to other countries and note how most are not filled with mega-corporations, and local businesses still thrive.
- Bring your coffee with you in a travel mug.
- Do all of your Christmas shopping with small local businesses and artisans.
- Reduce your electricity usage with candles, solar power, and non-tech entertainment.
- Drop the thermostat and put on a sweater.
- Bring your snacks and drinks in a cooler when you go on a road trip.
- Stay home – it’s way easier to avoid temptations that way. Shopping should not be a form of entertainment.
- Pack lunches for work and school.
- Make delicious homemade treats as a hostess gift.
- Close your bank account or at the very least, strictly limit your balance.
- Visit u-pick berry patches and orchards, then preserve your harvest for the winter.
- Use precious metals stored at home as your savings account.
- Raise backyard chickens for your own eggs.
- If you are a smoker, roll your own cigarettes – if possible go one step further and grow tobacco.
- Brew your own beer, wine, and liquor.
- Use solar power for lighting or cooking.
- Collect rainwater for use in the garden
- Learn to forage.
- Buy heavy, solid, handmade furniture instead of the flimsy imported stuff
- At the holidays, focus on activities and traditions instead of gifts.
- Make your own bath and body products using pure ingredients like coconut oil, essential oils, and herbal extracts
- Use alternative social media.
- Get an old-fashioned flip phone while you still can.
- Drive an older car without GPS tracking.
- Use a VPN like ExpressVPN to keep your location information masked on your electronic devices.
- Avoid adding surveillance technology such as Ring or Nest to your home.
Will these activities save America from corporatism and government overreach? Maybe not, but at least you’ll be doing your small part to rebel. Like David fighting Goliath, we are small but we are mighty enemies.
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How can you find 55 ways of starving the beast and not include:
Don’t vote in federal elections.
That beast cannot be starved, you have to cut off its head.
Then cut off its limbs, then cut out its heart like Aztecs…then soak the body in gas and set it on fire…then collect the ashes, put them in a tub, fill the tub with cement, let it harden, then drop the tub in the deepest part of the deepest sea.
Then why is everyone aiming too low?
Expand.
#56) Ditch you credit cards and your credit. Create a false credit trail that is stored in the big three reporting agencys that doesn’t lead back to where you really are. Disappear from the system in other ways too.
How about a tutorial?
That is the tutorial.
They are going to try to do away with cash. They will attempt to go fully digital. The mark of the beast is that you can neither buy nor sell without the mark of the beast – sounds a lot like not being able to transact unless it is digital.
Disappearing from the system will become increasingly difficult, perhaps nigh on impossible.
US citizens abroad are seeing this even now. You cannot open bank accounts in most countries without reporting your status back to the US. In fact, some banks abroad will simply not do business with US citizens. It has to do with FATCA, where overseas banks must report on US citizens, or face being fined, by memory 35%, on of all transactions done with the US. Every single country has caved in.
No place to run, no where to hide.
The cell phone is the Mark of the Beast.
Nope, llpoh is dead-on. You’ll have to barter or use alternative currency (junk silver).
Exactly, as is depicted in my other post below.
When crypto becomes the official currency i suppose people will target the the satellites, i mean cell towers. Because all that talk that “cell” phones were satellite based were bullshit. We just forgot that. If the towers do not work the crypto doesn’t either …..a few well placed shots or hacksaws to the base of just one leg then a nice breeze, buh bye. I have heard that was a big issue for crypto
56. make you own hat, out of newspapers…
57. then drive around town, and shoot things with your finger gun, until you get pulled over..
58. pay your bail with pennies..
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/11/17/Judge-tells-Flynt-to-leave-pennies-at-home/4619437893200/
If I follow these tips I could save hundred of dollars per year.
Seriously, using a naturopath? For fuck’s sake. How about a homeopath? Those women (they’re mostly women) exist to extract money from stupid rich women.
I beg to differ, I dont have a fuckin colostomy bag because of a dedicated homeopath, so careful with that advice, cuz my life would be exponentially different if I had left my trust with the GI’s.
I’m glad you’re better, but unless it was due to the placebo effect, homeopathy is 100% bullshit. Their remedies are – by design – guaranteed to contain absolutely not even a trace element of anything. That’s how they avoid FDA regulation – because their “remedies” are provably devoid of any material element other than the medium (distilled water, sugar) which purportedly carries the agent. Their terms (“remedy”) are chosen to avoid legal consequence, and their nomenclature is designed to sound efficacious to rubes while assuring the government that it’s nothing but water and sugar pills. An “E32” remedy means that whatever the supposed agent was (some duck liver 125 years ago) has been diluted to the tune of one divided by ten to the 32nd power. It’s like one grain of sand relative to all of the Sahara.
The true tragedy isn’t people spending money on magical thinking; it’s people skipping actual scientifically valid therapies in favor of fucking nonsense.
