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Will Shopping Save Us?
Today’s the day. It’s “Black Friday” (“black” as in the day our business supposedly go into the black.) This may not have been such a wise use of language since the Wall Street crash of 1929, ushering in the Great Depression, started on a “Black Thursday.”
Throughout America, an advertising-dominated media is plugging all the “bargains” while shoppers, hungry to save a few bucks, in a country where more than half of our families are barely making it, are off to the malls in an annual ritual that each year barely saves the retail outlets but adds costly bills to already squeezed and debt dependent consumers.
The easy availability of credit has created what Robert Manning calls our Credit Card Nation, where we are encouraged to shop until we drop. In the aftermath of the terror attacks of September l1, 2001, recall that President Bush made that point shamelessly when he told the American people that the best way to help in that traumatic period was to go shopping again.
He knew, even if most Americans didn’t, that it is their non-stop consumption that drives the economy. Without it, I guess, the terrorists could have won.
“In fact,” Robert Manning writes in his seminal book on credit cards, “with the ascendance of the post-industrial economy, bank credit cards have become an essential technological and financial tool for commercial transactions as well as an increasingly important macro-economic tool for U.S. policy-makers.”
And that is why this year, lobbyists for the retail shopping industry are begging the Federal Reserve Bank to further cut the costs of debit cards imposed by avaricious banks.
To have more impact, stores should be supporting the Occupy movement that’s also protesting bankster greed.
Shopping may be our real national pastime, but it comes, as Manning warns, at a price that is not advertised in the malls.
“The idyllic wonderland of consumer credit too often belies a reality of unknown sacrifices and enduring debt. ... the credit card industry is playing a crucial role in transforming American consumer attitudes. The promotion of ‘immediate gratification’ ruptures the cognitive connection between earnings/saving and credit/debt that has traditionally shaped consumer behavior. It is this ‘cognitive disconnect,’ with its siren song ‘Buy, buy, buy. It could be free, free, free’ that constitutes the cornerstone of the Credit Card Nation.”
And so, it is not surprising, that holidays are used or created as national events, to spur consumption. After months of financial volatility, “Black Friday” is seen as a make-or-break event.
Will it send a cathartic and upbeat signal that the economy is back? Can all the shoppers be counted on to launch the Holiday shopping season with a big bang?
In the malls, preparations had been made for five months with advertising dollars set aside for promoting sales and deep discounts to lure the shoppers who had, in effect, been boycotting the stores in September and October. Ingenious plans for opening earlier and staging “midnight madness” sales to trigger a stampede were put in place.
You have seen the commercials disguised as news stories, featuring perky local news “correspondents” stirring a buying frenzy with upbeat reports on manic consumers waiting feverishly to rush into malls the night before.
Bill Bowles writes about this on his CNI Blog:
“The problem is that many of us have been force-fed with a diet of nothing but passive, uncritical consumptionism, indeed, we are addicted to the stuff; breaking such powerful habits is what this is all about; it’s about getting people to think critically again about what’s going on and why and what, if anything, we can do about it.”
Bowles also ties this cultural affliction, sometimes known as affluenza, back to our dependence on a media system that won’t really allow other voices to be heard.
Were most media outlets connecting any dots between the annual shopathon and the “severe recession” that many economists are forecasting and the rest of us are living?
Were there any warnings to the public to save their rapidly inflating money for expected harder hard times? Was there any explanation of how prices have sharply risen and, thus, the discounts—often “teaser” rates just like the ones offered sub-prime loan victims—are really not all they are cracked up to be?
No way!
Where were the stories alerting us to this coming calamity on the front pages? They aren’t there. It is not just not in their interest to carry them, but years back, MTV pointedly rejected an ad from the Cultural Jammers Network urging a “Buy Nothing Day.”
It is not surprising that it was a call from Adbusters, the anti-consumption movement that helped galvanize the occupation on Wall Street that since morphed into a global movement,
Many of the shoppers this season are charging it, even though all the credit card companies have jacked up rates driving the real cost of shopping higher, and even though many people owe more than ever.
