Buy Nothing Day (BND) is an international day of protest against consumerism. In North America, BND is held the Friday after Thanksgiving (November 29, 2013). Elsewhere, it is held the following day, which is the last
Saturday in November.[1][2] BND was founded in Vancouver by artist Ted Dave[3] in September 1992.
It was organized as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption."[5][citation not found] In 1997, it was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving, also called "Black Friday", which is one of the ten busiest shopping days in the United States! BND was initially denied advertising time by almost all major television networks except for CNN.[1] Soon, campaigns started appearing in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Austria, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands, France, and Norway. Participation now includes more than 65 nations.[5][citation not found] - Wikipedia.
The irony of the juxtaposition of Thanksgiving, Black Friday & BND and the excessive
consumerism of our modern lives, let alone Christmas, is not difficult to see. While I
welcome anything which makes people stop and think about their purchasing choices
in any sphere, at any time, I just don't think a day is enough.
If our enormous levels of debt & credit don't make us stop profligate spending, I doubt
whether a named day will. Neither does job insecurity, short term / part time / zero
hours contracts or unemployment seem to do the trick. Today's Western culture
believes in our right to have something new, now. When we have finished with it we
don't have any qualms about replacing it with the latest model, even if the old one is
still perfectly adequate.
Our's is the society of more. The more we have the less we value it & the more we want.
We are the slaves of the Ad Men, who come to us like an angelic visitation through our
TV's, phones & computers. We want to have what our neighbour has, better if possible.
Give us posh labels, high spec', (never mind we will never use half of the capability).
The latest, the biggest, ever more, ever changing to satiate our endless desires. We
will queue for hours & fight each other for it if necessary.
B..... Buy Nothing Day - lets have Buy Nothing Week or Month or Year. Better to do
it voluntarily than have it forced on us by used up resources.
Look at Easter Island!
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