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BUY NOTHING DAY
or Something to do when you can't afford to shop anyway.
At malls across the country the Christmas trees, Santas and tinny, piped-in carols are already inescapable. It's not even Thanksgiving yet and the push to shop has begun. Whether or not the country's retailers have a lucrative Christmas season will, no doubt, be a topic news reporters find inexhaustibly fascinating during the next month or so.
Two weeks ago several national newspaper business sections reported the projections of JC Penny stores and other discount retailers who claimed they expected greater sales this year than they have seen since 1999. No projections yet for the more expensive shops. But for those people who enjoy hearing about weekly box office movie grosses, as if the money a film earns allows one who has seen it to identify with its victory as they would with a home town football team, there will be plenty of coverage of retail receipts during the coming month to keep them satisfied.
The reason for all this interest is that the Christmas season, and particularly the day after Thanksgiving — long referred to as the "biggest shopping day of the year" or "Black Friday" — is a critical time for retailers. This magical day, marking the beginning of the holiday sales bonanza, happens during the last long weekend most working people will have before Christmas (or Hanukah or Kwanzaa). This makes it a natural time to take care of the gift-getting before it gets too late. To retailers, many of which make a significant percentage of their total yearly sales during the holidays, the day after Thanksgiving is a kind of financial D-Day. They will gauge their prospects for the season, the year and next year's budget almost entirely on the monies generated on this single day.
Yet, just as retailers are licking their chops in anticipation of the big haul, along comes the 7th Annual Buy Nothing Day. Begun by the anarchist graphic designers who publish Adbusters magazine, Buy Nothing Day falls each year on, you guessed it, the day after Thanksgiving. As envisioned by Adbusters, it is a 24-hour period in which to protest corporate America's greed and the hollowness of consumerism by standing up, or maybe just sitting down in your living room, and saying, "I'm not buying anything. So, there!"
EVERYONE'S CHOKING ON STUFF
But it's not just Adbusters who have a bee in their bonnet about over-consumption, globalization and the sins of corporate America. Their supporters will be joined in protests across the nation by groups like Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping and various branches of the Green Party.
Reverend Billy is the persona developed by colorful actor-turned-protestor, Bill Talen. Talen's activism began as a protest against Starbucks and the Disney store, both of which he blames for ruining the two neighborhoods he liked in New York City. Railing against what he calls the "mild pleasantness of shopping", Rev. Billy and his Stop Shopping congregation will be at the forefront of several theatrical actions in Gotham on Friday, November 28 including a sermon and performance by the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir in front of the Plaza Hotel. They will also stage live "retail interventions" where activists "disguised as shoppers" will infiltrate the "transnational flagship battalions of Nike, GAP, Disney and Starbucks" and " charm eager shoppers with detailed information about the latest labor and environmental abuses committed by these companies."
In addition to the Stop Shopping congregation, several Green Party groups throughout the U.S. will be protesting, in less theatrical ways, the capitalist call to credit dependence that is Christmas. For instance, the Rhode Island contingent is hosting a free winter coat exchange on November 28, where one can either donate or pick up needed winter. Did I say free?
In the past, The Global Renaissance Alliance, an organization founded by spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson, has also promoted this spending-free "holiday". Though there is no specific mention of this year's day of protest on the GRA website, there are plenty of revealing articles about the destructive qualities inherent in materialism and the exposure to non-stop advertising to be found there.
Buy Nothing Day will also be observed internationally on November 29 in the UK, Denmark, Finland, Germany, France, Japan, Norway, Israel, Sweden and the Netherlands. Canada will join the U.S. in not buying on Nov. 28.
BREAKING THE ADDICTION
In her novel, "Atlas Shrugged", the self-styled "Objectivist" author Ayn Rand postulated that the world and everything in it that was sacred would come to a grinding halt if every last one of the under appreciated captains of industry took a powder. Adbusters, Rev. Billy and the Green party seem to be suggesting just the opposite. That it is the consumers, the people, the workers, the proletariat who Rand despised, who can bring the world — and the out-of-control salaries of CEOs — to a standstill by quitting their addiction to buying more stuff. On top of that, by beginning with the simple, non-violent act of not buying there is a chance for the rank and file to reclaim a sense of the truly sacred in their lives.