The companies are banking on them. The day after Christmas, VISA will report on how much business was done. In years past, they called it “disappointing.” They will likely again this year.
That’s because of the steady decline of our economy thanks to illegal practices initiated by white-collar predatory lenders backed by our biggest banks and hedge funds, as well as the inability of regulators to regulate and a complicit media to blow the whistle, which caused a multi-billion dollar economic crime that is still in progress.
In years past, the New York Times sent reporters into the stores and found “desperation rather than celebration.” By Monday, in recent years, Wall Street was “glum,” according to Fox News.
So much for a ‘Black Friday’ bounce for Wall Street.
Said Manning, “Clearly, the winter holiday shopping season will need a much more enthusiastic response from higher income households if it is to prosper, given depreciating home values and rising daily living expenses.”
Frederick Crawford, managing director at AlixPartners, a turnaround consulting company, said that amid economic challenges, people are buying fewer gifts.
“Clearly, it was mission-based shopping,” Crawford said. “People had their list, and they were very specific in what they were looking for.”
So what are you looking for?
Forget that new Laser TV and all the crappy toys we buy only to see them destroyed a week later.
There can be no real turnaround without fundamental changes in how our economy functions, when it does. More regulations are needed, as are major reforms in all of our institutions—financial, political and judicial.
That’s why the Occupy Movement is so needed because it is raising the right questions. Now, it needs a strategy to “Occupy The Mainstream” and challenge the people behind the sickness of excessive consumption, and appeal to and organize the people who are its ultimate victims.
- Posted in
45 Comments so far
Show Alla brief look at the news today and we see amerikans shooting each other in lines at black friday, macing each other and of course the old stand by, trampling old people to get into the stores
its plain to see that god loves amerika aint it
the rest of the world envies our right to stand in line at a soulless box store to spend money we don't have on crap we don't need
shootin' and beatin our way to the big screen tv
yeehah!
I'm sorry, but this characterization of "half the families barely making it" in the United States, contrasted against the kind of mass frenzied consumer behavior that epitomizes Black Friday, makes my head ache from the cognitive dissonance it generates.
There are plenty of families in this country that are suffering and in need of outside help. But maybe, just maybe, a majority of the allegedly 50% of American families that are "barely making it" could scale-back on their purchases of the latest video games, I-pads, cell phones, premium cable, wide-screen televisions, monster trucks, satellite dishes, expensive shoes, and personal tatoos?
The best way to stick it to the big banks and starve them of their revenue stream of ridiculously high interest payments on our credit card debt is, um, to not to run up that debt in the first place.
For 5% or 10% of Americans, credit card slavery may be nearly unavoidable. But what's the excuse of the other 90% to 95%?
Your reply implies that those "barely making it" are in that position because of bad decisions about buying unnecessary stuff. Sounds like "blame the victim" to me. Surely there are people who buy crap they could do without, but those in financial trouble more often are experiencing low-wage employment, unemployment, medical problems, divorce, and unexpected costs for a variety of reasons. It's hard to see life through their eyes and easy to find fault--but we should resist that temptation. It isn't drugs or alcohol or greed that consumes workers living paycheck to paycheck but the consequences of living in a society dominated by corporate greed.
Read my last sentence.
Your view is shared by many. I live in a relatively poor state yet I don't see 50% of the population emaciated and dying on the streets. The families I see at the food kitchens look healthy and plump. Nearly everyone has a fancy cell phone or video device ( I have a $10 Walgreens cell and I pay-as-you-go, ~$100 a year) Though I may take a barrage of criticism I've separated out my charity from those that deserve and those that exploit -IOW, no more "unconditional" giving. My giving goes to scholarship funds, environmental groups and Planned Parenthood. No more food kitchens, coats for kids or school supplies or PBS. Instead of shopping today I wrote a check to my favorite environmental group but I did buy two bicycle seats online and luckily they're not made in china. I ride a lot. I know, I got off on a tangent.....
