I just don't understand it. Workers and businesses don't deserve a 'buy nothing' campaign.

[bigtree]

I'm designated part-time working for a retail business that decided to open Thanksgiving to accommodate folks who wanted to come out and buy something. That extra day meant 6 extra hours available for me at time-and-a-half. The local shopping frenzy the day after afforded me a full day of work.

There's a disconnect with some here from the real world benefits of consumer spending for workers and the businesses that folks depend on to survive, and the consequences of discouraging that commerce. There really isn't any noble or productive point (outside of some personal discipline) in emphasizing or advocating staying home on traditional shopping days that businesses anticipate and schedule help for. We desperately need and appreciate the business.

[EFerrari]

1. Do you really not understand why calling attention to how and what we consume

is a good idea?

And, why is it always the consumers (i.e., the bottom 97%) who are enlisted to repair the ravages the top 3% have made in our economy?

I'm happy you got some hours, bigtree. I haven't had fulltime work in more than four years and this year won't be much in the way of holiday spending. But, imo, ANYTHING that makes people more conscious of what they do with the little money they have is a good idea.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EFerrari]

39. LOL

[wickerwoman]

65. Then why don't you take your own advice and quit your shitty retail job

that makes you work on Thanksgiving and start your own online business? It's easy and it always works. It's the cure for poverty and homelessness in America. The only reason we still have unemployed people is they are too stupid and lazy to start their own businesses, right?

Then you won't have to depend as much on everyone else's environmentally irresponsible, unsustainable spending ethos to put food on your table. After all, we should complete trash our environment, suck up every last drop of oil and leave no natural resource unexploited and unexhausted to make sure people keep buying crap they don't really need to make sure you personally can continue to work your shitty retail job while feeling superior to the unemployed.

[RB TexLa]

2. Sorry, you do not deserve to have my money, I do. Today and every day.

[bigtree]

4. consumer spending is how a great deal of us make a living

We may not deserve your money, but we welcome your business. I don't think we've done anything at our store to cause anyone to be antagonistic toward that aim.

[RB TexLa]

7. I give other people as little of my money as possible every day of the year

it's mine, I keep it. Nothing antagonistic about it. Really has nothing to do with anyone but myself.

[FooshIt]

20. Isn't that the kind of Republican attitute we need to get past

as a country?

[RB TexLa]

35. You don't think people deserve to keep money they work hard for?

I don't deserve to have my money? Why?

[treestar]

41. Does that apply to taxes, too?

If one spends money, one gets something in return, too.

I think the OP point is along the lines of if we don't spend, in general, more people would get laid off.

[RB TexLa]

55. The OP was talking about people giving their money to others for goods and services

There was no mention of taxes.

[treestar]

69. But my point is you were talking about keeping your money

As in not buying goods and services. From that angle, taxes take your money too.

The OP was just trying to point out that exchanges in the market keep people in work. Not saying you had no right to keep your money instead. And if that's your objection, taxes should be equally unwanted.

[onenote]

70. why is money important to you if you don't want to spend it?

what are you "collecting" it for?

[Skip Intro]

47. I have a tea party friend who says the same thing.

He says this about taxes and entitlement programs.

You say this about retail.

Thing is, when you spend your money in retail, it is your choice, and you get something in return.

[xchrom]

3. I live now in the south where a lot of businesses are

Closed on Sundays.

I love it - I love that there are when we 'all' rest.

When there is no scramble for things - anything.

When I was growing up -- it was like that -- there was no
Shopping on thanksgiving-- there wasn't even a Black Friday.

Some how we all made it without that.

We all need a break from it all.

[Arctic Dave]

5. Fuck that sideways.

Just because you want to buy garbage you have to fuck over the other person who has to be there at the asscrack of dawn so you can get shit from china? Fuck that sides again.

[bigtree]

8. That's just a fraction of what's occurring.

Lot's of decent folks on the other side of the counter appreciating the commerce.

[Arctic Dave]

28. Like the cashier gives a fuck.

Are they being paid extra for your consumer addiction? No! They get paid shit and they get NOTHING extra so you can get a "discount".

[bigtree]

44. hours

The trend these days is to hire part-time. Hours are generated according to anticipated business. We get hours when there's an anticipated spike in business. Most of the time we get our hours cut to hell these days. In our state it's been a trend downward for a large number of businesses and their employees as the economy has faltered.

