A recurring theme on this blog could be said to be anti-consumerism. If you have a few minutes, have a look at the contribution to this conversation from a NY chair manufacturer.

Someone recently told me that the 12 days of Christmas are actually supposed to begin on Christmas day.  I don’t really care.  Any day after Christmas and before December 1st doesn’t feel like Christmas, no matter how many holiday songs people play or how many holiday sales stores have.  The following story is — just like the last ones — anti-consumerist, and is the first of a few stories which will explore the Three Kings, and the awesome nature of their journey (assuming they ever took one).  I mean, you’ve got to have some serious spiritual balls to follow a bright star through the desert while carrying a brick of gold, and some very expensive gifts.  Comments welcome!

by Kal.LKL on Flickr.com

 

Jeremiah sat at the security desk late at night, sipping slowly on his heavily caffeinated soda.  He stared steadily out the glass doors just ten feet from his seat.  With no light outside and the fluorescents inside, he could see nothing beyond the doors, just the black velvet curtain of the night.  He stared at the opaque darkness and let his mind wander.

In his ten years working this job, no one had ever emerged from the darkness until morning, when the velvet curtain brightened slowly into a lovely navy blue.  It was the middle of nowhere.  Banks in the middle of nowhere didn’t have much trouble, so you can imagine his amazement when a man and woman rushed up to the door and pounded on it.  The woman clutched a bulbous swollen belly.  The man yelled,

“My wife is giving birth!  Do you have a phone?”

Jeremiah quickly unlocked the door after fumbling with the keys.  He rushed behind a desk and picked up the phone.

“Set down and I’ll ring—“

Jeremiah was interrupted by a gun pressing against his nose.  The man looked at Jeremiah calmly and spoke softly, “Sit down and don’t move.”

It was then that Jeremiah noticed the man’s hair was a blond wig, and that the man’s nose was much too large for his face, as if it were a fake nose.  The man’s eyes were blue, but too blue, as if the man wore colored contacts, and the man’s beard looked too coarse and had too clean edges, as if the beard were pasted on.  Jeremiah did as he was told, and the woman, who he noticed was actually pregnant—swollen ankles are a dead giveaway—proceeded to duck tape him to a chair and blindfold him.

He heard the static of a radio, followed by, “The manger is set except for the three kings.”

Everything that followed sounded like a series of angry metal noises.  At least, that’s how he described it to the police.  He told them that before the thieves left, they placed a straw in his mouth, and told him there was water at the other end.  Then they bid him a Merry Christmas.

“Merry Christmas?” the officer asked, clearly as confused as Jeremiah had been.  It was the middle of July.

“Merry Christmas,” Jeremiah repeated.

Jeremiah never felt bad about the whole thing.  Some security guards get too rattled after being held at gun point, and they can never work again.  Instead, Jeremiah found himself hoping to see the woman again.  He wanted to know if her child had ten fingers and ten toes.  Some times, he realized he was waiting for her to arrive.  He tried to imagine what she would say, or what the child might look like, but somehow he couldn’t.  He began to find himself standing right at the glass doors at night, pressing his face against the glass to see past the black velvet curtain.

One December night he ignored regulations and he opened the door.  He stepped outside and let his eyes gradually adapt to the darkness.  He looked up and he marveled at all the stars.  It was easily one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.  And just above the horizon, he saw one particularly bright star.  It seemed to call to him.

The next morning, when the relieving security arrived, he found the bank empty, and no one ever saw or heard of Jeremiah again.

In case there’s someone in my vast reading audience who hasn’t gotten the message, here’s an oldie (first posted in Nov 2008)

“There’s only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth: we have to consume less.” (From the Adbuster’s site)

I have a confession to make. It might be shocking to some of you, but here goes.

I boycott Christmas.

The gift purchasing part.