We can argue no one "deserves" ill health and we need to provide for care as a society, but then again does someone who ate burgers,fries and sugar their entire life or smoked and drank deserve to be "provided for"? That's a tough one and I realize my argument can be taken apart on totally moral grounds. One should do more good than harm to those around and, at least, for themselves.
Nearly Half of Americans Struggling to Stay Afloat:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/23-0
"The WOW survey compared 2009 pre-tax incomes to a budget of basic and essential monthly expenses for various families that it developed along with researchers at Washington University with funding from the Ford Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
For example, in a budget for a family of one worker, it put housing expenses at $688 and food at $244. In a family of two workers with two young children, it assumed housing would cost $821 per month and food $707 a month.
It did not include nonessentials such as vacations, recreation, hobbies, college tuition, and other common expenses of the middle class."
"Currently, the poverty threshold for the United States is an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four.
A little more than 15 percent of the country lives at or below that level, and the group wanted to look at the remainder, "many of whom live on the edge and are chronically at risk of financial crisis or falling into poverty.""
Shop until the Earth drops from under our feet, exhausted as it will be from the energy and other resources plundering implied by our obsessive-compulsive shopping.
The day of Earth judgment is coming, and we (we and our off-spring) shall pay dearly.
No. "We" (unless something catastrophic happens, the probability of which is much higher than acceptable imo) will not pay even close to the real price. Younger people, maybe, but most of the shit will fall down on other, poorer parts of the world, those who do not belong to the overconsuming wasteful "we".
"We" are not all in this together. "We" are not paying the price. "We" will not feel the full consequences of our actions. It'll be other people, the same others that are already picking up our tabs.
Yeah, and how come we don't see the police busting shoppers for camping out on the streets for days waiting to get into Target and Walmart?
Is there a wiff of hypocrisy here?
More than a "wiff," I'd say. As a long-time holiday season hating practicing Grinch, I wonder about not only the idiotic news-covered camping out for "bargains" but also wonder about these bargains anyway. If the stores can cut the prices and still make a profit, doesn't that mean that the pre-sale sticker tag amount was too-high-to-begin-with price gouging?
I don't recall the hyping of "Black Friday" (sounds sinister to me) or even using the term which, this year, is ubiquitous in the news coverage, everybody talking as if it has always been referred to as such. It's possible that my Scroogitude has caused me to miss it in past years, to block it out.
But this year so far the normal hypocrisy surrounding Christmas has increased exponentially. The good stuff about Christmas -- all that "peace on earth, good will towards men, season of giving" -- has been thusfar absent. Interviewing the people in the "Black Friday" lines has shown that most of the people were waiting for bargains to buy for themselves. The ads show them having unbelievably exciting fun shopping. The Santa-riddled Christmas themed commercials this year have been full of cutsey-poo putatively funny mean spiritedness. The Andy Williams song with the "most wonderful time of the year" lyric hook that in previous years has ubiquitous has morphed into "most wonderful SALE of the year." The beautiful song "Silent Night" has been paired with intimate closeups of sleeping babies so as to spin it into a marketing pitch for environmentally unfriendly disposable diapers.
So will the whole "consume your ass off" madness jump start the economy and stave off for awhile the big financial collapse that the western world economy is teetering on the brink of? Merry Christmas to all and to all a good shopping trip.
'But this year so far the normal hypocrisy surrounding Christmas has increased exponentially. The good stuff about Christmas -- all that "peace on earth, good will towards men, season of giving" -- has been thusfar absent.'
Well, when you are trying to do away with social programs for the poor and the sick so you don't have to raise taxes by 5% on the 1%, must drum any thought of "good will towards men" out of the consumers, (formerly referred to as citizens), of your empire. And trust me, it will only get worse.
Yep. Free to be Simon Legree. Soon we'll be back to 12 hour day, six day a week work, paid for in pennies, while even lower paid child labor abounds along with slavery and indentured servitude..
It keeps getting worse and will surely continue to do so.
