As we gear up for the Christmas shopping season, are you one of the people who thinks we are all just going a bit too far and really something should be done about the huge amount of spending and consumption done not just in December but all year round? Then maybe tomorrow's Buy Nothing Day is for you.
Friday 24 November, the day after Thanksgiving in the USA, is Buy Nothing Day. The campaign, run by a US environment and campaigning magazine called Adbusters, wants to promote a one-day moratorium on shopping.
The Buy Nothing campaign believes that, ``Our consumer culture is out of control. Once, we shopped to buy what we needed, period. Now that we don't need much, we shop for other reasons: to impress each other, to fill a void, to kill time. A mere 20% of the earth's population uses 80% of its natural resources. Our overconsumption is killing the planet.''
The activists and campaigners in favour of Buy Nothing Day believe that a day without shopping ``forces us to think about the ``shop-till-you-drop'' imperative and its effects on the rest of the world''.
The campaigners have for the last five years been trying to run advertisements on US network television. They have the money but not the agreement of the main US networks, which refuse to run the Buy Nothing promos. Only CNN have ever taken the commercial.
CBS, in a rejection letter, told the campaign that the Buy Nothing commercials were ``in opposition to the current economic policy of the United States''. It means that shopping is now also part of the American dream. So the question is whether you are up to the challenge of a day without feckless consumption?
The Buy Nothing Campaign can be found at http://www.adbusters.org
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