I still bake cookies, and sing along to carols, and eat candy canes, and go to parties. I do give gifts, but they’re either homemade (think hot pepper jelly) or gifts of my time (who needs babysitting help?) I have no desire to offend anyone or hurt any feelings, so I have bent my own rules on occasion, buying something for someone whom I knew just would not understand my point of view, but mostly, I try to stand firm.

I don’t even buy gifts for my own children.

I take them to a locally owned bookstore, tell them that they can buy ANY book they want, and then we all sit together in the cafe for hot chocolate and whatever usually verboten goodies they’d like. See how I make my rules up as I go? I guess, technically, buying them a book is buying them something, isn’t it? I just don’t think of books in that way. There you go. Just goes to show that I have my own version of reality.

I made this boycotting decision 3 years ago, but I’d been on the verge for much longer. My own personal values just didn’t match my actions during the holiday buying frenzy, and I felt more and more uncomfortable trawling through the malls in desperation every year, searching for presents that I was sure were redundant. I actually started feeling queazy with the disconnect I was experiencing. I’m an athiest, I have no spiritual connection to the holiday (and even if I did, I still don’t get the significance of buying things as a way to celebrate a religion), and I’m a staunch anti-consumer the rest of the year, so I began to feel that I was being dishonest by participating. I hate buying because it’s the thing to do, and I don’t like recieving things that people felt obligated to purchase. I don’t like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day either.

I remember one Christmas, when baby #3 was 11 months old, I took a look at all of the unused mountains of toys in our basement playroom, and had a flash of brilliance. I found one that had been particularly well buried, wrapped it in glittering paper, and put it under the tree for the baby. He was none the wiser, and nor were the slightly older two. I think that was the beginning of the end for me.

Anway, long story short, my good friend S sent me a link to the Buy Nothing website. I guess I’m not quite the trail blazer that I thought I was. Click here to check out their list of alternatives for gift giving.

Thanks, S!

It’s not the larger than life picture of an RAF fighter jet tearing through the sky that attracts your attention. Nor is it the bright colour or the eye-grabbing font of this military air show advert. It’s the poignant graffiti stencil through the centre of the billboard, a naked Vietnamese girl fleeing an unnecessary war. Many artists would give their left ear to display their work on a canvas so public. But it is not recognition or fame this artist desires, it is change.

Billboard advertisements dominate our urban landscape, seducing our wallets and our reason. Dazzling women pout their lips on Maybelline billboards and scream ‘buy me, buy me, buy me and you will be beautiful too!’ Secret agents on Sky adverts wink at pedestrians below. ‘Watch me,’ they shout. ‘Watch you?’ retort political artists. ‘We shall not!’

Subvertising is the name of the game. Concerned citizens are reclaiming their visual territory by customising commercial billboards with satirical comments and pictures. The ’subvert’ mimics the original advert but distorts the meaning. It’s the perfect parody. Dr D is infamous around London for his tongue in cheek billboard adjustments. My favourite is his remodelling of a sportswear advert. He’s pasted over the original caption with the words: ‘football dreams stitched with children’s hands.’ The words induce a classic double take from passers-by.

Dr D is aptly named because doctoring is what he does, he sees unhealthy adverts and he makes them better. The 30 year old has been ‘doctoring’ billboards for just under a decade now. “I was inspired by a book called No Logo by Naomi Klein,” he said. “It had a bit about Ron English altering billboards with paint and it occurred to me that I could do something similar. I cut the letters ‘Su’ from one billboard and placed them over another. The ad that had read ‘Suddenly everything clicks’ had been subverted to say ‘Suddenly everything Sucks’.”

Jeff is 49 years old and works as an electronic technician. He appears to be a quietly spoken and gentle natured man but at the weekend he likes to tear down expensive corporate adverts too. So what is it about billboards that offends Dr D and Jeff so much? “ I want to counter what I see as being at fault with the politics of this country,” said Jeff. “ My subverts criticise our country for its eagerness to go to war with Iraq, being a leading arms exporter and our failure to react to climate change. They also counter the commercial garbage that adverts feeds us everyday. I find consumerist culture quite appalling. It only leads to greater consumption. I try to be as minimalist as possible.”