Yes, the current poll leader for the Rethugs, Little Newtie, is opposed to all those suffocating child labor laws and stuff. How can American business recover from this terrible slump if we don't free them up from all of that excessive regulation? If Newtie gets his way the photographs of Lewis Hine will become common place again, except instead of handling spindles on looms our kids will be soldering circuit boards. George Carlin was right when he said about the elites - "They don't give a fuck about you!"
I wonder. There was an interview of people camping out at a big box store, but when the camera pulled back there were only four tents.This was at the very end of the 'news' segment. I doubt any of us here are willing to take everything the MSM throws at us as the truth but could we be taking these breathless in-store 'interviews' with too little credulity?.
Could at least some of this shopping-spree stuff be...well...scripted in an attempt to manipulate viewers? I did see an article about the stores hoping people will buy for themselves and here you write about interviewees claiming to be...buying for themselves.
Do you think this is really unscripted? Have I just gotten too old and suspicious?
Something else occurred to me. The price of oil has been hovering around $100 a barrel and demand is consistent yet pump prices are at least 50cents cheaper than a few months ago (2.75 in my neck o the woods). All in time for holiday shopping and end of year auto sales. Just sayin'
Actually, RT (I think) ran a news story about a town (can't remember the name) that had just banned tents in the city limits (to keep homeless people out). Someone called the city and they made the shopper campers take down their tents.
Remember, we are dealing with people who are shutting down kids' lemonade stands for lack of a food license. Never undeerestimate the cupidity or mindlessness of a bureaucrat.
In the U.S., economics, not politics or social intercourse, has come to define social reality. However, there appears a fallacy at the foundation of this economic conception, a breakdown between "micro" and "macro" economics. Committed is the fallacy of composition, supposing what is true of the parts is true of the whole. Macro economics seeks efficiency. Efficiency is optimal production for least cost. Labor is cost. Therefore, efficiency demands least compensation for most work, optimizing production. Least compensation reduces demand. Reducing demand, efficient production constitutes over production, which is inefficient. Efficiency, then, requires debt to stimulate demand, while restraining compensation. Debt increases interest, while compensation is restrained. At some point, debt surpasses compensation, and demand declines. Demand declining, production declines to reduce over production. Production declining, employment declines, decreasing demand, etc. It seems this logic is fundamental to the current dominant conception of economics. Economics dominating public policy, then public policy is fallacious at its foundation. Thus, only a radical reconceptualization of public policy can resolve the self-defeating contradiction underlying contemporary public policy.
Economics has also played a very important part of social reality, in all societies. It is only those who are financially comfortable (certainly not the poor, the working class), or those who lived in a society where there is widespread distribution of resources, that economics can be reduced / eliminated as a part of social reality.
"Economics dominating public policy, then public policy is fallacious at its foundation. T"
Economics should and MUST dominate public policy, simply for the basic reality that everyone needs to eat. People need to be MORE educated about economics, and talk MORE about it, not less. For example, your assertion here:
"Macro economics seeks efficiency. Efficiency is optimal production for least cost. Labor is cost. Therefore, efficiency demands least compensation for most work, optimizing production. Least compensation reduces demand. Reducing demand, efficient production constitutes over production, which is inefficient. Efficiency, then, requires debt to stimulate demand, while restraining compensation. Debt increases interest, while compensation is restrained. At some point, debt surpasses compensation, and demand declines. Demand declining, production declines to reduce over production. Production declining, employment declines, decreasing demand, etc."
Nope. Labour is "cost", if you are a capitalist employing the labour.
Not contending, but requesting clarification. Confusing is the comment, "Nope. Labour is 'cost', if you are a capitalist employing the labour." How is this countering what I wrote? It seems to me this is exactly the point. "Labour is 'cost,'" thus on the assumption of efficiency it must be reduced to as low a "'cost'" as possible. However, "labour" is also demand. Reducing it to as low a "'cost'" as possible reduces demand. So doing, the "efficiencies" gained in production engender "over production," constituting the "efficiencies" as inefficient, wasting resources. This is the point, it seems to me, a contradiction at the foundation of economics made manifest. If this is mistaken, then please clarify.
