Sunday, November 23, 2008




CONSUMERISM (OR NOT):
BUY NOTHING DAY-IT'S COMING SOON:
Next Friday November 28 (Saturday, November 29 in Europe and Asia) is the official 'Buy Nothing Day', an annual event initiated to protest rampant consumerism. This one is easy to participate in. Just don't consume. Simple as pie, especially in hard economic times.
.......................
Buy Nothing Day 2008
A 24 hour moratorium on consumer spending
Event Info
Host:
Adbusters
Time and Place
Start Time
:
North America: Friday, November 28-Elsewhere:Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 12:00am
End Time:
North America:Saturday November 29 at 12:00am-Elsewhere:Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 12:00am
Location:
The World
Contact Info
Email:
sarahterkes@buynothingday.info
Description
Participate by not participating!



Saturday November 29th 2008 is International Buy Nothing Day. It's a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from (mindless) shopping and tune into life.



The rules are simple:



For 24 hours you will detox from consumerism and live without mindless, needless shopping. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending (mindlessly)!



This event was founded by Vancouver artist Ted Dave and subsequently promoted by Adbusters magazine.



PLEASE VISIT THE WEBSITE FOR MORE DETAILS:





..................................
Why do you buy?:
Once upon a time, we used to buy what we needed, period.

Now that we have all we need, we buy for other reasons: to impress each other, to fill a void, to kill time. Buy Nothing Day is a simple idea: try not to shop for a day, and see how your view of our world changes.

Where does all this stuff come from?

Where will it go?

Why do we buy it?

Aren't there better ways of spending our time?
About Buy Nothing Day
Quick Facts:
Purpose
Provide a moment of pause in the production-consumption routine. Find alternatives to a shopping-centered life-style. Draw attention to the social, economic, environmental and psychological effects of overconsumption. Promote ecological economics (local and environmentally responsible business, non GDP indicators of wealth).
Promotion
Adbusters Media Foundation (Canada) http://www.adbusters.org/
Mailing Lists (Adbusters, Casseurs de Pub, World BND, BND Japan etc.)
Approx. 1,000,000 subscribers
Confirmed number of participating countries (in 2003)
62
Media coverage
NY Times, Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Le Monde; CNN, Fox; TV stations and print media in at least 7 countries.Also see: http://www.bnd.nu/artiklar.shtml
Participating organizations include:
Friends of the Earth, Food Not Bombs, Critical Mass, Workshop for Sustainable Development (Omslag, Holland) , The Commons (France)Mascots, The Big Pig, Zenta Claus (concept made in Japan), Consumer Sheep, Consumer Monster
Popular events/activities:
Credit card cut-ups, street theatre, shops selling nothing, meditating in Santa Claus costumes, no-logo parades, bicycle demonstrations, teach-ins, postering and leaf-letting, conga-lines, free food parties, barter markets, free concerts, shopping-free zones (sofas and carpets in city shopping area), broadcasting BND un-commercials on radio and TV, simply not shopping and instead enjoying the day with friends and family.
More information:
Adbusters Media Liaison
Phone (1) 604-736-9401
http://www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/

FAQS
What is BND? :
Buy Nothing Day is a holiday, a street party to celebrate sustainable lifestyles, a break from the shop-till-you drop culture. It is what we make it. You can just take a day off or organize something.
What’s the point?
To stop and think about what and how much we buy effects the environment, our own well-being and people in developing countries. By participating in the global BND, you make a statement for a new kind of lifestyle, culture and politics:
*A personal life that is not just about making and spending money
*A public culture that is diverse and open for many ideas and concerns, not dominated by pro-shopping messages
*Politics based on global peace and fairness, and true cost economics (not neo-classical GDP economics)
Does it make a difference if I don’t shop for a day?
It does. Try it and you’ll see.
Isn't it bad for the economy?
In many economically successful countries, there is a weekly ‘sell-nothing-day,’ for example Sunday. Experience shows that when shops are ‘allowed’ to open on Sunday, the overall sales don’t rise, but small and medium retailers lose to large businesses. So BND is not bad for the economy, it just does not give an advantage to big businesses.