These sentiments are echoed by fellow subvertiser Daphne Lock, 28. “My motivation comes from wanting to be creative in responding to the evil I see around me,” she said. “I see a city street choked with cars so I want to use silly stickers to make fun of them. I see a poster telling me to buy this bra to be more sexy so I add a moustache to the model’s face to make fun of her.”

Billboards obviously aren’t located in the most private of places and subvertising is a criminal offence so you may wonder how everyone is getting away with this. “I do it in broad daylight,” said Jeff. “Then I just look like a regular billboard guy. I haven’t been caught yet.” Dr D prefers to work at night to avoid public scrutiny. “If you put on a high visibility jacket you can get away with anything,” he said.

JCDeacaux is one of the UK’s leading billboard companies and has an international presence. They predict that 175 million people in 3,500 cities see their advertising structures everyday. “We own over 10,000 billboards so subvertising isn’t really something we notice,” said Jane Guest. “It’s not really at the forefront of our minds.” Clear Channel, another leading UK billboard company claim they provide more than 70,000 outdoor advertising opportunities across the UK. These figures are truly horrific – when were you last asked if you wanted to look at billboards all day? I for one am fed up with having advertisements burned into my eye sockets.

San Francisco’s Billboard Liberation Front is one of the most prolific subvertising groups of all time. The whole ethos of subvertising is summed up pretty accurately on the group’s online manifesto. “To advertise is to exist. To exist is to advertise. Our ultimate goal is nothing short of a personal and singular billboard for each citizen.’

So what are a few words on a billboard going to do at the end of the day? “It’s weird because I think the subverts have more life now on the internet than through the few hundred people that will see them in the flesh,” said Dr D. “As for how effective they are, who knows. If I can make one person question their thinking then its been a success.”

Subvertising is actually part of a much bigger movement known as Culture Jamming, which is basically public activism through art. Jammers generally oppose commercialism and the corporate image. American author and cultural critic Mark Dery popularised the term through his 1993 essay ‘Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of the Signs’. He admits that the effects of subvertising still remain to be seen. “What’s important is that it’s cathartic for the jammer and revives the flagging spirits of the left-wing choir,” he said. “But even if it only rewires a single mind or establishes only a momentary utopia of micro political resistance, reaffirming that somebody, somewhere shares your irritation and alienation from society, then more power to it.”

The term culture jamming was originally coined by a yippie band, Negativland, on their release Jamcon 84. Their original inspiration was radio jamming – interrupting broadcasts with lip farts and other obscenities. Culture Jamming is directed at a much larger enemy however, factory capitalism, the manipulators of images. On JamCon 84 one band member observes; “the skilfully reworked billboard directs the public viewer to a consideration of the original corporate strategy. The studio for the cultural jammer is the world at large.”

Adbusters magazine is an important point of reference for culture jammers world-wide. The magazine was founded by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver in 1989. Adbusters have launched numerous social campaigns world-wide including ‘Buy Nothing Day’ and ‘TV Turn-off Week’. So what’s the motivation behind the magazine? “Thirty years ago, people became worried that the toxic physical environment was making people sick,” said Kalle Lasn (excerpt from Guardian interview). “This anxiety gave birth to the green movement. Now we’re in a time where people are stressed out, suffering from mood disorders, and a percentage of the population is on anti-depressants and anxiety medication. Studies show that mood disorders, anxiety attacks and depressions have gone up by 300% in two generations. Advertisers have taken over everything. It’s time for the backlash, and that backlash is the clean mental environment.”
Not even Adbusters can escape the criticism of culture jammers. Its been accused of being glossy and expensive, focusing more on image then on content. They even sell t-shirts on Buy Nothing Day with ‘buy nothing’ printed across the front. So it’s fashionable to dislike companies that thrive on fashion – go figure? Of Course Adbusters aren’t the only ones to be cashing in on anti-advertising. The 1997 Nike campaign used the slogan ‘I am not a target market, I am an athlete’ and Sprite launched their ‘image is nothing’ campaign. Advertising companies have turned subvertising inside out.
However subvertising and billboard banditry are not the only faces of culture jamming. Street theatre and media hoaxing have become especially popular too. A classic example of culture jamming in its purest form are the hoaxes of the American conceptual con artist Joey Skaggs. Skaggs convinces a local journalist to run a fictional story and then mails the press cuttings to national papers. Seeing that the story has already appeared in print, journalists publish the story without further research. Skaggs’ best known con was his ‘Cathouse for Dogs’ story in the 70’s, a canine brothel that offered ‘a savoury selection’ of mongrel mistresses, ranging from pedigree (Fifi the French Poodle) to mutt (Lady the Tramp). Culture jammers claim that these elaborate hoaxes underline how easily the media can be manipulated and serve as a warning to all free thinking citizens.

