David Albert

"John O. Andersen" wrote:

> Dear Parents,
>
> Here's a great way for you and your children to get involved in an issue
> which affects the local community, the nation, and ultimately the planet.
> Now, less than 3 weeks away (Friday, November 24th--the day after
> Thanksgiving) is the annual "Buy Nothing Day." All over the world there
> will be events at malls, city centers, and other shopping precincts. The
> idea is to demonstrate against zombie-like obedience to the directives of
> consumer culture.
>
> For those of you in Portland who would like to demonstrate, please contact
> me privately and we'll see what we can organize. For others, be sure to
> read the following message, and go to the Adbusters link. It will lead you
> to people in your own area who are planning demonstrations on "Buy Nothing
> Day."
>
> John Andersen

Thanks John!

Attached is an expanded version of an my column in the November/December Home
Education Magazine on this subject:

----


November is the month with the most important holiday in the American
calendar. It is almost universally celebrated, by those of virtually all
religions, or no religion at all. Preparations for it take place for a period
of weeks or even months, and it is eagerly awaited by young and old alike. More
is published and broadcast as part of its annual commemoration than for any
other holiday of the year.

There is neither a domesticated mentally challenged fowl nor a funny-hatted man
with silver buckles on his shoes associated with it. It is not Thanksgiving.
In fact, it is a holiday without a popular name. I write of course of the day
after Thanksgiving, a day which is the source of many of the hopes - to be
realized and dashed - of America's children in the coming month, and acts as
either a joyous sign or ominous harbinger for the health of the American
economy, and the fate of tens if not hundreds of thousand of workers, business
owners, and their families around the globe.

On the evening of Thanksgiving Day, after the turkey has hit the soup, I gather
up the hundreds of pages of ads for the "After Thanksgiving Day Sale". Now in
our family, as Quakers, we don't celebrate a traditional gift-giving Christmas,
so some of the heat is off. But the sales are good, I'm told (though I've often
suspected that the stores just mark up all the prices on their winter goods and
then take 40% off so that the prices are pretty much the same; I don't worship
in the mall often enough to know for sure.) I then decide what I 'need' or
'want' (when I say "I", it is a corporate "I", like in homeschooling family).
There's usually one or at most two items to be found in each of six or seven
different stores, the stores of course being scattered in various and sundry
parts of the city.

My daughters and I arise at 6 a.m., I having pressed upon them how crucial it
is to arrive early, and having convinced them of the compelling superiority of
each particular item in the store that is our destination. We pull up at the
first store a little before 7. Stand in line. Purchase item. Then on to the
next store, and the next. We are relentlessly efficient. Like feeding sharks.
Sometimes we have to choose among colors, or designs, or whatnot. But no
tomfoolery - we know how to do this. We stick to the list. We don't browse. We
don't look at socks in the store where we buy jackets, or ties where we get
bedspreads. We don't get distracted by trinkets, sale signs, Santa Claus, or
handbills. We avoid "smellville" (that's what we call the cosmetics section of
the department store.) We refuse to be distracted. By 11 a.m., we are home,
like big game hunters, having bagged our limit.

By 11:30, after surveying our cache over a second cup of coffee, nausea sets
in. I have convinced myself, and started to convince most of the rest of the
family (my wife, having conscientious abstained, doesn't need much convincing),
that at least half the items we purchased we really don't need, or they aren't
particularly nice, or they aren't any better than the same item we saw for ten
percent of the price we paid in the local thrift shop, and I don't like
sleeping under a blanket made by exploited children in Bangladesh or watching
my younger daughter run around in athletic shoes fabricated in unventilated
sweatshops in Indonesia (has anyone found a good alternative for these?)

Over the next three days, I'll bring back at least half the items (the children
are excused) - perhaps these days should be dubbed "Albert's Weekend of
Returns". The sales clerks hate to see me - they haven't been trained for
returns yet! Maybe I'll end up sending the extra money to India (or wherever
else I think it's needed), or, in rare instances, I'll exchange what we have
bought for different stuff. But I'll have burned up ten gallons of gas,
generated fair quantities of stress and used up good chunks of time we could
have spent in more life-fulfilling activities.