Many people like to use BND to call for year-round boycotts of certain businesses (especially transnational corporations) with unfair labor practices, a bad environmental or animal rights record, a history of war profiteering and political meddling, etc. Others voice their support for good business practices and policies that recognize the social benefit of eco-businesses and fair trade.
What are some alternatives to buying?
First figure out if you can do without it. If the answer is yes, try re-using, recycling/remodeling, making your own, sharing existing (vehicles, computers, garden tools, etc.), bartering, using local money, give-aways, and even garbage-diving.
What is so bad about consuming?
It's not buying goods and services itself that's so harmful, it's what we buy and how much. People in the money-rich countries (only 20% of the world population) are consuming over 86% of the earth's natural resources, and cause most of the environmental damage.

The raw materials and production methods that are used to make so many of our goods have harmful side affects such as toxic waste, destruction of wild life, and wasted energy. The transport of goods internationally also contributes to pollution (often unnecessarily, since many goods could be produced locally or regionally). Our demand for certain conveniences can also cause war and instability in other countries. We all know about America’s “wars for oil’ in which the Japanese government supports. But there are less know stories: e.g. Tantal, a raw metal needed for cell phones, game boys and laptops, is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A UN report named the tantal trade as one of the causes for “one of the biggest human rights tragedies since WW1”, a war that has been going on since 1997.
How did BND start?
BND was invented by the Canadian artist Ted Dave and his friends in 1992. Adbusters, an international magazine started spreading and promoting it, and now it is celebrated in at least 62 countries (2003).
Who organizes BND?
Events are organized by anyone who wants to. Therefore- every place, every event is different. It's up to you. So far, in Japan, there are small business owners, students, designers, teachers, 'regular working people,' dads and mom's, citizen's groups (environmental groups, peace groups, labor groups) are organizing events and activities.
How many people participate?
Around the world, Adbusters estimates that in 2003, about a million people participated by not shopping, and could confirm that thousands participated in events in at least 60 countries. In Japan, we expect about 10.000 to participate this year, In other Asian countries, so far there are confirmed reports of organizing groups in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Korea. In Germany, BND has the support of one of Germany’s big newspapers, the tageszeitung.
Why these dates (Friday after Thanksgiving in North America, the following Saturday in Europe and Asia)?
In many countries, this weekend is the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. In North America, where BND started, the Friday after Thanksgiving is famous for its wild shopping frenzy. The media always report on the sales numbers and consumer behavior on this day (the crazier the rush the more enthusiastic the reporters). In Europe and Asia we celebrate it the following Saturday, because sales are higher on that day.
Can't I make another day buy nothing day?
Of course. Any day is fine for a personal consumption fast (some people and cultures like to keep a weekly buy nothing day). But it is more fun and has more impact if you do it together with ten thousands of people around the globe.
But we can’t make every day buy nothing day, can we?
Actually, there are people who chose a life where they hardly need to buy things. These people are known under names like simple lifers or down-shifters. This may not be your choice of lifestyle, but they show us that we can develop alternatives, and how to value things that cannot be bought and sold.

Event Ideas:
**pass out flyers and or do a performance in shopping areas, trains stations in town or shopping malls (note: If the space is privately owned, the security guards will probably show up soon. In public space you may have to register with the police, beforehand, but business owners cannot chase you off.)
**street performances: funny costumes are de rigeur. Santa Claus doing weird things (meditating, ), the shopping-dropping act (walking laden with insane amounts of shopping bags, pretending to collapse under them.
**Demonstrations: on foot or bicycle
**a stand selling nothing (with a hawker), or a shop space with empty shelves and a register with only zeros on the receipts
**postering blitzes: put stickers and posters up in town (FOR THE RECORD: we are not encouraging illegal postings, and recommend that you do not damage whatever is below it)
**no shopping inside a supermarket or mall; a large group of people push around empty shopping carts and baskets
**credit-card cut up service station
**creating a shopping free zone: put a sofa and other furniture in a shopping area, create a cosy atmosphere, give out free tea and BND pamphlets
**teach-ins, discussion group meetings, video screenings, BND poster exhibitions, free concerts

23 comments:

Francois Tremblay said...

Complete, absolute nonsense. Like the stupid idea of "No Gas Day," all it'll do is delay people's consumption for one day. The day after they'll buy all the stuff they would have bought the day before, like mindless cows.

mollymew said...