Subvertiser Daphne Lock has met many activists on her travels, all culture jamming in different ways. “I know pensioners in Spain who paint new cycle lanes in their town at night to make their transport system more human friendly,” she said. “I know a Swedish anarchist who lets down the tyres of SUVs every night to encourage the owners to sell. I know nuns who feed refugees outside town halls to show the officials what they should be doing. I know kids who use catapults to hit CCTV with paint bombs.”

The street theatre group, Improv Everywhere are another example of culture jamming in action. The group were responsible for the mass freeze in New York’s Grand Central station. The idea was that hundreds of pranksters would simultaneously freeze in the middle of Grand Central with no warning to those nearby. The prank was replicated in London’s Paddington and Stockholm Stations much to the bemusement of onlookers and the video has become a massive hit on You tube.

Mark Dery believes that the most influential culture jamming stunt to date was orchestrated by none other then the Bush and Cheney administration. “They effectively jammed the thoughts of the Joe-the-Plumber demographic for years,” he said. “They convinced many Americans that Iraq was a cakewalk, Katrina was not our problem, free speech was unpatriotic, privacy was a liability, America was a Christian nation, the economy was an unstoppable Energizer Bunny and that single-payer healthcare was Marxist blasphemy. They looted the public trust to line their pockets claiming it was all in the best interest of the cash-strapped working class. I’d say that was a neat bit of mass hypnosis.”

So who and what are we supposed to believe in this PR and advert driven world? How do we differentiate between the mirage and the oasis? It is hardly surprising that so many of us get confused and just end up eating sand – the idea that Sky will entertain us and Maybelline will make us pretty, that we can buy a life, that we can buy happiness. For those who do truly scrutinise their physical and mental environment, existence must appear frightfully Orwellian. “I think there’s a surprising degree of wariness toward advertising nowadays,” said Mark Derby. “This is highlighted by advertisers’ ever greater need to cut through consumer cynicism with ads that appeal to their Inner Ironists, encouraging the consumer to feel that she’s resisting the society of the spectacle even as she buys into it,” he said. “ Grassroots forms of anti-consumerist activism, such as culture jamming, imply that at least some among the masses aren’t buying the gospel of conspicuous consumption and better living through branding.”

I did not buy a single thing today.

I didn’t even have to try not to, though. For one thing, I was working, actually earning money instead of spending it in some way (the opposite of my current financial strategy most of the time, ha).

But for another thing, I’ve been thinking about this day more than usual this year – and not in a good way (for Black Friday, that is. For me, it’s been great.)

I was first faced with a reminder of this ever-so-important day a little over a month ago. The source was the Yahoo front page, which admittedly I feel a little bit embarrassed about still having as my homepage, and which sometimes has ludicrously silly and trivial main headlines (I recall with especial ‘fondness’ the one entitled “The Best Way to Eat Chicken Wings – You’re probably not doing it right”).

