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Buy Nothing Day 2009
There's only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth: we have to consume less.
So this November 27 (November 28 in Europe and overseas), we're calling for a Wildcat General Strike. We're asking tens of millions of people around the world to bring the capitalist consumption machine to a grinding - if only momentary - halt.
We want you to not only stop buying for 24 hours, but to shut off your lights, televisions and other nonessential appliances. We want you to park your car, turn off your phones and log off of your computer for the day.
We're calling for a Ramadan-like fast. From sunrise to sunset we'll abstain en masse, not only from holiday shopping, but from all the temptations of our five-planet lifestyles.
Take the Plunge:
You know what they say: a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. You feel that things are falling apart - the temperature rising, the oceans churning, the global economy heaving - why not do something? Take just one small step toward a more just and sustainable future. Make a pact with yourself: go on a consumer fast. Lock up your credit cards, put away your cash and opt out of the capitalist spectacle. You may find that it's harder than you think, that the impulse to buy is more ingrained in you than you ever realized. But you will persist and you will transcend - perhaps reaching the kind of epiphany that can change the world.
For more information:
68 Comments so far
Show AllBuy nothing, Eat nothing, Do nothing - Let's all call in well.
Yeah! Let's hit them in their capitalist nuts, where it hurts. It's worth a try, and should be interesting.
No jobs, no money, thus the question of buying or not buying doesn't arise.
man, dont you people get it? even if you dont spend any money one that one day, you are still using things that have been or still must be paid for.
so screw buy nothing day. why dont you just try to buy and consume as little as possible everyday?
you are all "supposed" to be on my side, but all you seem to understand is the extreme side which currently opposes the right.
get a clue people.
Some of us do that. But I see no reason we shouldn't encourage others who don't to support this. Maybe a bad showing on Black Friday will convince some people to rethink our consumer culture.
Ah, but a concerted dent in even one days profit taking will cause the Corporate Class to blink, and consider that we the underlings can have a fatal impact if we choose to.
That this Buy Nothing Day happens to be the US Thanksgiving/Black Friday is no accident.
But on a different tack, if there is a significant drop in profits, in this already stricken economy, Black Friday will become 'Red Friday', as the stores and service companies lose money, lay off even more workers, which leads to more mortgages being defaulted, causing even more foreclosures, which just speeds the Collapse.
Globally, we are balancing on a razors edge. To slip and fall is disastrous, but to continue on our present course is just as dangerous...
How about we buy nothing made in Communist Red China, and instead purchase only goods manufactured in the United States? If we can find any... Wasn't that why the war in Vietnam was fought? To contain the spread of communism? And now it is our duty to support communism? We live in a schizoid neurotic culture.
Made in USA: Edson pumps at New Bedford, Ma.
Need a pump?
Sounds like a proposition.
I wish people would stop smearing communism by continuing to associate it with China. That said, I'm not a communist myself. But come on people, China has been a haven for laissez-faire capitalism wedded to rigid repression for quite a long time now.
China under Mao's supervision is not exactly an advertisement for communism either.
Let's face it, both Soviet Communism and the Maoist variety were disasters. Stalin managed to industrialize Russia by starving millions of serfs, and Mao let millions of serfs almost destroy the infrastructure of his country. They both made a basic mistake: the end justifies the means. That is a falsehood that Marx should have emphasized, but then, he was talking about historical process, not the overthrow of government by followers of his theories. They ended up with corruption, the corruption of complete power in the hands of a few. So much for the "dictatorship of the proletariat". They just created new forms of oligarchy, and ones much less 'efficient' than capitalism. Castro, being a much more humane and wise dictator, has done a much better job, but so have a few others. Unfortunately, despots like Castro are few and far between.
Castro isn't great either, but at least he avoided mass deaths. Socialism should not come with the curtail of human rights.
"Man, don't you people get it?" We have to start somewhere. for many one day will be a big step. No one starts a new lifestyle that is fully developed in one day. It is a process. who knows one day might turn into a week, a month, a year/s. You claim that you already "get it" , and that may be so, but i doubt any one will follow your lead after they have been insulted.
It WILL be a big first step, but why not add "one day a week, then two days a week, then we will start figuring out how to get out of the economy altogether". A little blackmail never hurt. And as you say, it's a process.
And yes, siros333, insulting people never works. It's probably time for a lot of us to get off our high horses. That seems to be one of the bourgeoisie maladies.
I'm in.
This will be my severalth Buy Nothing Day.
Of course, in this economy, that is quite easy.
Ha, I hear you there. I just wish I had a book to read for tomorrow. I'll have to re-read one of the 20 or so I brought with me when I moved.
Do you have Jim Kuntsler's 'The Long Emergency'? It would be an excellent read at this time. Perhaps you can get it from your local library if you don't have a copy.
For fiction, I would suggest Frank Herbert's 'Dune'.
Nope, but I'll be sure to check it out soon. I'm definitely going to get some reading done over the holiday break.