Maybe yes. Maybe no. No doubt the protest is symbolic, and will make little difference in overall consumption. The piece reprinted more or less said that as they quoted the effect on the economy of already existing bans on shopping such as good old Sunday. The whole point, however, is to make propaganda for reduced consumption in general, and I'm sure that you can find plenty of this in the reprint as well.
Knowing "your" politics, however, François I doubt that you would be happy with ANY reduction of consumption as the market is your God. Perhaps this is the real reason behind your contempt for the idea.

Francois Tremblay said...

Hmm... really? Is there a stereotype of mutualists worshipping markets as their god? I did not know that.

We certainly believe in the FREE market (which is something that does not exist in any Western society).

As for consumption, well, I have an article against consumption in the works for my blog, so no I don't think that's true either.

The "real reason" behind my contempt is that it is as risible as "No Gas Day" rhetoric: all it does is identify anti-progress people (of which I identify myself) as idiots.

mollymew said...

My, oh my, oh my.
I could get into one of those extended arguments that go on to the crack of doom about what words mean ie "mutualism". Just for the benefit of the uninitiated it is NOT !!!! a synonom for the sort of anarcho-capitalism that worshipers of the absraction of a "free market" advocate. All that I will say about this is that the tradition of mutualism is wider than what various American right wing "anarchists"(and their Canadian imitators) would like to admit. Outside of the USA I would hazard to say that most mutualists are pluralists like myself. We see the mirror reflexions of ideological advocates of one pure and holy ecomomic system in BOTH the ideologues of the "free market" and those who hold that there is only ONE left wing way to ortganize anarchy. Most mutualists would advocate a MIXTURE of economic systems, NOT only one way. I'll return to the matter of ideologues later.


But for now let's have some fun. American "libertarians" are quite fond of formal logic so let's do a syllogism. Let's begin with an axiom or premise if you will that "stupid people say stupid things". Fine, is everyone in agreement ? Good. Now M. Tremblay says that the idea that such a thing as a "Buy Nothing Day" cannot affect overall consumption patterns. Maybe true. Here's the clincher,however. As I pointed out in my first reply and as anyone who bothers to read the screed from Buy Nothing Day can see THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING AS THEY SAY. Ergo, if M. Tremblay and Buy Nothing Day say the same thing then either 1)what BND says is NOT stupid, in which case there is nothing to M. Tremblay's comment but hot air or 2)Both M. Tremblay and BND are idiots.
There is a way out of this little conundrum which could be negotiated by someone with good graces ie for M. Tremblay to ADMIT that he is simply argueing beside the point in his comments OR for him to admit that he has the other motives that I personally suspected him of. I'll get into that in another comment.

mollymew said...

Ulterior Motives:
Yes, M. Tremblay says that he is preparing a post about consumerism for his blog. Very well, let's assume that he has indeed been gifted with a revelation on the road to Damascus and that he is now willing to disavow others of his all time greatest hits such as....
***'Anti-Consumerism and the New War Against the Poor'
***'Consumerism as a Spiritual Good' (actually quite a funny thing coming from a self-professed atheist)
or
***'Anti Consumerism is Anti Individualism'


One wonders what epistles our new St. Paul will write for the ages now that he has seen the light.


Of course he hasn't !!! Whatever revelation is coming up will be a rehash of what came before. To do otherwise would involve rethinking what individualism means in a wider context than economics and perhaps even abandoning what is actually a 'fundamentalist' position, of seeing the value of facts versus an overreliance on deductive logic from VERY restricted premises.


Is there another reason for M. Tremblay's anger at BND besides his ill conceiled (as evidenced by his past work on the subject) ideology ? Maybe so. For a bunch of "idiots" BND have done quite well for their point of view. It's my opinion that they are effective as a educational effort. Hit Google on 'Buy Nothing Day' and you get 7,190,000 hits. Hit 'Francois Tremblay' and EVERYTHING about every person in the world with that name amounts to 265,000 hits. Hit 'Francois Tremblay' +consumerism and you get 217 hits. For a bunch of idiots they seem to be quite effective in promoting their viewpoint over and against that of their intellectual superior, one who tries to weasel people into thinking he is against "consumerism" despite the past record of his writings.


Tell you what François, get back to me when you have increased your appeal on this matter say to 10,000 times what it is today. Then you will have a more plausible case to make. Also...don't try to lie to me. You're too easy to catch.