ANYWAY, I remember thinking, “Black Friday? What does that mean? Oh, they do mean the day after Thanksgiving. But it’s not even Halloween yet! This is getting way out of hand, people.” But that was only the beginning.

Maybe I’m just noticing it more, but the hype around Black Friday seems more exaggerated than ever this year. From the sheer amount of news coverage, innumerable BF sites, and barrage of ads from all directions talking up the ‘event’, one alien to our culture might presume this to be a major holiday.

In fact, it is. Or it seems to be. I did not see much Thanksgiving ‘news’ or ads that I can recall. But I guess being happy about and thankful for what you have doesn’t really sell $25 printers, if you take my point. (Though it does sell a lot of very specific food items, obviously.)

But that’s what I find so completely baffling about the entire thing. The proximity of two such fundamentally opposed paradigms – so much so that I feel the bastard lead-in to Christmas (BF)  has all but overshadowed the original holiday (Thanksgiving) and its meaning completely.

So, let me get this straight. After what should ideally be a day of gratitude, an occasion where we actually stop to look around and appreciate all the things in life we work so hard for, the reasons for working and trying and doing, the first thing we’re supposed to do is…

Go out and buy things until we drop.

In a time when our wasteful way of life is becoming swiftly more apparent, and more problematic, than ever, there’s still this frantic plea of desperation over it all, trying to drown out all that unpleasantness by imploring us to buy. Buy. BUY!

As if it’s some kind of cure.

Incidentally, I’m planning to make most of my Christmas gifts this year.

CHRISTMAS UNSHOPPING
Buy NOTHING this Chrismas

 Give no gifts this Christmas.
 Explain to your family that you are using your economic power to help the poorest by giving no gifts. Often, the gifts we give are useless or unwanted.
 Instead, make gifts or cards which are much more personal.
 Join the Advent conspiracy
 Give Christmas gifts directly to the poor by buying presents through Oxfam Unwrapped, Christian Blind Mission Gifts of Life or the Tear Fund.

GIVE to the needy

PRAY differently

More silence
More meditation
More reflective reading of Scripture
Fewer words
Different symbols (candles, ikons, etc.)

I love Christmas, plain and simple. It’s my favorite holiday. No, not for the sharing of joy, and spirit, not for celebrating some dude’s birthday (can’t remember the guy’s name), and certainly not for seeing some fat fuck lodge his holly, jolly ass in my chimney. No, rather, I adore all the little doo das that are packaged with this season. At first glance, y’all that know me, must be screaming to yourselves, “WTF?! WHAT HAS THIS WORLD COME TO?!” But, don’t bash your pathetic, worthless skulls through your computer screens, just yet. It’s not like I’m hawking Dr. Pepper *cough Mr. NWA. Mr. Dr. Dre. Gangsta* Anyway, I think if one carefully plucks out the good, the bad, and the ugly, you can still maintain some politico aficionado dignity. So, yeah I’m mostly anti-consumerism and anti-corporate, but I must say I have an affinity for the GOOD Christmas specials, films, songs, decorations, traditions, etc. that make Christmas Christmas, that is the commercialized Chri$tmas, not that guy’s birthday, whoever he was… So, like everything else in life, I have mastered the task of weeding out the bad and especially the ugly and preserving the good ( a must see Christmas list will appear as a future post). To wrap up (no pun intended lol) this little, somewhat aimless, rant, I’d like to mention that a major beef of mine about Christmas is the way it’s pushed on consumers sooo early. I for one, do not begin my Christmas splurge until the day after Thanksgiving, in which Christmas With Johnny Cash rocks into heavy rotation until the Twenty-Fifth of December. Anything before this is wayyyy too early. Satan’s little helpers market Christmas the day after Halloween, if not before then. Thanksgiving is merely a break between the jamming of Christmas down your throat, squirting out red and green blood under the mistletoe.

Chris

Downloaded this Flyer at Adbusters

Ran across this contemporary call for a general strike of our coercive consumption work: Buy Nothing Day, November 27, 2009, at Adbusters.

