Walmart pressing felony charges against employee who ate ‘multiple’ Oreo cookies

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142. But our system DEPENDS on taking others' property.

The law and order civilization you seem to put your faith in is entirely dependent on extracting resources--including labor--from the relatively less powerful, with as little regard for the consequences as possible. While you might condemn theft that goes in the other direction, the fact is that at this point "legitimate" means of systems change are not working--in fact they are in a sense unconscionable because the world is being destroyed as we peacefully lobby, rally, and maybe once in a while get ourselves arrested in some innocuous form of civil disobedience.

Look at what is happening with the Keystone Pipeline. Its construction and use will almost certainly have horrifying consequences for the planet; yet the likelihood is that it will be approved--in fact that part which does not require State Department approval is already half constructed. This is our lives and the lives of billions of other people we are talking about, but the best we can do is throw a little party on the National Mall while the President is far away playing golf. At some point you must ask yourself the question: if the laws we have are not stopping, but instead actually contributing to our exploitation and the destruction of the planet, what allegiance do we owe them?

Now, you might say that this bears little relation to the stealing of a pack of cookies for one's own consumption, and to an extent that might be true. At the same time, I can honestly say that I think the most moral thing we might be able to do with regard to Wal-Mart is to get ourselves employed there for the deliberate purpose of stealing back that which they have stolen from us and the rest of the planet. At this point our very survival depends on destroying the profitability of business models such as Wal-Mart's by any means available to us. Whether that was the intention of this individual woman I don't know; but in a context where it is arguably necessary for the survival of the planet and the restoration of global economic and ecological justice, I cannot condemn her actions. I wish more would take the risk.