[City Lights]

6. I'm not obligated to buy what you're selling.

I have no intention of buying stuff I can't afford and don't need just so retail merchants can have a profitable holiday season.

[bigtree]

13. I think the benefits work both ways.

Consumers get lower priced goods and businesses and employees are advantaged by the increased commerce.

Of course, no one is forcing you to spend. We do, however have many many factors and forces compelling us to sell and service.

[City Lights]

16. Sorry, but I don't see how I benefit from going further into debt.

I've got enough "stuff."

[bigtree]

46. We used to use holidays and birthdays to buy clothes and other necessities.

There are, of course, other things our family needed to make our lives more comfortable or interesting. It's good to have a point in the year where we know prices might be down to where we can afford to make one purchase or the other.

[City Lights]

71. My family did that too, when I was a kid.

But I'm at a point where I don't need anything. Ditto for my husband. Last year I requested that a donation be made in my name to Best Friends Animal Society. My sister drew my name and honored my request. This year, so many of us are in debt that the adults aren't even drawing names anymore. We're only drawing names for the kids. And the limit is $50, so for kids in their late teens, $50 doesn't go very far. It doesn't even buy a new X-Box 360 game.

I will spend money this year at the holidays, I just had no intention of going out shopping Thanksgiving night, or at any time on Friday. I detest crowds and would rather order something online than fight the crowds in the stores.

[leftstreet]

9. And we don't deserve a 'spend nothing' campaign from the government

Single payer health care

WPA jobs bill

Infrastucture rebuilding

:thumbsup:

[TheKentuckian]

10. There is a desire to choke the life out of the system before it does the same to us.

The economic impact is not overlooked, it is the means to cripple the consumerism and capitalism.

I think that it is pretty much too late as the global corporatists are already winding the USA down and have used us to seed other economies to create a more pliable, diverse, distributed, and less politically powerful middle class to buy their junk and to scam out of their prosperity.

[bigtree]

14. It would be helpful if there was something already available to replace that

Fact is, many of us rely on that consumerism. It has ripples.

[TheKentuckian]

42. You can't have a system on standby. The one in place excludes such a thing.

What we have sucks up so much air that we have a hole much bigger than the entirety of the economy.

Consumerism bought you about 50 trillion in drag of bogus assets that we get the double dip pleasure of paying for 100 cents on the dollar.

Almost all of us rely on consumerism to some degree or another because that is how the dominos were set up by those who truly profit from it but it is a terminal condition. We must break this corruption and for the long term good. Hand to mouth thinking is not going to help tomorrow.

[Odin2005]

11. Fuck Consumerism.

Our society has to find a way to give everyone a decent living like without relying in the evil of Cosumerist Capitalism, which distroys both society and planet.

[bigtree]

15. yet, it's not at all progressive to expect one source of income to dry up

. . . without another ready source of income waiting. What about the workers?

[Odin2005]

22. Direct your ire at the capitalists that steal the wealth you produce.

Consumerism is all about maintaining a feeling of scarcity in a society of abudance.

[Avalux]

12. I give workers and businesses my money every other day of the year.

I choose to stay home the day after Thanksgiving and do nothing, spend nothing. I can't think of anything worse than being stuck in the middle of throngs of inconsiderate people wasting hours of my time to buy something.

[bluestate10]

17. There is an irrational, marxist strain that exists here among some.

I have been on the site for less than a month. What I see is there are some that take what to me is an irrational view on how to solve modern problems like worker security. There is another element that has a philosophy that I can only describe as "I'm a victim" centered.

My view of commerce is that if you do not like the way something is done, change it. If you do not like how oil companies behave, nothing is stopping you from getting funding from like minded individuals and starting your own oil company. If you do not like how retailers treat their employees, start your own retail shop. The internet has dramatically lowered the barrier for opening retail businesses and allows a business person to bring their product offerings directly to consumers. If someone don't like the fact that most big brick and mortal and online retailers sell mostly imported goods, guess what, there are USA based companies that would love to see you set up thriving retail businesses to sell their products manufactured by USA men and women on the mainland. More exposure for USA made products would allow the manufacturers to lower the selling price of those products, due to the relationship between fixed costs and production volume.

The buy nothing campaign is silly. The people pushing it would serve society more by channeling their efforts toward establishing retailing alternatives to practices that they do not like. Most consumers are going to buy on Black Friday, someone sitting on their hands and having problems with the interaction between consumers and retailers is not going to change that dynamic.