I am considering ways to join in, in spite of being out of town and en famille.

Well, they’re not exactly in Ithaca. But their new movie, The Yes Men Fix The World, begins its showing at Cornell Cinema in Ithaca, N.Y. starting on Nov. 30. The movie will be shown until Dec. 6.

The Yes Men, led by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano, are, well, a different kind of political activist. Many of us say we stand behind a particular idea but rarely act upon what we believe. Bichlbaum and Bonnano take the corporate world head on by posing as CEO’s, World Trade Organization administrators and DOW Jones spokesmen. They pull pranks on some of the most powerful people in the world.

The pranks range from taking responsibility for the Bhopal disaster to the creation of a new “eco-friendly” oil by Exxon Moblie. The Yes Men speak out against globalization and consumerism, blaming large corporations and trade organizations for the exploitation of resources, which thus results in the exploitation of third world countries. They hold these men accountable for trade laws that ultimately lead to poverty and unfair practices of labor in countries that have no voice when it comes to these matters.

What their doing is really interesting and admirable. The Yes Men put a complete twist on activism. Their stunts bring attention to problems that not many people pay attention to and they don’t care whose reputation they ruin in the process. Their old movie, The Yes Men, is on Hulu and I highly recommend it. You’ll learn something while having a good laugh.

KAYbee.

One of the joys I have been discovering more and more in the last few years is what a minor role money plays in my life. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not self-sufficient, and I need to have enough money for housing, bills, food, transportation, etc., just like most anyone else. But now that I am really looking at what my needs are, and what actually makes me happy, it’s exciting to realize how very little money I need to live a full, happy life.

I’m currently working in a volunteer service position that provides me a small living allowance. If I add the monetary value of other benefits from this position that I receive to this allowance, it puts my income at about $980 per month. Many people I know couldn’t imagine living off this amount, but I do so with joy and ease. I buy healthy, non-processed foods, cook for myself, and rarely eat out. I’m also starting a garden, which will provide me with a variety of vegetables and bring down my food costs even more. I rent a room in a house with 3 other people, which keeps housing cheap. My roommates and I sometimes take turns cooking dinner during the week, so at least once or twice a week, I get to enjoy someone else’s cooking, often along with pleasant conversations. My bills stay very low; I pay the basics (water, electric, gas, etc.), which I am careful to conserve, and I spend $6 a month on Skype for phone calls & keep a pay-per-use cell that I only use when I absolutely have to. I get around town by bus & bike; I’ve never owned a car in my life, so I don’t have to worry about car payments, insurance, parking, etc.

That covers the basics, but what about everything else? The more I examine what really brings me enjoyment, the more I’ve realized that “everything else” tends to have very little to do with money. I spend quality time with my girlfriend and other friends at their houses or mine, conversing for hours; that’s free. I meditate regularly, take walks, ride my bike, and do yoga at home; that’s free. I help organize a community dance once a month; that’s free, and because I work for a portion of the time I’m at the dance, the dance is free for me, too. I love to read, so I take books out of the library, and occasionally borrow movies. I recognize that buying new clothes really doesn’t bring much pleasure; but fixing my old clothes is free (or maybe a few cents for the thread) and fun. I go to meetings to educate myself on various issues and take what action I can on those issues.

Even the things that I do spend money on contribute to lasting joys. I have two excellent pet rats, and the total amount I spend on their food and litter in a month (about $15) brings me joy every day, as I play with them, observe them, and enjoy their company. I spend a little money on seeds and peat moss for my garden (I get all the free manure I need from a friend that owns sheep), and this will be more than compensated for by the resultant vegetables, along with the joy & sense of accomplishment that comes from growing my own food. About twice a month, I’ll meditate or do yoga in a community setting; that’s $5, or less for a donation. I will occasionally buy yarn for my knitting or thread for my embroidery, which allows me to create cool stuff for myself and lovely gifts for friends at a fraction of what it would have cost to buy these finished creations. If I absolutely need shoes or clothes, I’ll spend a few dollars at a thrift shop. On the rare occasions that I do eat out, I look for the locally owned places that offer special deals on certain days.