It's not a contradiction in economics, it is one of the self destructive contradictions of capitalism. What each individual capitalist requires is that every OTHER capitalist pay their workers enough to afford his products while he pays his workers as little as possible. You can see how well that plays out.
US consumers saving US capitalism is so 00s.
Actually, US consumers have been written off, in favor of some of those other 7 billion earthlings with more disposable income. US consumers can no longer run up big credit card bills, or take out second mortgages in order to buy more stuff. The retailers will suffer, but not the big boys.
Sure, the capitalists are going for the last juicy bits, and for the vast wealth that is held in public hands. Oil, water, minerals, land and lumber.
But individual consumers? Nah.
One reason is indeed bad "management" of US finances (and lack of will to fix shit because it would involve a temporary "inconvenience" for the ruling class). The other reason though is actual lack of resources. We are running out of stuff to exploit. It's true that other parts of the world have started overconsuming (in a very large part still serving the same interests though), but it's also true that we have already wasted a lot of the world's usable resources. Most importantly, we've wasted the overwhelming majority of safely useable fossil fuels (if you only look at it from the narrow resource viewpoint and ignore the more important moral considerations). This waste will have to be reflected in lower material standards of living.
And we didn't use these resources well. We wasted them. Capitalism was a total waste from a resource point of view. Nothing can remain of what it created, because everything was built upon the idiotic assumption of constant cheap availability of easy to access comfortable and abundant material resources. Which is so obviously not the case in reality that you have to study for almost a decade, obtain a doctorate and preferably even a Nobel prize in Economics to be able to forget and ignore the simple fact that the world is finite.
". The other reason though is actual lack of resources. We are running out of stuff to exploit."
No not really. There is more than enough resources. The problem is that a big part of those resources are monopolised by a small minority, leaving everyone else scraping and fighting for a small and limited amount. The Bill Gates etc of the world certainly do not have a problem with lack of resources.
"Nothing can remain of what it created, because everything was built upon the idiotic assumption of constant cheap availability of easy to access comfortable and abundant material resources. Which is so obviously not the case in reality "
It isn't the case in reality, because a big part of those easily accessible and abundant material resources are monopolised and used by a very small minority.
You are right if you think of "enough" in the sense of "enough to keep people alive at an acceptable standard of living". Definitely not true if your "enough" is at the level of current Western standards of living. That standard is clearly not applicable to the entire world. And no, it's not only because resources are monopolised by a very small minority, but also because the world is finite. Which is why I said that there must be a decrease in (at least the most wasteful aspects of) the material standard of living (and this should happen mainly in rich countries).
Unequal distribution of resources and power is of course very important. But we must realise that it was not only the Western "ruling class", the Western few, that benefited from this asymmetry, but (almost) the *entire Western world*. There is an unequality not just between the owning and the labouring classes, but between the North and the South also. Additionally, if you consider fossil fuels and clean air/a livable climate as a single "resource", it's absolutely obvious that we have already "wasted" most of it. You will not find hidden, monopolised parts of the atmosphere where CO2 concentration is below 250ppm to allow people to safely burn more fossil fuels. We have used it up already. If it's true that we can only safely use at most a quarter of the economically extractable remaining fossil fuel reserves (which may be a pretty optimistic assessment of the situation), no argument remains for having an "abundance" of resources.
Finally, even if you were right and there indeed existed abundant resources, there would still be an upper limit on them, which ever-expanding capitalism just can't handle. No upper limits is the only way this extractive, exploitative system can support itself. So even if we had abundant resources, constant growth would make short work of them.
"Which is so obviously not the case in reality that you have to study for almost a decade, obtain a doctorate and preferably even a Nobel prize in Economics to be able to forget and ignore the simple fact that the world is finite."
Good point. It requires dedication to to acquire and maintain the capacity to see delusion as reality.