Finally, I'd like to direct the reader to one of Molly's "identity tests". I have a few of them for my left wing comrades, each of them designed to test whether the individual in question can actually THINK rather than spout rhetoric. As for the "libertarians" I choose the "Somali test". If one of them is foolish enough to spout nonsense about what a great place Somalia is because it doesn't have a government then they obviously are as ideologically hidebound as the worst of the old time Stalinists. Please check out 'Francois Tremblay" and "Somalia" via Google. At 1,230 hits (far more than for "consumerism" and therefore more important in his mind)you will find lots of evidence about M. Tremblay's ability to argue away facts in the service of his ideology.

Francois Tremblay said...

"All that I will say about this is that the tradition of mutualism is wider than what various American right wing "anarchists"(and their Canadian imitators) would like to admit."

Are you accusing me of being a right-winger? How exactly am I a right-winger? How is mutualism a right-wing ideology? You do realize mutualism is an anti-capitalist ideology, do you?


"Outside of the USA I would hazard to say that most mutualists are pluralists like myself. We see the mirror reflexions of ideological advocates of one pure and holy ecomomic system in BOTH the ideologues of the "free market" and those who hold that there is only ONE left wing way to ortganize anarchy. Most mutualists would advocate a MIXTURE of economic systems, NOT only one way"

How is that any different from what Proudhon (who was a French guy, by the way, since you seem to be so anti-North American thought) and Tucker believed in?

Who are the main proponents of your mutualism-not-like-your-North-American-mutualism-but-a-superior-kind-of-mutualism?


"Maybe so. For a bunch of "idiots" BND have done quite well for their point of view. It's my opinion that they are effective as a educational effort."

And what are they teaching, prey tell? That anti-consumeurism people are idiots?

As for your last comment, it is pure meanness and pettiness. Holding me accountable for my past beliefs? What about YOUR past beliefs? Nothing irrational there at all? Are you sure?

Get over yourself already. You are pathetic. I may not get 7,190,000 hits from Google (how the hell could I do that, anyway?) but I don't jump on people and slander them when they disagree.

Francois Tremblay said...

BTW, it's such a hassle to have to deal with my right-wing friends who berate me for becoming a leftie, and THEN having to deal with extremist losers like you who berate me for not being leftist enough and throw my former words back in my face over and over again. Thanks for making my life a little more depressing, libelous asshole.

Unknown said...

incorrect use of logic there Molly. Stupid people say stupid things does not imply that all stupid things are said by stupid people. If you re-write 'Stupid people say stupid things' as a logical relationship you get, 'If x is a stupid person, then he will say stupid things'.

This does not correspond to 'If stupid things are said, then a stupid person is responsible'

mollymew said...

Yes, Ronan, you are absolutely right. The formal way of putting this is "all x are y", "z is y", therfore "y is x". This is a logical error BECAUSE "y" may refer to a larger class than "x". Quite frankly FT has a "rep" that has proceeded him here, and has led to his being banned in many other places because of his mouth. Seeing as he couldn't recognize the obvious !!!!, that he was merely restating something that had been said in the reprint itself and using this illusionary "superiority" to call the BND both "stupid" and "mindless cows" there
were only two alternatives ignore him or to "play" with him. Being as I have the personality defect of loving to gloat I chose the latter. I gather that you are much more quick witted than he is, and I congradulate you on picking up the error. I was wondering if anyone was going to.

Francois Tremblay said...

You are the one who are "ignoring the obvious": that "buy nothing day" can do nothing whatsoever to hinder the capitalist monopoly. To be honest, I am starting to think that you are only faking to be anti-consumerism. Why else would you react so violently against me?

mollymew said...

M. Tremblay:
As to the classification into "right wing and left wing" it is merely a convenience. It doesn't have the swear word connotations that it seems to have for you. Call all us "extremists"(your language gives you away) who hold any socialist views whatsoever as "purple" if you like and call all your various pro-capitalist friends and yourself "orange". It doesn't matter. I actually detest Stalinists far more than I detest ideologues who argue for universal capitalism. I still call them "left wing". Convenience.

I stand by my assertion that mutualism means something else outside of the ideological orbit of American libertarianism. If you want examples simply look at French history where the labour movement was founded by mutualists who spent little (or NO !!!!) time engaged in pseudo-intellectual defenses of an abstraction called the "free market" and the vast majority of their efforts on the promotion of such things as unions and cooperatives.