[coalition_unwilling]

29. "An irrational, marxist strain"?? Do you mean Marxism is irrational or

that one of the strains of Marxism propounded here is irrational? If so, which strain would that be?

[bluestate10]

34. Marxism is irrational and has not worked, ever.

Don't list places like Sweden, Norway, and a hand full others as examples of where marxism works, those countries are social democracies where policies are designed to push benefits of being in a society out broadly.

Marxism does not work because in any order, a few need to decide what is best for the many, whether elected or not. Capitalism has flows because the few often concentrate wealth and privilege. But capitalism works far better than marxism. In marxist societies a small self-propagating group of individuals control all state resources, while the average man, woman and child live in a collectivist hell. Tell me one thing that was great about the Soviet Union, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, past and current China, Ethiopia under a marxist ruler? In all those societies, past and present, a small group of people control wealth and divvy it up among themselves, while the average person lives in abject poverty.

[leftstreet]

37. "capitalism works far better than marxism" ??

um...capitalism isn't the opposite of marxism. It's more like a stage between feudalism and socialism.

Your examples aren't 'marxist societies'

I know you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing it.

[Starry Messenger]

49. "In capitalist America, freedom buys you!"

[bluestate10]

50. Give me a marxist society that has worked. nt

[coalition_unwilling]

40. Just out of curiosity, have you read Marx' 'Das Kapital'? I think you would

change your mind about Marxism being 'irrational' if you had. You might still disagree with Marx, after having read him, but I don't think you would call him or his philosophy 'irrational'. (There is a lot of metaphor and figurative speech in Das Kapital, but its underlying theories and philosophy are eminently rational.)

Don't make the mistake of conflating Stalinism and Maoism with Marxism, by the way. Interesting that you mention Yugoslavia -- Tito broke with Stalin after World War II and basically pursued an independent course. There was no ethnic cleansing going on in Yugoslavia while Tito held power - Bosnians, Croatians and Serbians (and not to forget Montenegrans) all seemed to get along with one another during Tito's reign. I have relatives in Croatia who were there before, during and after Tito and they did not live in 'abject poverty' by any stretch of the imagination, nor were they members of any elite you conjure up. They were middle-class professionals - engineers mostly - and enjoyed about the same standard of living there they would have here.

One thing that was great about the Soviet Union? Um, let's see. It fought and essentially defeated Hitler along a 2,000-mile front while we and the Brits were still screwing around down in North Africa. The USSR lost about 20 million during World War II and the U.S. lost, um, about 250,000. Does that count as 'great'?

Edited for a typo.

[handmade34]

45. good points n/t

[bluestate10]

53. The US and Brits fought arguably germany's best commander

in North Africa....and defeated him. The war in Europe was stalled until the Us and Brits came across the English Channel, without that effort, the Russians would have been destroyed ultimately by a reconstituted german force.

My challenge to you is that you name an actual marxist society that has worked. I care nothing about what Marx wrote, let's deal with a real world full of real people.

[LAGC]

63. When has true Marxism ever been tried?

Marx himself said that socialism could only follow a FULLY DEVELOPED capitalist society -- Russia, China, etc. were all backwards agrarian societies with no built up capital to rely upon. Their greatest crime was trying to skip the step of capitalist development and jump straight to communism, without the requisite intermediate steps in between. Naturally, if you try to divvy up and equitably share a small economic pie, you end up with very little. However, in an advanced capitalist society such as ours, if we were to divide the economic pie more equitably, we could wipe out poverty and everyone would be better off. Do you dispute this?

[eShirl]

64. Excellent satire!

:rofl:

[wickerwoman]

67. What's irrational is acting like we have infinite resources

and that the most productive way to spend our small amount of remaining oil is importing plastic Justin Bieber bobble-heads from China.

You are missing the fundamental argument that there *aren't* alternative retail practices. The problem *is* buying too much shit we don't need in the first place. It doesn't matter if the unnecessary shit is made in the US or in China. The point is that we are pissing away our grandchildrens' energy options on frivolous crap that ends up in landfills in a few years.

If we don't invest serious, serious resources into sustainable energy in the next five years it is unlikely that we will ever be able to afford it and we will be looking at a second dark ages- mass starvation, dislocation, war, famine.

But yeah, it's much more important to keep the flow of crap going because our priority should be enabling Walmart et al. to keep employing people on subsistence level wages.