I don't really see 'shopping' as saving us as it is just more blood letting via psychopathic led corporations and same in congress. The few get the money and the shopper more times than not will end up with more debt just for the sake of 'HAVING' to buy some useless tinker toys. That 'saving' will only happen if and when people understand the value of necessity shopping and buying.
Anyone care to guess the % of 'presents' bought on this black friday up until xmas will end up in the local landfill by stupid bowl day?
Apparently, it's okay to camp out and occupy sidewalks in front of stores as long as you plan on buying something.
If you're camping and occupying sidewalks in a protest, well, that earns you a mouthful of pepper spray.
Yep. Camping out for shopping is an expression of subservience towards power - camping out for protests is an expression of resistance against it. The pepper spray signals that concentrations of power understand this too, so it's good news in a sense, as it shows a degree of fear. Look out for more of my posts stating the obvious :-D
But, but, but... that cop was doing them a FAVOR. Pepper spray is now a vegetable!
"More regulations are needed, as are major reforms in all of our institutions—financial, political and judicial.'
Yeah, that's the answer, Danny. We need more regulations and laws that will be ignored and circumvented by those at the top.
Yeah, sure, "more laws" will do it.
You have a better idea?
"That’s because of the steady decline of our economy thanks to illegal practices initiated by white-collar predatory lenders backed by our biggest banks and hedge funds, as well as the inability of regulators to regulate and a complicit media to blow the whistle, which caused a multi-billion dollar economic crime that is still in progress."
Inability of regulators or inaction or collusion of regulators? Regulations only work when enforced.
If we could figure out how to turn idiotic behavior into money, this country would rich beyond Wall St wildest dreams. Oh wait I should have said, more money.
"Bowles also ties this cultural affliction, sometimes known as affluenza, back to our dependence on a media system that won’t really allow other voices to be heard."
In this article, Danny seems to embrace one in a set of communications strategies that are very familiar and correlated to the fall of western civilization. We like stories, so articles are sometimes framed as stories, to transport messages outside the story into our minds. We also like information, so articles are often laced with factoids to keep our interest on simmer while unrelated messages are cooked into our minds. But in this article, Danny is using an even more subtle communications strategy. He's inappropriately mixing our interest in a recent development, the OWS movement, with familiar memes that subliminally sell us on consumerism. Ironically he avoids explicit claims that consumerism is great, and instead poses questions about it, but the end result is that consumerism has been planted in our mindspace, displacing the crucial alternatives. The implicit message is that consumerism matters, which resonates with the kapitalist's agenda to keep us stoned on the petro-opiates. So basically Danny is saying that we can continue to embrace kapitalist propaganda like we have for so many years, simply because it has a comforting familiarity, which Danny thinks may mix well, like in a dessert recipe, with this new, and obviously more just development in the news - OWS. But they don't mix. We're outraged by the kapitalist propaganda and have been working to purge it from our minds, and yet here's Danny mixing it in a muffin tin with OWS. Transporting something we despise into our minds in a mix with something we embrace. Danny needs to purge the imperial journalism doctrine from his practice today and join the far left.
Our basic needs today, (a small house or apt., computer, smart phone, enough durable clothes, car, tv and organic food) can be met with a small budget. The rest we can rent when we need it (bike, boat, etc.). We should all be able to work or not work when we want to, travel wherever we want and live our lives doing what we want to do, not how the oligarchy lulls us into living with advertising and consumerism, turning us into hoarders. It subverts and structures our lives around making money for their corporations. Instead of government providing our basic needs, oligarchy government makes us dependent on their corporations. The oligarchy parasites will go when we become self sufficient and learn to live cooperatively.
Direct democracy
Sounds like the dream we had as hippies forty-five years ago. It would take something major beyond what I can imagine now to wean the citizenry from their consumerist lifestyle. Most of them are so product addled that they wouldn't know what to do with themselves with the spare time that they would have -- other than shopping. Get stoned, make love, live communally, be creative wouldn't cut it with the consumerist brainwashed populace of today.