Outside of the USA mutualism has meant-when it became a mass movement- a certain type of organization and goals, NOT the sort of philosophy advocated by American libertarianism. It's just like the word "libertarian" itself which means a vastly different thing outside ofthe American coccoon than it does within it.


As to your "responsibility for your past beliefs", if you indeed have seen Jesus on the road to Damascus-which I doubt because I still think the word "liar" sums it up better- here's what I expect:
1)If you have said consumerism is a great thing 217 times I expect you to say that you were WRONG 217 times.
2)I also expect you to apply the same words that you apply to BND NOW to yourself in the past ie "stupid" and "mindless cow". Do THIS 217 times.
3)What I DON'T EXPECT but what would be really good evidence of maturity on your part would be your realization that you were wrong, leading to the further realization that you might be wrong now. THAT is a miracle, and I don't expect it.


The above is your penance. Go and try and sin no more.


Artful dodging on the Somalia question by the way. It would take a lot more retraction to get past that one, Molly's litmus test for Stalinists disguised as right wing libertarians. Speaking of "retraction" I am rather amused by your describing your latest revelation as "anti-progress". Have you become a Holy Roman Primitivist ? I suggest you lay off the drugs. Some people can handle them and some can't.


As I said in the previous post your rep has proceeded you. If you can change your opinions as rapidly and radically as you say all that I can say is that you have only one certainty in life- that whatever you are saying at this second is as true as the Pope speaking Ex-Cathedra and that everone else is an idiot, including those you used to agree with.


Your rep says that you are a master of insult. Hopefully this little exchange will teach you that "masters" should never try and play against "grand-masters" in the game of insult. You buggered up repeatedly above, not the least by getting flustered. Grand masters NEVER get flustered. You have a looooong way to go. YOU don't depress me. You actually gave me quite a chuckle when you described me as an "extremist loser". Loser I may be, by definition, as I've probably spent many thousands of dollars over the years on lottery tickets and my biggest winnings were about 84 dollars. I have, however, made a decades long career of NOT being an "extremist", of finding compromises amongst viewpoints and less dramatic and "extreme" ways of putting anarchism forward. I may "depress" you. You amuse me.


I am quite different from you in that the words "I was wrong" come easily to me. But, let's close with something else you have to live down, besides "consumerism" and my own litmus test of Somalia.. While looking up what you have said before I came upon this true gem of sophomoric Freudianism when you were attempting to give a pop-psychology explanation of people's belief in statism. I quote the infallible source:

"Statist immaturity is also related to faggotry in matters of relationships and sexuality"."


You went on and on with your rather twisted imagination about what other people who disagreed with you felt and thought, especially as it related to the neologism "faggotry". Oh wow !!! I've done and said a lot of foolish things in my life, but I've NEVER had such an example of juvenile fantasy to live down.


Good luck in living down everything you have said before you received your latest revelations. Also good luck in living down your present enthusiasms once you are touched by the hand of God once more. Until then, as I said, get back to me when your influence has increased 10,000 times from what it is today- though I suspect you will have changed your opinion again long before that time and you'll be calling people who agree with you today "stupid" and "mindless cows".

Francois Tremblay said...

You seem to have missed the little point that I am a socialist. How could I possibly associate socialism with extremism when I am already one? Your constant attempts to slander me would work better if they were actually true.

I repeat, if you consider an anti-capitalist, anti-consumeurism, anti-profit mutualist like myself to be a capitalist, then you are either an extremist or you simply do not know what words mean!

mollymew said...

Is this the third or the fourth time I have said in this exchange THAT THE BND PEOPLE SAID THAT THEIR DAY WOULD NOT ALTER THE TOTAL CONSUMPTION ? THEY, THEY, THEY said it. YOU have NOTHING to feel superior to them about with your little "gem of wisdom". Your goals are quite obvious, and a person doesn't have to resort to the childish pop psychology of "reaction formations" to see them.


Obviously you still haven't grown up since the days when you babbled about "faggotry" to brush away those who disagreed with you. God Almighty, I understand that you are an accountant. Haven't you had enough experience in the real world YET to know that the type of Freudianism that you like to argue with is looked on with distain by the majority of people. It's has actually been considered pseudo-science for almost 40 years in psychiatry and is the subject of "debunking" for sceptics interested in such things.