[notesdev]

18. What we really need is a

"take your money out of the bank and stuff it in your mattress day"

[cherokeeprogressive]

19. Glad to hear you got the extra hours bt. Hope all went well.

I spent the day yesterday afraid someone would want to go ziplining on Thanksgiving and that at any moment I'd get the phone call that I needed to be on top of the mountain in short order. It's the price I pay for the job I do.

BTW, is it just me, or is there a particularly high level of animosity in posts the last couple of days? I saw nothing untoward or insulting in your post but the number of expletives in the responses just seems a little over the top.

Haters gotta hate I guess.

[EFerrari]

24. People get upset when they feel manipulated.

That's not being a "hater" or even, being hateful.

The top 3% screws the economy and then the rest of are browbeaten (not by bigtree but by the media) about "doing our part" to fix it. That doesn't really make any sense.

If we could "do our part" enough to make an impact, we wouldn't have screwed ourselves in the first place.

lol

Happy Thanksgiving, btw. :)

[cherokeeprogressive]

31. Yeah I know... and I do too.

I'm torn though, you know? On one hand, I'm trying to see a long-term solution with some kind of social justice as its basis, but on the other hand, I feel concern for peeps like bigtree, myself, you, and others in the short term. In the short term, we have to pay bills, feed mouths, provide roofs... Causing us to suffer directly because of a wish that those more fortunate than myself should suffer indirectly doesn't do anyone on our short end of the stick any good.

A Happy Belated Thanksgiving to YOU, EF, and thanks for the wish. You be one of my faves here and I never fail to open a post of yours whether OP or reply.

[EFerrari]

36. bigtree is right, imo, in the sense that we don't want to nail each other

while we work to beat back the vultures. Even most businesses are just trying to live and aren't responsible for sucking the life out of this nation, out of our people.

This is a difficult time. One that will demand a lot of clarity of purpose from us. I can't help thinking that the habit of activism is one we need so much here. In other countries, people really do take to the street much more easily and their governments feel that threat.

[petronius]

51. Vulgar curiousity here, but do you run a zip-lining concession where people can

just call-in whenever, or do you do rescue work for people that screw themselves up trying amateur zip-lines? Or something else?

[cherokeeprogressive]

56. No, we're a regular business with a regular schedule.

We offer three tours every day, 365 days.

I love the work. At 50, I've had a varied and at one time I thought very successful working life, and thought I had made it to a very early retirement through lots of hard work, and more than a little luck. Then came the economic downturn and the need for something to supplement my investment/retirement income. I came upon this job quite by accident and now work with 4 other Tour Guides; the closest in age being 23 years my junior.

Our first zipline is at 8600 feet ASL, and we have 9. Right now, we're doing it in the snow. Today the temperature got to 42 degrees at the high point in the afternoon, and by the time my work day was over, I was chilled to the bone. I have to say this though; my customers took home with them a once in a lifetime experience and we made it that way by making them feel comfortable, safe, and capable. Oh and the fact that we encouraged them to throw snowballs at us Tour Guides when they got the chance didn't hurt.

No such thing in this instance as vulgar curiosity. Come up and go ziplining sometime. Maybe if you get to me in advance, I can get you and a couple of your peeps a free ride.

Tomorrow, I'll be doubling as a Driver as well as Tour Guide. I'll pick our customers up at the office in town in the company van, drive them to the zipline site, take them ziplining, and then drive them back to town. Two groups of 16, one at 10 and one at 1.

Here's an interesting question for you... I get a certain amount of money per tour as compensation from my employer. We're a service business, just like a restaurant or any other venue where someone assists you personally. Normally, that means there's a tip involved somewhere. Given that, what would you tip a person who for the last two hours was responsible for your personal safety while you hung from a steel cable 60 feet above the ground and made sure that every second you were up there, you were perfectly safe? The business charges $95 dollars per person per zipline tour. Understand this: I don't EXPECT tips; I try to earn them by making your experience a good thing. There have been times when 16 people tipped 4 of us $30 collectively, and more than a few times where we collected NO TIPS WHATSOEVER. Most people, when paying for a $95 dinner tab will tip maybe $20. I've never worked for tips, and have always tipped well over the expected norm. It pisses me off when my co-workers take home 10 dollars in tips for giving as many as 48 people a once in a lifetime experience. I can live on no tips, the kids can't.