I also know what not to spend money on. I don’t buy stuff because it’s the newest thing out. I don’t buy a lot of electronic stuff, which seems to be huge money drain amongst some people know. I don’t buy fast food. I don’t buy new clothes. Before I buy anything, I really stop and consider, “Why am I buying this? Do I need it, or is it really going to make me or someone else happy? Is there something else that I could spend this money on that would bring more long term enjoyment?” If the only justification for buying something is “because I want it, NOW”, it’s probably not too intelligent a purchase, and most of the time, I don’t buy it.

I think that as a culture, we have truly become convinced that money brings us happiness. I know that many people eschew this notion on the conscious level, but I think that a lot of people buy into it without realizing it on the subconscious level. It has become such a pervasive concept in our culture that we deserve to get whatever we want, and therefore we should always buy what we want, that we’re almost operating on autopilot as consumers (which is exactly what the people selling us all this stuff want us to do).

I have found that not exposing myself to a lot of media really helps with this; I don’t have a TV, so I don’t hear about all this crap I need to buy to be happy. I think that it also helps to have others around who understand the concept of living joyfully with little use for money. And most importantly, it helps to really examine one’s values, how one wants those values to materialize in one’s life, and what part, if any, money plays in those values.

The following was written in response to an article published in the Evening Standard newspaper.  Newstand advertisements called it a “£2,000 pound per year electricity bill warning” rather than seeing it for the warning that it actually should have been…

By creating an impression of simply being a “warning” against what could be a 60 percent rise in household electricity bills, your recent front page story (£2,000 a year bill for your power – ES Friday October 9) ignores the fact that a rise in prices of goods and services that are diminishing our earth’s resources is what’s needed in order to slow the destruction of the planet we are living in.

What’s more, is that it fails to clarify that the “massive levels of investment needed” and the subsequent “high likelihood of consumer bills” is a reflection of the cost of providing cleaner, greener energy, in order to provide (and hopefully) ensure the sustainability of our earth’s resources in the future, and for generations to come.

At present, there is very little that we pay for that factors in the true cost of the damage we are causing to the planet we live in.  Politicians, economists and the media alike fail to acknowledge how much continued inefficient electricity use, and overuse (for example) costs the environment, while ignoring the limits to economic growth, and overlooking whether or not further growth or increases in supply and demand are necessary, or simply detrimental and destructive.

In the capitalist, consumer age we live in, on an ever overpopulating earth, profit margins lick their metaphoric lips at the idea of increasing supply, to support an over-demand.  – And this excess in demand, is clearly now what we are insisting of our earth and its resources, all the while ignoring the drastic environmental costs of our choices.

“£2,000 per year for your power bill” should herald a change of thinking where humanity becomes more aware of the factors in our lives that are contributing to the diminishing of life’s existence; where we accept that a rise in price should promote a decrease in consumption and where we finally accept that we should be paying the true cost – i.e. a price that tells the ecological truth about the products that we are buying – for goods and services that we desire and need.

It’s time that our consciousness shifted towards accepting responsibility for the costs of our footprint on the earth, rather than choosing to pass it on to future generations – lest we witness our own, unsustainable demise.

I try not to buy stuff I don’t need. Clothing and shoes are quite low on the list of things I need, as I never find myself naked or barefoot (unless I want to be naked or barefoot, but that’s a completely different topic). In this country, we buy way more items to put on our body than we actually need, and much of it seems to stem from our need to identify ourselves. Of course, when you are trying to identify yourself from without, it shows that there is an obvious need to examine who you really are, so that you can begin to identify yourself from within.