My favorite fiction is actually Star Wars...but my 60+ books are back at home. I'm thinking of having them shipped up here when I go down for Christmas.
Red Mars, the first of an excellent sci fi trilogy, is free online. This trilogy addresses the currrent world's problems with some interesting solutions.
Frugality is Freedom!
"Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson. Everything ever written by Bruce Sterling. Everything from the latter half of William Gibson's writing.
The perfect book for Buy Nothing Day (and for many other days) is Ursula LeGuin's THE DISPOSSESSED. In this excerpt, the main character (anarchist from a different world) is reacting to his first trip to a shopping mall:
"The whole experience had been so bewildering to him that he put it out of mind as soon as possible, but he had dreams about it for months afterwards, nightmares. [The main street] was two miles long, and it was a solid mass of people, traffic, and things: things to buy, things for sale. Coats, dresses, gowns, robes, trousers, breeches, shirts, blouses, hats, shoes, stockings, scarves, shawls, vests, capes, umbrellas, clothes to wear while sleeping, while swimming, while playing games, while at an afternoon party, while at an evening party, while at a party in the country, while traveling, while at the theater, while riding horses, gardening, receiving guests, boating, dining, hunting --- all different, all in hundreds of different cuts, styles, colors, textiles, materials. Perfumes, clocks, lamps, statues, cosmetics, candles, pictures, cameras, games, vases, sofas, kettles, puzzles, pillows, dolls, colanders, hassocks, jewels, carpets, toothpicks, calendars, a baby’s teething rattle of platinum with a handle of rock crystal, an electrical machine to sharpen pencils, a wristwatch with diamond numerals; figurines and souvenirs and kickshaws and mementos and gewgaws and bric-a-brac, everything either useless to begin with or ornamented so as to disguise its use; acres of luxuries, acres of excrement. In the first block Shevek had stopped to look at a shaggy, spotted coat, the central display in a glittering window of clothes and jewelry. “The coat costs 8,400 units?” he asked in disbelief, for he had recently read in a newspaper that a “living wage” was about 2,000 units a year. “Oh yes, that’s real fur, quite rare now that the animals are protected,” Pae [Shevek’s guide] had said. “Pretty thing, isn’t it? Women love furs.” And they went on. After one more block Shevek had felt utterly exhausted. He could not look any more. He wanted to hide his eyes.
And the strangest thing about the nightmare street was that none of the millions of things for sale were made there. They were only sold there. Where were the workshops, the factories,where were the farmers, the craftsmen, the miners, the weavers, the chemists, the carvers, the dyers, the designers, the machinists, where were the hands, the people who made? Out of sight, somewhere else. Behind walls. All the people in all the shops were either buyers or sellers. They had no relation to the things but that of possession."
Library books are free.
Thanks to Andrew Carnegie. Talk about a paradox. At one time the richest man in the world, he gave away over 150 million dollars to charity, plus founding free libraries all over the country. He did not believe that money should be passed on, and his children had to work for their money because he refused to leave them any. At the same time he did much to bust unions in the latter part of the 19th century. I'm a confirmed socialist, but if you have to have capitalism, we could use a lot more guys like Andrew Carnegie.
It's impossible to reconcile helping the planet with helping the economy. Precipitating a Red Friday by doing something unusual for one day is harsh. If there's a gradual spreading of us, say, eating more simply then the industrial food system will contract naturally. That's good for the planet and it helps us get by on much less.
Lynn
http://www.10in10diet.com/
Diet for a small footprint and a small grocery bill
Buy nothing day is likely to upset China the most. :-)
Don't think the Chinese will manage it. They MUST spend! And if anyone criticized them for it, they will go "America has been spending all this time, and so it's our turn--neah neah neah"
Well one good thing: the way the economy is going, there will be many more buy nothing days for more and more people.
Extremely important idea and one of the few ways the people have left to exercise their power. Economic worldwide boycotts are, to my mind, the only way we even have a chance to save ourselves from fascism, from economic ruin, from environmental catastrophe.
Only problem is in organization. Why is this event being publicized only 2 days before it's scheduled to happen? Why wasn't this promoted, heavily, a month ago? Why weren't ads taken out, e-mails sent?
Unfortunately, it shows the inability of the left (in the United States anyway) to organize on the massive scale it so desperately needs to.
Meditate....
The coming days will show us the best and the worst of what we are.
Meditate...
I've been advocationg a general strike for some time now. That is a tactic that has gotten the attention of some European Oligarchies, er, governments.
Just shut the country down. Leave the cars in the garage,stay home and read, nothing moves, nobody buys. Stores are empty, no customers, no employees, planes and trains don't run, no oil bought transported or sold. Tighten our belts and tough it out. Wouldn't take long, or the Oligarchy would come out into the open, which would definitely awaken We the Sheeple as to what is really going on.
This may wait until there are a hundred million dispossessed, homeless, people living under cardboard in the alleys, or in tent cities, begging for food for their families.
If we have a bad Winter, they'll be carrying the dead out like cordwood from the tent cities every morning. The media won't cover it, but the word will get around.