No, I am NOT reacting to any subconscious belief in consumerism in reacting to you. You want the honest truth...I react to you because you have a long standing reputation as an asshole and you continue to prove that reputation no matter what the current state of your beliefs. I live by a certain script/life story that makes me lower my horns and charge when I see obnoxious behavior in the great hope that I will spare the next victim. THAT'S the psychological explanation here. I pity those who have to live by Freudian myths. It's sad and narrow world to live in, no matter how much it can justify an illusion of superiority. The world is much brighter out here outside of the cave.

Francois Tremblay said...

What in the hell are you going on about. You haven't actually read my entry on faggotry, have you? It has nothing to do with Freud.

mollymew said...

You didn't mention the name Freud you fool, but it's the same idiocy. Trying to derive attitudes from some imagined sexual conflict- with NO reference to the actual attitudes of those you denigrate as "faggots". Yeah, I read it, and I was disgusted.


Tell you what. You are the sort of person I would wish on my enemies. Looking up your curriculum vitae I get more convinced of your petty desire to win petty victories with each entry. No doubt you have called your self a "socialist" for at least a month. If you are actually honest about being "anti-consumerism" and "anti-progress" (For at least the next few months) there is a segment of anarchismn called "primitivism" and "post-legtism" that you can torment with your arguments until you move on to the next revelation. Go there and bother them just like you have bothered the libertarians. I actually dislike them more than I dislike your ex-friends, and I think you'd be just the thing to give them some distress.


By the way, you are really quick on the uptake. Is the internet your only life ? Keep trying guy. You won't be banned here, just insulted far better than you can. Sort of fun, even if it is a waste of time. The game is on until I grow tired of it. As I said, I'm trying to spare your next victim- though I would be REALLY happy if you'd torment the likes of Green Anarchist and Anarchy Magazine. They have a whole column of letters from the insane in the latter.

Francois Tremblay said...

I think your rantings are not turning anyone off to me- only to you. Your constant slandering speaks very ill of your character. Your bizarre snideness towards socialism while professing to be one is... just bizarre.

Are you seeing a professional for your paranoia?

At this point, posting on this thread feels like needling an insane person, so I'm going to stop before you start stalking me.

mollymew said...

Fuck you are nuts fat boy. I notice that I have upset your comfortable view of yourself as the superior being decended from on high enough that you are giving me free advertising by bitching and whining about me on the "twitter for right wingers" sites where you make sure you post your self advertisements three times a day.
Let's put it this way chubby. I can think of about six billion more worthy candidates for following/stalking than a pathetic ignorant wretch like yourself who makes up for their personal inferiority with political babble.

Yes, obese one, this is HARDLY POLITICAL. You don't have politics. You have been a pain in the ass for many people before, and now you've stumbled in, with your year 2 University psychology and your delusions of self-importance, to somebody who has more skill in the realm of insult than you will achieve in your entire life.

I know this is a waste of time. If, by some bizarre and ignorant definiation of your own you have become a "socialist", I, as a socialist DON'T WANT YOU ON MY SIDE. What you demonstrate in spades is what Eric Hoffer advanced as an "explanation" for radical politics decades before you were born. That is...compensation for inferiority.

No, no, no... Buy Nothing Day are not "stupid" and "mindless cows" just because they express the same thing about the lack of economic effect in language other than what you think (with reference to yourself, of course as the fount of all wisdom)you have presented as a GREAT THEORETICAL REVELATION.


I doubt that I can convince you to bother the people I would like you to bother, but all that I can say is that I was meeting people like you before you were born. You have a little growing up to do little oleic boy. As to whether anybody would "stalk" you; I'm sorry but you have a considerably elevated vision of BOTH your importance and your attractiveness. NOBODY cares about your elevated opinions and NOBODY is attracted to your pudgy ass either.
As I said, this is no longer "political". If you want the "psychological key" to why you piss me off and why I make efforts to annoy you consider the following "role play"..."the white knbight with the black heart". What you do you pathetic wretch is allow me to vent my aggression in a good cause. To say the least understanding this sort of psychology is beyond the intellectual horizons of somebody who uses pop-psychology(ie bastardized and corrupted Freudianism) to describe those who disagree with hgim as "faggots", like the 19 year old frat boy he has never grown out of.