Cuz the FDA always has your best interests at heart…
Osteopaths are kinda ok. But the others – I am with Iska.
That’s because you know what 10 to the 400th power means.
I do not know what it means but in words it is ten cendotrigintillion.
The true tragedy is people believing in big pharma and the f d fucking a. Pharma drugs are the 4th the biggest killer in this country. For fuck sake Iska, you trust the gubbermint and pharma more than natural therapies that work. I’m truly surprised. Homeothopy works on the same principal as vaccines, only much much safer.
I don’t know about homeothopy, but homeopathy quite explicitly promises that its remedies contain nothing. Vaccines contain actual agents, which is how polio and smallpox were eradicated. If people had been injected with distilled water, it would have had no effect. As you know from high school chemistry, a mole of water is 6 X 10 to the 23rd power (number of water molecules) and equals roughly 18 ml. Since oscillococcinum is diluted to 1 over 10 to the 40th power, an 18 ml remedy would have far less than a one in a billionth (that’s only ten to the 9th) chance of containing even one molecule of the magical duck liver. It’s like an eye dropper of red dye dropped into the ocean off the coast of Borneo and scooping up a teaspoon of your remedy from the ocean at Santa Cruz. So, no, it’s not at all the “same principle as vaccines”.
iska,
if you had the power to do so,would you make alternative medicine illegal?
all or none or some?if some,which ones?
I wouldn’t make any alternative medicine illegal. And I’m open to the possibility that much of it could be effective. Acupuncture, chelation therapy, Chinese herbs, CBD oil, macrobiotic foods, etc. anything that has a basis in the physical world – whether because it’s consumed or applied to the body like acupuncture – could at least theoretically have some effect. And anything that can be tested via the scientific method has that going for it. And since I’m a prayer kind of guy, I hold that to be potentially efficacious, too. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, after all. But when someone tells me that a smidgeon of duck liver from 150 years ago has been diluted by a factor of 10 to the 400th power (that’s a “1” followed by 400 zeroes) to the point where the odds of your “remedy” having even ONE ATOM of ancient magic duck liver are in the “1 in a billion” range, I call bullshit on the whole endeavor.
I mean seriously, have we reached the point where we can’t call ANYTHING bullshit? We have to say “well, you never know – Aunt Mabel swore it helped her phlebitis”. If I came around touting vials of my dog’s piss as a cure-all, you’d rightly say I was full of shit. If I sell vials of “remedy” that were scooped from Lake Tahoe after I’d dumped a drop of my dog’s piss in the other end of the lake, I’d be a billion times more full of shit. Such is homeopathy.
Look, you know who’s reportedly into homeopathy? The Windsors – and they’re fucking retarded.
we’re good-some of what you say i agree with,some i do not–
where i have serious issues with people is when they are willing to ban or regulate so much that it effectively bans any treatment a person wants to use–
i despise these people as much as i do mandatory vaxxers–
the older i get,the more i mistrust big pharma & big medicine–
A great rant!
Thats because the fda limits them. Maybe they are telling you the remedy they provide is your choice to go out seek it take it in larger quantities and it fixes u….
Yeah, it was placebo aloe and greens, what a fuckin schmuk you are, how is that for fuckin nonsense. Their scientifically valid therapy was a resection, glad I had the sense to smell the bullshit, it had the same aroma I am getting a whif of now.
Aloe and greens are actual physical things. They exist and therefore can plausibly interact with the molecules that comprise your body. As such, they have nothing to do with homeopathy. Now, maybe a homeopath recommended aloe and greens. It’s not surprising at all that aloe and greens could have had a good effect on a digestive ailment, but to credit homeopathy would be like crediting throwing salt over your shoulder if you’d been doing that in addition to eating greens.
Granted, but he at times made homeopathic recommendations, not that he would only practice homeopathy, I guess not a pure homeopath, if there is such a person these days, and it was he that pumped me full of aloe and greens, staving off the dread bag.
A naturopath would be more accurate, but i still got the solid advice from him, not from the allopaths, for whatever reason, profit, I suspect, and there may be legions of scammers out there cashing in.
Thank God he suggested the greens and the aloe, then! Peace.
Natural plants were used in all meds up u til 1980. Then they went synthetic and cheaper to make. Homeopath uses natural plants. Funny how you don’t see this iska. That was the only post in my history of reading your post i have ever disagreed with.
It’s bullshit.
Well, the allopathic medical / big pharma / fedgov complex is no better insofar as the extraction of money from ignorant people is concerned, along with the hawking of oft unnecessary, useless, hyper-expensive, impersonal, and, at times, outright harmful practices.
Weed (THC) is all natural and yes it too is such bullshit it has zero affects on the human body. Yet it too is highly regulated and wait what it causes you to get high! But i thought all homeopathic remedies, plants etc were all bullshit and had no effects on humans!
