CONSUMERIST MANIFESTO
When, in the course of buying products and services from corporations, it is necessary for consumers to dissolve the acceptance of business as usual. We thus declare the causes that impel us to hold corporations responsible and accountable—and treat them accordingly.
We hold this truth to be self evident: All consumers are endowed by the prices they pay to receive the products and services they need for complete customer satisfaction in their pursuit of happiness.
Until now, we have suffered a long train of abuses and usurpations designed to reduce us to dependence upon corporations. Such crimes against result in corporate growth at our expense. Among the grievances are these standouts:
Deception and Manipulation (D&M) is part of the fabric of corporate business plans, operations, and customer support. Corporations value the uninformed and misinformed consumer.
Defect Toleration (DT) is based on the calculation that problems will go undiscovered long enough for corporations to get away with it and by enough consumers to make defects a cost cutter.
Rush To Market (RTM) is based on the notion that a bad product delivered on time outperforms a good product delivered late.
Quality Fade (QF) utilizes small step-by-small step downgrades of product components and specifications to systematically reduces costs and increase prices.
Customer Disservice (CD) achieved by the crimes of downsizing, understaffing, outsourcing, and reliance of instruction manuals written by fools or Frequently Asked Questions constructed by idiots—all sound and fury amounting to nothing.
Therefore, we have become consumerists and declare guerilla war on our tormentors. We shall battle them on their websites, fight them with our emails, and force our way into their corner offices via their own toll-free numbers. Maybe even throw a virtual brick or two.
Onward, fellow consumerists! Compensation awaits us. We shall exit laughing.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Creativity is 94.6% larceny and 5.4% originality. With that in mind, thanks to Thomas Jefferson (who used the word “abuses” in the Declaration of Independence) for the model for this manifesto.