[petronius]

60. It seems like a pretty obvious tipping situation to me - $95 is about what I pay

for a day on a dive boat, and putting $20 in the tip bucket is pretty standard. It seems like people are both forgetting how to tip in general (I know a lot of people who don't know it's customary to tip hotel housekeepers, for example) and are incapable of extending tipping guidelines to new activities like yours.

I was just talking to a friend who recently ziplined, and it sounds like a lot of fun - I'll definitely give it a shot when I get a chance. Over the snow sounds particularly fun...

[coalition_unwilling]

21. Businesses do deserve it, but workers do not. But there are many things

that happen to each of us that we do not 'deserve'. The 10% who are unemployed right now do not (at least most of them) 'deserve' to be unemployed. The 1,000,000+ Iraqis who have died or been displaced thanks to George W. Bush do not 'deserve' their fate.

For me, buying nothing is my way of saying 'FU' to American capitalism in its current form. To wit, we need a Guaranteed Annual Income (McGovern proposed it in 1972, for Christ's sake), universal single-payer healthcare (don't even get me started on how long that idea has been around. Think it was first proposed by Truman in 1947), a 50-75% cut in the annual defense budget (where is my fucking peace dividend from the dissolution of the Soviet Union?) and 6 months' paid maternity leave for parents during their new-borns' first six months (universal in all 4 Scandinavian social democracies). Until we get at least some of that, American capitalism can kiss my ass.

[SheilaT]

23. A couple of thoughts.

What bothered me the most about a bunch of businesses being open this year on Thanksgiving Day was to wonder: what happened to the concept of a holiday where people spend time with those they cherish?

I am not entirely convinced that people spent money yesterday that they would not otherwise have spent a day or a week later.

If the corporate world were to actually share some of the obscene profits so many of them have made recently, now THAT would be good news. Personally, since my divorce my income has been reduced enough that I do remarkably little conventional shopping. I'm pretty immune to the blandishments that I go and spend. Especially to spend money I don't have.

[Drale]

25. Well I didn't buy anything today

but only because the one thing I wanted to buy was sold out by the time I got there.

[msongs]

26. lol most people who didnt buy it today will get it .... tomorrow. we stayed home all day together nt

[geckosfeet]

30. Well - for what it's worth I agree. Lot's of people provide a fair service or product

and it makes no sense to direct a campaign to economically screw your neighbors.

No one is asking for people to give their money away - or spend it on stuff they don't need or want.

[HillbillyBob]

32. Ok. I am glad you got overtime pay. Some of us are not protesting/boycott

buying.
We cannot buy.
We are operating on Zero credit scores, and a short budget.
I have never had a credit card other than a gas card that I had to pay upon receipt.
Mostly had good pay back on my loans until I was injured then became ill.
I was in heavy electric construction and controls.
I built the conduits and the controls that ran factories and infrastructure like draw bridges and dredges and systems that run paper mills.
This was my second career started at age 23 after discharge from the USN.
Where I was a trained air traffic controller for the Navy, but outed and when I applied to civilian FAA I was denied employment because of my Administrative discharge under Honorable conditions was not allowed to enter the Civilian Air Traffic corps.

My partner, has taken repeated hits in downsizing and outsourcing.
I am disabled. Not whining just stating the facts as they are.
We saw our own personal Depression hit in 2002,
Literally cold and hungry we survived with the help of food banks and family loans(not without guilt).

Our jobs were the infrastructure of American Manufacture our knowledge and expertise are now the purview of corporate India and China. My partner worked for an aero space firm then.


I wish I were not seeing the same that we went through for almost everyone else in the soon to be former middle class. We did what we thought were the right things, worked hard. I held down 2 and 3 jobs at a time and even had side biz going. I have been homeless 3x. It was not all my fault some of it was, but when three or four things happen at one time I could not over come.

We thought, talked, plotted and thought and sweated what to do?
We decided in order to survive we had to eliminate all that was non necessary and cut that out. We still have the occasional lux and heat too.
We are surviving. I fear and feel for those who are just finding themselves hanged out to dry.
It has been happening to me and my partner for our life times. I am not setting up lament, I am sick of it and think there has to be a way to stop it from happening to others. It ain't fucking right.
I do not say that middle class prosperity no longer exists, it just does not exist for us in America during this age of outsourced jobs.

[Incitatus]

33. I'm sorry you had to work on Thanksgiving and your company is so poor that they couldn't

give you the day off and a holiday bonus.

I'm just curious. Do you know what their net profit was last year?