We tried a thc cream and it worked instantly on rheumatoid arthritis. My lower back stopped hurting and no sciatica. I was a huge disbeliever in creams. Literally was saying out loud it was bullshit as my wife rubbed it into my back. When she was done in 3 min no freakin pain. Changed me forever.
Naturopath /= homeopath. We have visited an “evidence-based” naturopath on a couple of occasions with good results.
The majority of these suggestions will also just save you money,starves the beast a little all the better.
” how to starve the beast”—use Amazon? How in the hell can Daisy recommend using Amazon to starve the beast. Amazon is one of the largest beasts!
Shop locally. Use mom and pop stores and pay in cash. Buy precious metals and be your own Central Banker.
Get out of the Too Big To Fail Banks and get into a sound Credit Union and or small Community Bank.
Remind me to tell you my Bank of America story some time.
Donkey, why don’t you tell us your Bank of America story?
You must have missed this part.
Even if you have a union job, a 401k/403b, or a pension you can supplement your savings without having to deal with investment banks. I’m acting as if my Teamsters (LOL) pension won’t be there if I need it.
Every month I visit my friendly coin dealer and augment my own savings plan. Silver is on sale at this level and some of the old sports memorabilia I have is going to get converted.
Why is it that no Teamsters union member trusts Teamsters with their pensions? ?
Mobsters. Political kickbacks and influence-peddling with member dues, for starters.
I’ve always considered modern unions little more than gathering places for activist, parasitic personalities. In 30-some years of being employed I never, EVER, had to deal with a union, but as a public employee in NJ, union membership is required, whether you participate in the organization or not.
I despise unions, and especially Teamsters. They take dues no matter what. In my local, if you want to vote, you drop your “silent” membership and pay 20% more for the fucking privilege of voting. Meetings are little more than bickering over pitiful benefits and getting an honest, personal response from anyone other than your immediate shop steward is a waste of time.
Did I mention I despise them?
“Shop locally” – – where do you think these businesses get their supplies? Unless they’re making them, they have the same Chinese suppliers as Amazon. Why should I pay more? This idea is pointless virtue-signalling.
Daisey has her link to amazon and she makes money off the beast duh. Even for her money and mark of the beast are too short term important for her to take her own advice….people are sell outs. Thats why hero’s do not exist today…
Brewing your own is mentioned twice.
It can be a lot of work but it’s fun learning to do things yourself. Buying commercial can be expensive be cause you’re paying for the convenience. If you do it right and you’re patient for a month or six weeks your own beer can cost less than $1/bottle.
I have been making my own wine for about three years now. At this point I save about 2/3 rds over what I was spending retail. And it is better wine. Now that I have done it for a while I can zip through the process. I would recommend for anyone that has the ability to do it.
If you try to starve the beast, the beast will give you “the mark of the beast”.
https://www.healthnutnews.com/wisconsin-workers-embedded-with-microchips/
Use Amazon to buy Daisy’s books? Why not go to the local library and borrow the books for free? They can even borrow books from other libraries for you to check out.
You missed it too. She’s only using Amazon to show you what books she’s talking about. Only one book is hers and one more is someone else.
Why buy when you can borrow? You are not putting additional money into the system and thus starving it.
Well I was just referring to the Amazon thing. However libraries don’t have every book out there. A large library in a large city increases your selection though.
Most libraries participate in a loan program and all it costs is postage for the book. I recently had my small local library borrow a book about the passage of the 17th amendment from UVA Law Library. They do all of the research in finding the book and arranging the loan and it only cost me $2 to get my book.
You could always go live with the Amish. I once lived in Amish country. They are grim, colorless, joyless, insular, poorly read, solipsistic, and cruel to their animals. In their favor they make study furniture and can put a barn up in a couple days.
Their women hot and bothered
Netflix? Seriously? Perhaps more homework is needed in identifying this “beast” you speak of…
Sounds all really good. There is only one problem: In order to starve the beast you have to get the big majority of the population to participate. And this will never happen because the big majority of people do not have the necessary intellect to do it. If they had, the beast would have never grown to this size.
We have a little battery store in town whose owner said, that he has no problem competing with Walmart. But he is one of very few in the land.
You do not need to get the big majority involved. You need to get the top 1% or top 10% involved. When they take their ball and go home, it is over. They pay almost all the tax. Watch what is happening in NJ, Illinois, CA – the balls are being grabbed up and are flowing elsewhere. When they start flowing overseas in large numbers, it will hit the fan.
The US has implemented a huge exit tax to try and prevent it, though.
You slaves, you cannot leave! But the rich always find ways. So it will be everyone else who cannot leave.
A small quibble with #42: Chickens first and foremost should be viewed as soil manufacturing plants. They are incredible with their little feet constantly moving. Eggs are a secondary benefit. If you also practice #1, you can feed them wholesome scraps so their shit is even better fertilizer.