Don't Buy It!

Ahh, the Holidays. The season of love and giving is upon us once again. It's time to give thanks for all that we have and to truly cherish those dear to us. And it's time to rake in amazing profits. I've felt it. You've probably felt it. The Holidays are less a time to give thanks for what we have and more a time to make sure we have more.

Many of us feel there is something wrong with buying so much stuff to show our appreciation for what we already have. About 39 percent of us would welcome a reduction in the emphasis put on shopping for the holiday season. But the Holidays are all about business for many, with some retail stores taking in about 25 percent of their revenue during this period. "Tradition," the usual commercial influence, and peer pressure will drive us once again into the malls to buy, buy, buy then kick us into 1999 in debt, exhasuted and wondering what happened to our time off.

So instead of just lamenting the way things are what can we do about it? Well here's one idea. Go counter culture and on November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the Year, buy absolutely nothing! That's right. Celebrate Buy Nothing Day and you get 100% off everything. Let's see Nordstrom match that. There will be no long lines, no stressed out parents, and no tired kids. Extend Thanksgiving another day and stop the shopping!

Buy Nothing Day is a 24 hour vacation from consumer spending celebrated in cities and countries throughout the world. You may not have heard of it, since it's kind of hard to get corporate sponsorship, but it's a slowly growing holiday. Buy Nothing Day was created by the Media Foundation of Vancouver, B.C. to raise awareness that much of the destruction of our natual environment and many of our health and social problems are the result of unnecessary, artificially stimulated consumption. Buy Nothing Day is celebrated all over the world in more than a dozen industialized nations on three continents.

If we are to save ourselves, we as a society need to reduce our consumption in absolute terms. The world's richest 20 percent is consuming 86 percent of the worlds goods and services while the poorest 20 percent use only 1.3 percent. Everyone in the U.S. is part of that top 20 percent. If everyone on this earth consumed like we do here that would be it, game over. The earth would cough, wheeze, choke, and spit us right off the face of the planet.

We also need to recognize the impact our consumer culture has on the real health of our society. American households save only 3.5 percent on average of their income; half of what we used to save not a decade ago. With that rate many families live in very precarious economic circumstances. Juliet Schor in her book The Over Spent American notes that "60 percent of families have so little in the way of financial reserves that they can only sustain their lifestyles for one month if they lose their jobs." Our consumer dependent economy has thrown our national priorities out of wack. There are about 24 thousand high schools in this country and 42 thousand shopping malls. Can this be healthy?

And if those statistics don't rattle you: There are currently 8 Barbie Dolls for every U.S. citizen alive. Now you see what I'm talking about. Something is seriously wrong here!

If we are to reach a sustainable level of existence in this world and create a society that responds to its citizens' real needs we need to challenge the assumption of consumption everyday. Give in some way other than buying gifts. Give money to charity in someone's name. Make a gift. Cook dinner for someone. Write or play a song.

Buy Nothing Day is one part of an effort to get us all to analyze our general purchasing behavior. For the Holidays and the rest of the year really think about what you buy. Do you need it? Why are you buying it? Will it improve your life? Sure these are serious questions to ask yourself everytime you buy a pack of gum. But our dollar is our vote for what kind of society we want to live in. When we buy from a company we are not only purchasing a product, we are condoning a companies business practices, supporting their political donations, and approving of their means of production. When we look at a purchase in those terms buying a pack of gum is a political statement. The more people making the same statement, the more people listen.

Make a statement that you want things to change by celebrating Buy Nothing Day. Join us at Westlake Park on November 27 singing, picketing, distributing pamphlets, cutting up credit cards, and performing street theater. Show others that there are alternatives. Buy Nothing Day can be celebrated any way you want. Hold a critical mass. Dress up the Waiting for the Interurban in Fremont. Do some chalk drawings. Put up banners. Or just don't buy anything.

Sources: The Overspent American, Juliet Schor; All Consuming Passion, New Road Map Foundation; Simplify the Holidays, Center for the New American Dream