Enough philosophizing, I wanted to talk about thrift shops. On the rare occasions when it seems to me that I do need something additional to clothe myself with or something to keep my feet comfortably off the pavement, I choose thrift stores. Why? Well, for one, I don’t have to consider where the clothing is coming from. Any time I make a new purchase of clothing, I think, “Who made this? Was it an adult paid a living wage, working in safe, decent conditions, provided with PTO, lunch breaks, and health insurance? Or was it a 11 year old girl in Sri Lanka, working 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 10 cents an hour?” Unfortunately, if I were to buy clothing at most places, the second situation would likely more accurately describe the conditions under which my new clothing was created under, and I would be giving my money to the company that condoned the treatment of that little girl, or other exploited workers, by outsourcing to sweatshops.

However, if I were to purchase that same article at a thrift shop,I am giving my money to the charity that obtained that article of clothing through a donation, and my money is now supporting a charity that helps abused children, developmentally disabled adults, homeless people, or whatever other charity that thrift shop supports. Plus, thrift shops often employ people who might otherwise have a very difficult time finding employment, such as adults with disabilities, or ex-felons who are trying to re-create their life in a positive way.

Of course, another awesome benefit of thrift shops is the price. And interestingly enough, I have found that when I really need something, a high quality item is sitting right there waiting for me on a shelf when I walk into one of these establishments. For example, a couple of months ago, my sandals broke. At the time, I owned exactly three pairs of shoes (actually, I still do), and these were my only pair of sandals. After a couple of attempts at repair via tape and glue, I sadly concluded that a replacement was needed. When I walked into the thrift store, there sat a pair of sturdy, well-made, barely worn, comfortable sandals, exactly my size, for $3. I happily gave the $3 to the cashier, knowing that it would be utilized by an organization that helps developmentally disabled adults, and wow, these have been some great sandals!

I recognize that not everyone enjoys thrift shops the way I do. I have heard some downright shallow comments from people, such as “I refuse to wear other people’s cast-offs!”, as if clothes are somehow tainted if you were not the original person that threw your money at the corporation that produced them. I’ve gotten some pretty rude reactions from people when they have said to me, “I love your outfit, where did you get it?”, and I have proudly told them that it came from a thrift shop. It seems to me that this is due to our immersion in consumer culture. It makes me thinks of Huxley’s “Brave New World”, where one of the common axioms was “Spending is better than mending.”, one of the several subliminal messages that the population was exposed to. Don’t repair your clothes, don’t recycle clothes, just buy, buy, buy.

Our consumer-driven culture is still telling us that we should buy, we should buy new, and we should buy whatever we want, whenever we want it. Don’t buy it! And if you must buy it, buy it used.

Hello Good People who read this blog just a little entry today. Thanks to all the people who contacted me by various means about the little documentary I made, cheers for all your kind and generous comments.

I came across this video montage via the Organ fanzine myspace site and wanted to share it with you.

It shows a couple of guys out in London with a megaphone shouting some very sensible things about freedom, capitalism and fear. It’s quite entertaining and it’s always good to (peacefully) challenge the system as long as you don’t get killed, tortured or arrested in the process.

This clip includes several scenes in different London locations, my favourite is him hugging security guards at Canary Wharf who he calls “fake policemen” because they have copied the uniform of the Met. When he is asked to stop filming in a train station , he asks them to stop filming him on CCTV. Great!

Enjoy!

I haven’t done much freedom fighting recently,been going through a hedonistic phase but I’ll be back!

Here’s some music to brighten your day.

Steve Hillage from the Live Herald album ( 1977-1978) a track fusing musical styles well before its time “Searching for the Spark“

Remember these are all live musicians, playing together through various changes in unison.

Love and Peace

Born2rant

P.S. I’ve felt for the past 5 years, or maybe even 8  years, that there should be a sign at every tube station saying “Please leave all your human rights at street level and abandon all sense of self before entering the tube station”,  ear-plugs are recommended if you don’t want to be deafened  by daft announcements that kill your soul . So I was very glad to find this little film, I defy you to watch it all the way through and not smile!