Whether or not the majority of the U.S. middle-class joins in these protests might be a moot point in 2003. According to the Adbusters website, shoppers are already disenchanted with the seasonal hoopla:
"When Lama Surya Das [Long Island native, born Jeffrey Miller, turned Bhuddist lama] discovered Buy Nothing Day, he decided to join the party. Next, he asked Opinion Research Corp. to do a scientific assessment of 1000 people and take the pulse of American consumerism the day after Thanksgiving. Here's what they found:
• 62% of Americans plan to 'buy nothing' on the day after Thanksgiving
• 61% intend 'to stay as far away from stores or malls as possible'
• 35% have an unused Christmas present collecting dust in their closet
• 33% admit to throwing Christmas presents straight into the trash
• 8% say their credit cards will 'be maxed out before the time the holidays are through'"
Statistics like that must chill the blood of corporate chiefs of places like GAP, Best Buy, Sephora and various other mall signature stores. One wonders if it is a protest against shopping that is at work, or just the results of several years of recession and growing unemployment.
According to a Gallup Poll, conducted Nov.10-12, 2003, "average Americans" plan to spend $734 on Christmas gifts this year. It is more than the $690 that shoppers projected the previous year, but less than they spent in 1999 and 2000. Maybe that explains why children's retailer Toys "R" Us Inc. just reported record third quarter losses and plans to close 146 of it's Kids "R" Us stores, cutting up to 3,800 U.S. jobs — right before the holidays.
THE UP SIDE
It seems that the taste for shopping-until-you-drop is finally leaving a nasty tang in the mouths of American consumers. Whether or not this is because no one has the money to keep up the consumption, as evidenced by the number of family bankruptcies filed this year (the highest in the history of the country), or if it is some kind of grassroots protest against being reduced by the government and the media into a nation of insatiable gaping maws, the results are the same. (Maybe those tax cuts for the wealthy just haven't trickled down yet.) Rest assured, the news media will postulate about the reasons for this phenomenon on an hourly basis.
The bright spot in all of this is that if people do not come out in force to shop this season, for whatever reason, stores will be forced to discount items while they're needed — before Christmas. It's the same principle that has reduced car dealers to selling autos at 0% interest just to get them off the lot.
Even if the Christmas season is better than anticipated, financially speaking, retailers will still reduce prices after the holidays. So, if people can resist the need to wrap those big-ticket items to place under the tree, they can save substantially by buying after December 25. With all the protests and holiday charity give-aways, the season might just be festive enough without heaps of gifts people can neither afford nor use. In the end, maybe the best thing of all would be to put off the holidays until January, when everyone really needs a little pick-me-up.
WITCHING HOUR ARCHIVE:
CURRENT -2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17
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Mercury in Retrograde
a Shopper's Nightmare!
 Mercury goes retrograde beginning December 17.
This planet rules all aspects of communication, including all the methods for communicating like phones, mail and the staple of modern life: electronic devices. That means, not only the iPod you wish to purchase, but also the
device that sends your credit information into cyberspace. It also rules short distance travel.
In retrograde, Mercury acts as a spoiler. Calls get cut off. Mail is lost. Computers break down. Purchases made are purchases returned. There is no place to park! So, if you can't get out of doing some shopping this year because you have kids or a stubborn resistance to letting go of materialism, by all means
shop before Dec.17.
Not only will you likely make errors with transactions if you wait, but those return cues at Macy's will be a bitch. Keep in mind that many stores are now charging restocking fees for returning items anyway. This is a new form of corporate usury one should be aware of before making a shopping decision.
And, if you still do that kind of thing, send those greeting cards out early, too.
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