There is no question that I (like many Americans) am suffering from a very
particular neurotic 'thought disorder', and I am now in recovery. Teaching our
children to become knowledgeable consumers is important, of course. But getting
them to understand the inherent dishonesty behind the artificial production of
new needs and desires is even more vital. Liberating my children by providing
alternatives to America's religion of consumption, and helping them understand
the non-material basis for a truly satisfying life is, in my judgment, central
to my family's homeschooling efforts, and ranks up there well ahead of state
capitals, square roots, or French verbs.

And now I've gotten some help. The holiday has been given an appropriate name
that has been gaining in popularity - "International Buy Nothing Day"! Check it
out at www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd/ Started about five years ago by a
Canadian magazine named Adbusters (I guess my lack of economic patriotism is
showing), BND, as it is now affectionately known, was celebrated last year in
more than 30 countries, including France, Japan, Panama, Israel, South Korea,
Brazil, as well as the United States. Billed as a "global carnival of life in
the face of consumer conformity", BND has gone so far as to produce radio and
television spots to get their message across, though in most cases requests to
purchase time for the spots have been rejected by network executives ["Contrary
to the function of advertising itself and against our ethics (sic)," said one)]
only to have the story of their rejection, complete with ad clips, make it on
the evening news. On the BND website, you can download "Christmas Gift
Exemption Vouchers" to give to friends and family, templates for buttons and
tee shirts, and a full range of posters and press releases. A celebration is
likely coming to a town or city near you-and, if it hasn't yet, start one! Make
a new family tradition. Adbusters, by the way, is a delightfully irreverent,
sophisticated rag filled with strategies for bringing corporations back under
people's control, and fighting the commercialization of public education (don't
get me started on that one!), and is a great source for posters, stickers, and
other materials to be used in guerilla anti-marketing campaigns. Your
rebellious (or just socially conscious) homeschooled teen or pre-teen will love
it!

Not quite ready for Buy Nothing Day? Well, then connect up with the Center for
a New American Dream's "Kids and Commercialism Campaign". You can find them
online at www.newdream.org/campaign/kids/index.html. Download their excellent
brochure, "Tips for Parenting in a Commercial Culture." There is a kids
website full of fun, non-commercial play ideas, advice from responsible
consumption gurus, essay contests, and links to dozens of groups who will keep
you better informed as you gird up your loins, take up your battle axe, and
stand ready to defend your hearth and kin against the next advertising
onslaught.

Americans represent less than 5% of the world's population, but consume 30% of
the planet's material resources, and we continue to churn out waste at an
alarming rate. One scientist has figured out that we would need four extra
planets if everyone on earth consumed as much as Americans do. But let's not
load down our holidays with guilt. Rather, let's choose to use our holidays to
reconnect ourselves with friends, with nature, and with our playful, creative
sides, and help rebuild communities that extend far beyond the confines of the
shopping mall parking lot. And, if we're really smart, we can do that with our
children every day. For me, that's what homeschooling is all about.

Make a big poster with your kids emblazoned "More Fun, Less Stuff!" Try it out
as a family slogan (you could even write a family jingle!), and hang it in a
prominent place. Next time you feel the urge to shop coming on, look at the
poster, and you'll know it's time to clean out the garage. "Hey, this could
spell the end of civilization as we know it," says my friend Anthony (I think
he was referring to responsible consumerism, not to the new era of uncluttered
garages across America.) And in only my second column! Now in my next
column....


(David H. Albert is author of And the Skylark Sings with Me: Adventures in
Homeschooling and Community-Based Education and lives in Olympia, Washington.
You can visit his website at www.skylarksings.com. He invites your questions
and comments - e-mail him at shantinik@....)