About two years ago there was an event that got started on social media. It was called Live Below the Line. It was supposed to make people aware of how difficult it was for people in underdeveloped countries to live off low wages. People were asked to spend $7.50 for 5 days, which was equivalent to the low pay many in underdeveloped countries were making.

The premise itself was flawed on a number of levels. The experiment was made for people to LIVE on that for a day but was changed for just food for a day. Obviously, there was a conversion issue with the numbers, meaning the buying power of $7.50 a week for food would be different for someone in Senegal as compared to someone in New York, Oklahoma or California. It was basically for developed nations to understand the issues of underdeveloped nations but it would be close to impossible to replicate the real conditions felt by those in underdeveloped countries and really know the difficulties they feel every day.

What I found most amusing was an actor who made a video of her experience. She was driving around town, obviously using a lot of gas, explaining how tough it was giving up Starbuck’s coffee for a week. She went into a Whole Foods store, somehow thinking she could get nice organic food for her experiment but the prices were too high. The end of the video made me laugh as she was on the fifth day of her experience. She had the lights dimmed, her voice was almost in a whisper as she looked down at the meager meal (I think it was a hot dog and a slice of bread) staged like she was in a production of Oliver.

I watched another video this year. Actually, I’m going to side step for a moment because I stumbled onto something that illustrates my point even better. I just wrote about watching a video this year about the Live Below the Line project. It was some well-known actor who, like the actor from last year, moaned about how hard it was to live with so little money while traveling around LA. The video from this year I remembered had the actor hold up a lonely potato as his lunch and he used a microwave for heating it up. I tried looking for that video to get the actors name but I stumbled upon a video from what I’ll call an actor in training. This would be one of thousands of actors in LA who are struggling for their big break. So she was driving in her car (I nice looking one) talking about how she is on her last day of the challenge and she was heading to a movie theater to see Iron Man 3. Her biggest worry was the smell of the popcorn would tempt her to break the challenge.

The real meaning and challenge of Live Below the Line is lost on celebrities trying to educate the public. They try to educate us in ways that don’t make sense to us because we are already struggling and have figured out ways to cut our budget. When I mentioned the actress to a group of co-workers two years ago, it took us less than 5 minutes to realize if she had gone to a 99 cents store, she could have gotten 6 to 8 Raman noodles, a loaf a bread, a can of spaghetti sauce and a dozen eggs and she would have been set for the week by spending $4, with $3.50 left over.

The image painted by the Live Below the Line people to try to get us to sympathize with their cause is lost because people who don’t have $5 lattes ever day already cope with less money. It looks foolish when we see them pine longingly at a potato like it is the last food on earth when we could use the same money and get a slightly better meal.

The anti-Monsanto rally held in Phoenix had the same sort of rich people slumming vibe to me. Now, before I go on, I want to clarify I’m not using my impressions of the Monsanto rally in Phoenix to illustrate the whole movement. I’ve learned from the Occupy and Tea Party movements that I can only judge by the local members, because the agenda from the local group might be different from the national agenda. I can’t make assumptions my observations of one rally in Tempe Arizona are going to be gospel across the whole national group.

The first thing I noticed was the parking. I got to the rally by taking the light rail, which stopped a few blocks from the rally point. I’ll admit it was a bit of a walk, but we aren’t talking walking miles across the desert either. In the first half hour that I was there, I saw the open lots fill up fast and people were concerned where to park. Apparently parking enforcement for Tempe was out in force because many people talked about safe places to park.

The second thing I noticed centered on the Farmer’s Market where the rally was taking place. The reason why I talked about the Live Below the Line project was to illustrate how in the quest of trying to educate people on the importance of a cause, those who are at the forefront of the cause can be so removed from the common people they are trying to convince they lose the conversation before starting. Walking into the Farmer’s Market I was hit with sticker shock. Prices were incredibly high, much higher prices than I’ve seen at places like Sprouts, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. There were eggs that were a dollar to two dollars AN EGG! Vegetables which were supposed to be straight from the growers were much higher than I’ve seen in my local market. I know the appeal of a Farmer’s Market is to have food straight from the grower to the consumer but I have to say this particular market didn’t live up to that.

The big stunner was there were items in the market that were the same items I saw on local grocery shelves but were a lot more expensive. I took pictures illustrating a wide price difference, with the price clearly visible from the Farmer’s Market and a grocery store a few blocks from my home. I would love to eat healthier than I do, but if my choice is to hit a place like the Farmer’s Market, how in the world can I afford to get food there on a real world salary? Some might argue I could sacrifice some things but when I looked at the driveway of the market and the people shopping there, the place reeked of well to do people who could afford the price of a one dollar egg if it was labeled as an organic, free range egg. That is something I can’t afford.

My problem with rallies like the anti-Monsanto rally isn’t the message. We should be more aware of what we are eating but the message and the way the group is trying to solve the issue doesn’t fit with regular people. Regular people are looking for bargains and can’t afford to pay inflated prices just to save the Earth. It’s a harsh reality to put out there, but to communicate with the broader audience you have to know the broader audience. Regular people don’t drive a Prius because they can’t afford one. I saw more Prius’ in the parking areas than I’ve seen on dealer’s lot. I saw a lot of high end cars, not a lot of pickup trucks or beat up cars.

One other thing I noticed at this rally, and I saw the same thing when I covered the local Occupy rally, was a lot of competing and almost contradictory messages among the participants. You had soccer moms with their kids worried about chemicals in their foods, you had NObama supporters, and you had someone concerned about chemtrails and fluoride in the water proudly wearing his InfoWars t-shirt. There were hemp sellers, political registrations, oil sellers and people who were trying to get Sheriff Arpaio recalled. On the one hand, it was nice to see such a diverse group gathered for a common cause, but the messages were so diverse the groups were bending the agenda to their cause. The anti-Obama people felt Obama was the cause for Monsanto becoming so powerful. The InfoWars people thought there was some global cabal that was causing the world to become sheeple. The latte folks pushed for more farmer’s markets. Others wanted the government out of their lives while others wanted government ‘to work’ and fix the issues.

Too many conflicting agendas and people to removed from the people they are trying to talk to I think hurt the anti-Monsanto movement locally. Maybe in other areas the message was clearer and more people listened, but locally the people who showed up at the rally were the converted. There was no outreach to people like myself who are willing to listen if there was a message that fit with the appearances.