Mine • 22 July 2006 • The SnowBlog

Mine

          I'm repeating a comment here that I made on the Culture Vulture blog, because it's what I've been thinking about this week and the hapless Peterv gave me an excuse to articulate it. The twonk writes: 

"Why do people get so sentimental about small enterprises? Admittedly bigger chains are not always that savoury, but fundamentally these smaller shops are still out for our hard-earned: they're not charities...A nation of shop keepers ..."
Posted by Peterv

I reply: 

"Fine, Peterv. We won't bother. Those of us who've taken zero salary for three years, or remortgaged our houses, or who work 16 hours a day for a venture that has no guarantee of working out, or who dare to try something new and brave and different, in order to bring something good into the world - we'll just stay in our pointless little jobs next time, contributing next to nothing to the world and whining away the time until we die. 

Watching the news this week has left me more certain than ever that we should take every opportunity to show that humanity can be good, and clever and creative, rather than blow each other up when provoked. Small, independent companies matter because they are the ones whose objectives aren't directed by shareholders, but by dreams and basic human values like hope, happiness and pride. Shame on you for being the spokesperson of the bland." 
Posted by Snowedup  
Emma