The handful of people that own and control 98% of everything seem frustrated that they can't seem to get that last 2%. Something like the above might convince them that they have to part with some of their horde. Perhaps there will even be a slight surge in the economy as the demand for hemp, tar, feathers and fence rails grows.
Happy Thanksgiving. Just be thankful you are not a turkey or an American Indian.
Are we a nation of turkeys, or a nation of sheep? I can't figure out which.
shurkeys
Good name.
Turkeys at the stomach, sheep at the brains. :(
and if you can't find the will power and really NEED to shop - take it back for a refund.
"There's only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth: we have to consume less."
Here is a better way:
Fund global family planning education before war, famine, disease, pollution, resource depletion, global warming and poverty become the standard way to reduce the human populations that are destroying the planet.
For those of us living lightly at near poverty level,almost everyday is "buy nothing day".Every day is Earth day and it is easy being green.If you must purchase something Friday,buy it locally at a small family owned store.If your wife starts her period is out of tampons and asks you to go out and get some,are you gonna say "sorry dear it's buy nothing day"? Good luck with that!I'm out of friggin' toilet paper. peace
You ever heard "being on the rag"? Get the hint!
Good luck with that too George.Very few hippies out there using rewashable menstral pads.Just adding some levity and I am going out to buy a roll of toilet paper. peace
Much of the world uses water rather than paper.
I got used to using dust, dead grass, and leaves on my camping trips. I wonder how many tons of paper are used in the West for ass wiping.
Okay guys now thats quite enough ,I spent a lousey $6.50 on a pouch of tobbacco and a roll of T.P.This is the first buy nothing day violation I've had in years,after buying nothing for days.I rode a motorcycle with a trailor on the errands and used a quart of fuel.Maybe the Reverend Billy would forgive me! lol
Sigh, if only hemp were legal to grow and cultivate would tobacco have been history a long time ago.
Overall though, don't take it too hard on yourself. We need to have a long term buy less way of thinking rather than one "buy nothing day". This one-day protest is like going on a starving diet one day and then eating like there's no tomorrow the next day.
P.S.: One of my friends plans on taking a bottle of hempseed oil and testing it out on his diesel engine auto. I'm still tickled that this same oil that this same hempseed oil that I can use for my hair can also be used to run diesel engines.
Well Jennifer ,I would rather smoke marijuana than Industrial Hemp which wouldn't get a fly high,the D.E.A. has them both at schedule 1 and they know better.We need to legalize the entire cannabis family.Your friend can run Hempseed oil straight in some older VW or Mercedes deisels in warm weather with no additives if it is warm or with additives if cold weather.Some models need a conversion with a separate tank for regular fuel oil used to start the car.Right now it is too expensive and valuable to use imported food grade oil for fuel.
I disagree however about the ending of Cannabis prohibition ending tobbacco use.It would probably help many quit though.It certainly would be nice to have a domestic source of Hempseed and fiber for clothing,and if could grow your own pot you wouldn't have to support organised crime to use it .I think the possibilities for Hemp Deisel are there as well as celulosic ethanol production,all with no herbicides on a rotation with a legume to fix nitrogen and reduce fertiliser needs.
That said I agree sustainable living with a small footprint is a lifestyle choice not a one day action.I consider myself an anti-consumer.I ride old recycled motorcycles and trucks (German),work on them myself.Sew my clothes and mostly wash and dry them by hand and on a line,eat vegetarian,recycle,reuse and live simply.So I don't feel too guilty about this "slip".I hope you had a good Thanksgiving,be well. peace
Mr. Diesel designed his original engine to run on hemp oil.
Well, I'm going along with the strike, except for my computer. I'm taking care of my Mom here in Tucson. But all my friends live in San Francisco, Northern California, and Hawaii. I want to keep up with them and wish them good Thanksgivings.
I hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving. Yesterday I took the turkey I bought to a food pantry. The place was jammed and one of the women had two bags of food and needed a ride to her home. She was pleading with me to give her a ride home,but for reasons I can't go into , I could not help her. Her face haunted me that night as I hoped she was able to get a ride to her home. Buy nothing days must be common for her. I imagine that food purchases are the main ones except on black Friday. Today I stood next to Peace Activists at a gathering at a polluted, local lake for a peace vigil and support for Native Americans and the environment. They were fasting for 4 days including thanksgiving day. The woman said, that we spend so much time and money on food, not having to do that gave her a chance to focus on the drones, that she was protesting. Drones are coming to our area. As I enjoyed dinner with my sons my older son said he was eating breakfast out when he overheard a man talking about his work producing drones. It is too bad we cannot do a buy no military destructive weapons day.But we can't control the U.S. consumption of weapons of death and destruction. The buy nothing day on black Friday sounds good to me. It's better than a do nothing about excessive corporate profit day.
Frugality is Freedom!
Declare your independence. Starve a corporation today.
Buy less? Then jobs will disappear.
No.
There is only ONE way...
SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR HETEROSEXUALS!