Meet and greet
January 12th, 2008 | by Paul |Welcome to the Paulblog. Granted, it’s not called that, but that’s a pretty catchy name. I permit you to use it elsewhere.
Anyway, here’s the deal: There’s a lot of stuff we buy. You know how Christmas just ended? Probably with retailers about $475,000,000,000 richer, if the National Retail Federation is on target. And we really need very little of it. I think a lot of people would agree, but not really think that much of it. Consumerism for many people seems to be more of a storage issue than a moral issue.
There are tons of voices out there telling people to chill out on the shopping. But this blog has a different goal: To bring up the argument, not to tell you my side of it.
I like Reverend Billy. I even find some of the Adbusters prankery amusing. I like it, but I also know I like it because I happen to already agree with it. There’s nothing convincing or thought-provoking about it. It’s just people yelling to people who agree with them and at people who disagree.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that sort of activism is fun; I’ve been to college.
Person with bullhorn: “WHAT DO WE WANT?”
Everyone else in protest: Yells different thing
Person with bullhorn: “WHEN DO WE WANT IT?”
Everyone else: “NOW!!!!”
So I like it. And I get it. But I also realize that a lot of the waste and a lot of the basic buy-too-much stuff comes from folks like me. We keep meaning to read a Noam Chomsky book but never get around to it and we find that, even if you capitalize it, culture jamming is just high school pranks by people with too many financial aid loans from grad school.
Sorry.
The goal here is to let people know that these issues exist and that they do affect your life, from the sweatshop-made shirt on your back to the garbage dump reek from your friendly neighborhood landfill, from the way Wal-Mart certifies its organics to Canadian-American trade rules. It’s important, I swear. Give this blog a shot and I’ll show you why.