The direct democracy you advocate with your every post would be technologically feasible now so long as the internet stays available and uncoopted (which means that the mass production of electricity would have to continue no matter what). Everything could be a public referendum. But it would take remarkable mass leadership to redirect the entire American Way of Life to something that most United Staters would regard as subsistence living. The American addiction to consumerism is indeed an addiction and the withdrawal would be painful and panic inducing. A failed state refugee camp way of life is, unfortunately, a more likely outcome.
Hi ezeflyer, I like it. We don't have to work. We can travel wherever we want. We do what we want. Can you lay it out for me, I'm ready for some fun in the sun.
Don't you shopping addicts get it? They can steal your money faster than you can make it or buy the economy out of trouble.
Most alcoholics stop when they realize the stuff can be made faster than they can drink it.
No they don't. I worked at a mental health homeless clinic for the last nine years of my employee life so I learned. They're addicts and they can't stop without help of some kind.
Shopping addicts will spend money faster than they can earn it using credit cards and never realize that the economy can't be bought out of trouble. They're hooked.
Stop the Shopping! Stop spending money buying all that crap the corporations want you to buy. It's no longer about the meaning of any holiday. It's about the profits from it.
We must stop voting for the establishment candidates as they are all in the pockets of the bankers, corporations and beholding to them-not us.
Speaking of banks-move your money out of the banks. Educate as many as you can to the deceit the Federal Reserve is, as they are stealing our money too. Congress won't audit them, and we are paying the price for this scam. The Fed is not part of our government and never was. The banks called it the Federal Reserve to deceive us into thinking it was. They create all the depressions, recessions, fund wars ,and much more. Our children deserve to be educated to this too, as the State owned public education system doesn't teach them about where and how our money comes from. They have been taught that the money is in the Treasury debt. or the government has some kind of big room or reserve place. Hogwash!
Shop at local stores. Buy only what your need. because when-not if- our economy tanks and our money is worthless-the big screen TV or game system won't have any meaning at all. It will then be those who have some resources and money will be those who survive. Food, water and shelter will be more precious than anything we could buy in Walmart, Kmart, Best Buy,Target, Amazon, etc
We that post on CD are preaching to the choir, and we know it. U.S. Americans for the most part are brain dead idiots. Thanksgiving Football, Black Friday, and DWTS. There is much more looting to be done by the 1%ers here in the land of the free to be a dumbass. When the stuff hits the fan the home of the brave is going to look like Black Friday meets Freddy Kruger. Strap up it's going to be more fun than Disney Land on some bad acid.
Will shopping save us? Of course not. While the media and the retail world make a big deal out of black Friday, guess what - it isn't that big a deal, just as the balance of the "holiday shopping season" isn't that big a deal. In the great scheme of things, such as the GDP, it really isn't significant as the media (backed by their sponsors - guess who they are) would like to portray it.
Much ado about nothing, yet this whole sorry episode gets wound up in a frenzy.....
I can't believe that anyone still has to ask that question. The obvious answer should be another question: "well, has shopping till we drop saved us so far?"
Consumers for Christ!
Black-Friday: The only holiday based on an actual historical event that occurs on the actual day of it's origin, actually based on the premise of buying loads of shit to stuff into your already over stuffed life;(
Power & Control is NOT about making things happen, it's all about ALLOWING that which benefits you to occur, as shit will always happen, therefore those willing to manage the RISK, prosper from the adverse outcome that is allowed to damage others for the gain of those in power. This is the paradigm under which The-Machine operates. It allows events to unfold, spins them into FEAR, all the while placing blame on the opposition.
Unfortunately OWS fails to comprehend many of those who control The-Machine, will be perfectly happy with shutting it down and have in fact been working very hard to make that happen, After all they broke it for a reason, to consolidate power and wealth to their benefit. Unless this movement takes a unified action toward empowering The*People it will simply play out into the plans of those who are at the very depth & core of the corruption and greed it's fighting.
One*Demand + My*1040 + N.O.W.