[some guy]

38. Clearly not, or you wouldn't put workers and business on the same side.

[bigtree]

43. small businesses and their employees normally have an integral relationship

I don't think that needs much explanation.

Small firms:
• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms
• Employ half of all private sector employees.
• Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years.
• Create more than half of the nonfarm private GDP.
• Hire 43 percent of high tech workers ( scientists, engineers, computer programmers, and others).
• Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.

http://web.sba.gov/faqs/faqIndexAll.cfm?areaid=24

[Skip Intro]

48. I agree, and I felt the same way about the boycott of Arizona.

The people who are supposed to be hurt are not the ones hurt. Instead, the common man and woman trying to earn an honest living are hurt. Such ideas for boycotts are not well thought out, despite their motivation.

[defendandprotect]

52. A living wage should be paid based on a five day work week ... even a four day work week now --

given how many people are out of work --

Many are working "part-time" because they can't land full time jobs --

What many of us are pointing to is the hyping of consumerism -- especially the

attempt to tie Thanksgiving and Christmas together --

And this has been going on since October!!

Two weeks ago, I was in a deli further South in NJ and they were playing Christmas

carols!

THIS holiday is based on the coming of the darkest month -- December --

and then the joy of Winter Solstice -- the return of the light -- which is what

Christmas is based upon. Every day after Winter Solstice will be bringing us new light!

That's what we rejoice in -- that's what it's all about.

To cheapen NATURE and our celebration of it by suggesting that we should be in department

stores BUYING things is inane.

We should all be out celebrating the event coming in the next four/five weeks!!

[jaxx]

54. I spent years in the retail environment and a huge %

of a businesses profit is made in the last quarter. Thanksgiving is traditionally the start of the holiday shopping season and stores do all they can to make sure they can satisfy the customer with goods and service. This ensures jobs all year long and allows companies to have short months and still survive. It's just the way it is.

No one forces people to shop this weekend. I know a bunch who make a day of it and have a ball out there together. It's an annual thing with them and you couldn't pay them to stay home. No way should they be put down for spending money they have.

[Tsiyu]

57. We can't put off the inevitable

i suppose we should all wait til nobody can afford anything, then what will you say?


If we do not put the most extreme pressure on corporations to progress and change for the better of us all, that day is coming.

And your worst problem won't be losing a few hours of work.

[MrSlayer]

58. I worked today, my wife went out and spent.

Nothing outrageous but she likes to do the Santa Express thing and all which a tradition in Philadelphia. Being in the vicinity, she purchased a few gifts. To be perfectly honest, I really don't care one way or the other. You don't want to shop on this particular day? Fine. You're going to eventually spend anyway, unless your principle is so strong you're willing to live like a monk in order to give others a better life. Who doesn't want to make a loved one happy with a gift or two? Or receive a few? A life of utter selflessness is as empty as a life of utter selfishness.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

59. support small business!

:thumbsup:

[spinbaby]

66. Exactly!

Spend money, but spend it with small business, not big box stores.


That said, you couldn't get me to go shopping on Black Friday (shudder).

[BlancheSplanchnik]

73. same here! Black Friday---how bizarre

people camping out in front of .... whatever big box store...

guess it's a social event for people w ho like that sort of thing.

[JackDragna]

61. That's not the problem..mass, sheep-like consumer spending is.

We are a society that consumes too much, uses too much and thinks little of the consequences.

[Raine]

62. I just don't like consumerism pushed down my throat

it's like if you aren't buying things you aren't doing your duty, like your value as an American depends on what you consume. I have nothing against buying things that are needed. I hate when there is so much excess that people have to rent storage units because their houses are too full to hold everything. I hate seeing people go into debt for worthless crap that they have no use for. Many of my family is this way so I know first hand how devastating all the spending and accumulating can be.

[BlueIris]

68. I caved and bought stuff at local businesses today.

As in, indie bookstore/natural organic food mart local. But I still feel like I caved.

[Scout]

72. i very rarely shop on ANY days ... the last place i want to be is where

the shoppers are especially on days like Black Friday.

i have all the stuff i need, i'm not going to spend my money on crap i don't need. i have a perfectly good tv, and i'm not going out to buy the newest hi-def plasma or whatever. i have clothes, and food, and a house and 2 vehicles. i have books, Netflix, cable tv, the internet.

i don't need to go out and buy shit just because other people have it. i'm trying to get RID OF some of the things in my life and enjoy more LIFE.

:shrug: