WHY CELEBRATE BUY NOTHING DAY AFTER SEPTEMBER 11?
President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, Prime Minister Chretien and other world leaders are a one-note choir these days. “Shop!” they cry. “Shop like you’ve never shopped, shop like you’re not already sinking in personal debt. Shop because at this time of crisis your country needs you to. Shop because the economy and hence the whole world’s economic well-being is at stake. In this climate, Adbusters’ call for a 24-hour consumer fast seems to some folks to be coming out of deep left field. Our annual campaign has, from what we’re hearing, utterly polarized readers. Some are sympathetic indeed, they think the idea of breaking the trance of consumer culture for a day has never been more relevant. But some reckon this year we should just shut up about Buy Nothing Day. And some folks seem genuinely baffled why we would even suggest such a thing in the first place. This may be because in the official “Shop while the bombs drop” rhetoric is coming out of Washington and London and Ottawa without
