"STOP SHOPPING, START LIVING" FRIDAY: "BUY NOTHING DAY"

"Lost in the breast-beating is any critical discussion of the *point*
of all this economic patriotism. The goal is to boost the flagging
gross domestic product.

"The GDP is the usual measurement of the strength of the economy, but
how useful is it? Consider that whenever there's an ecological or
human disaster in the U.S., the GDP goes up...[should we call that
progress?]"

"Buy Nothing Day just wouldn't be the same if the networks didn't
reject our opt-not-to-shop TV uncommercial. Every season, we approach
ABC, CBS and NBC to air the spot, and every year they refuse
us–claiming our ad asking people not to buy anything threatens "the
current economic policy of the United States."

"It will be interesting to see if this year CNN Headline News, the one
show that has taken our money and aired the spot (after their "Dollars
and Sense" program since 1996) continues to break ranks."

http://images.indymedia.org/imc/washingtondc/media/image/1/85502_10.jpg

 BUY NOTHING DAY I$ THIS FRIDAY 

Email: synchrondeity (at) yahoo.com (unverified!)       25 Nov 2003
Modified: 26 Nov 2003

Can you go 24 hours without spending a dime?

Over a billion people around the world already do, but the difference
is they don't have a choice like you. On the day after Thanksgiving,
celebrate Buy Nothing Day Video | Adbusters | DC Organizing

Since its launch in the Pacific Northwest twelve years ago, Buy
Nothing Day has grown into a worldwide celebration of consumer
awareness and simple living. Observed on the day after US
Thanksgiving–America's busiest shopping day of the year–the campaign
has sparked debate, radio talk shows, TV news items and newspaper
headlines around the world.

People in more than thirty countries have made a pact with themselves
and, as a personal experiment and public statement, stepped out of the
consumer stream for 24 hours. The ways in which people have marked the
event worldwide have been as diverse as the participants themselves.

Many play with the icons of our consumer landscape by taking off on
mock shopping sprees, by hawking "hope" and "happiness," or simply by
opening up shop and selling nothing more.

The daredevils of the Ruckus Society, a California-based direct-action
group, dropped a boxcar-sized banner ridiculing overconsumption smack
in the middle of the Mall of America. Other more down-to-earth-types
created and distributed the Gift Exemption Voucher – a polite way of
saying, Let's not get each other anything this year, out of principle.
In Seattle, helpful Buy Nothing Day celebrants offered a credit-card
cut-up service outside a downtown mall.

In America, Buy Nothing Day played out in some of the nation's last
remaining public spaces - its malls. Costumed groups of revelers
managed to slip in and stay long enough to set up tables and suggest
alternatives to heavy holiday spending such as giving to charity.
Spend time with family and friends, rather than money on them, was the
message. Yes it's cliché, but, the things most worth pursuing, and
exchanging - love, ritual, attention, sacrifice, freedom-are the
things no-one can buy.

Buy Nothing Day just wouldn't be the same if the networks didn't
reject our opt-not-to-shop TV uncommercial. Every season, we approach
ABC, CBS and NBC to air the spot, and every year they refuse
us–claiming our ad asking people not to buy anything threatens "the
current economic policy of the United States."

It will be interesting to see if this year CNN Headline News, the one
show that has taken our money and aired the spot (after their "Dollars
and Sense" program since 1996) continues to break ranks.

Most constitutional-law experts aren't bothered by the networks'
refusal of the spot, according to Robert Berner in The Wall Street
Journal. Networks aren't under any legal obligation to air it. But as
Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe remarked, "At least the
networks make it clear who butters their bread."

Since September 11th much has changed, yet much remains the same.

Despite an enormous body of evidence warning of the dire consequences
of fossil-fuel-induced climate change, including massive floods in
Europe and crippling droughts on Canadian prairies, consumption of oil
has scarcely slackened.

Bush's thinly-veiled quest for domination over Middle Eastern oil
reserves promises to perpetuate this trend. The ongoing "war on
terrorism" has sharpened our appreciation of how tenuous and
potentially catastrophic is a voracious
First World's dependence on foreign oil, networked international money
markets, and the utterly uncompassionate survival instincts of
multinational corporations.

Lost in the breast-beating is any critical discussion of the *point*
of all this economic patriotism. The goal is to boost the flagging
gross domestic product.
The GDP is the usual measurement of the strength of the economy, but
how useful is it? Consider that whenever there's an ecological or
human disaster in the U.S., the GDP goes up, and we call it
"progress." By that logic, the crash of those jets into the Twin
Towers was a good thing, because it, too, sent the GDP up (or it
almost certainly would have, with new billions spent on defense and
health and cleanup, had the fear factor not kicked in).

The point is, we measure the goods, but we do not measure the bads –
and, unchecked, it's the bads that will bury us. (For more on this
subject, check out the website of the folks at Redefining Progress in
San Francisco.www.rprogress.org) Overconsumption creates long-term
ecological problems that aren't accounted for in the GDP. That's one
of the things Buy Nothing Day is all about.

There's no right way to celebrate Buy Nothing Day. The idea is to do
*something* to spark up debate, not shut it down. The shining hope for
a revolution in human consciousness lies in the actions of everyday
people. And so in the most profound sense, nothing has changed at all.

See also:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dcbnd/
http://adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd/

http://images.indymedia.org/imc/washingtondc/media/image/12/85502_bndblue.jpg

Source article:

http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/85502/index.php

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STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA
IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?
= = = =

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