By the way there is one more thing to go. As I said before, you WON'T be banned here. You'll get endless rope to hang yourself. This is VERY unlike many other places where you have been banned because of your mouth. I'm so kind. But recognize that this is MY blog, MY turf, and your fat ass has trespassed here, and that I will inevitably get the last word.

There is NO political way to argue against those whose purposes are NOT political but rather personal. My apologies to those who come here looking for 5the usual political debate. This discussion is NOT closed. There is one more ghost to bring up from the wide one's past. That is later.

Anonymous said...

Oh, heck, people. It doesn't have to be this way. We can critique each other without using words like "contempt" and worse, can't we?

As I understand it, "Buy Nothing Day" IS different from the recent populist-toned proposals for one-day gas boycotts.

The boycotts were all supposed to be about attempting to change the pricing behavior of big business and were demonstrably a poor approach to doing so.

As I understand BND, though, the goal is more modest reflection on consumerist culture and its discontents by the event observers themselves. That IS a different approach.

I should add that there is plenty of room for an honest "free market" critique of consumerist culture under statist capitalism...

For the ordinary person, almost every facet of their economic lives is tinged or skewed by the forcible (i.e. political) monopolization of capital. The very fact that your consumption choices are relatively unhindered directly but one's role in production is shaped largely by ones relation to the the nexus of monopolized violence (the State) -- what of that? Why wouldn't people feel as if there's something out of balance with that, when THERE IS? That sort of thing can not help but pour salt in the wound for those whose frustrated creative drives drive them to demand more autonomy in production.

What kind of world will have plenty of banks that will loan you $30,000 for an SUV but none that that will loan you the same amount to start a small business? Why wouldn't the constant exhortations to BU! BUY! BUY! seem like a bitter joke in a world where you are encouraged to own everything EXCEPT YOUR OWN LIFE!?!?

Yet all of the institutionalized violence underlying this abomination is a system of state interventions in the market -- deviations from the "free market" ideal of ZERO such interventions.

TGGP said...

Somalia improved under anarchy.

mollymew said...

Re Somalia:
I guess that it is better to be dead than starving to death. how incredibly silly. Love that "improvement".
But in any case I only knew F Tremblay from his being banned from a couple of sites that I was familiar with before I began this oh too much long set of tirades. Looking him up (not "stalking" him as he would like to justify his sense of self-importance)I found that the "lard who walks" glories in the title of being the "most banned". I was totally amazed by the incredibly long list of people who have become pissed off with him over his short career, especially as I have never been "banned" from anywhere. I have to say that I chose my target well, and I have sympathy for anyone he calims to be an ally with at this second. Once more, I don't want Mr Pudgy Cheeks as a "socialist", whatever that means in his twisted set of personal definitions.
All that being said here is FT from an exchange on the Porkupine Blog(http://porkupineblog.blogspot.com) (one of the many who finally got fed up and banned him) in November 2007. In this our great sage opined that he is "yet to be convinced that unions have anything to do with Anarchy". This was because our sage had read his "anarchist" references and concluded that "I've never read any of them about unions one way or the other".
Full stop here.This sort of nonsense would seem incredible to ANY of us anarchists familiar with the movement in most countries of the world. This sort of ignorance MIGHT seem inconceivable, like the idea that Christianity didn't believe in a God. But, as a non-American, I can assure you that this is one more example of the massive ignorance of the American population. despite being originally a Canadian Tremblay has learned NOTHING about anarchism beyond reading right wing screeds from the USA.
It gets better. Later in the exchange Tremblay says that "I support syndicalism as long as its about self management, not unions". Oh yeah, I like Christianity as long as it's not Christian.
Too strange. The degree of this man's ignorance is massive. That's fine. A person may be ignorant, especially if their life experience is limited like that of Tremblay who, at the time, bitched about being in a union shop while being an accountant, one of the greatest professions to set up shop independently (Molly commented on this on the Porkupine Blog exchange). For some reason Tremblay decided to accept the privileges of an union shop while having every opportunity to be the Randian entrepreteur that he admires.
What is the real CLINCHER, however, is Tremblay's claim, given his massive ignorance of what anarchism has been outside of the USA (and even within it) to be a person who "wrote a book about it" ie Anarchy that "got very good reviews from Strike the Root and Brad Spangler said he'd read it". I wonder if he did. Hi Brad. you've been here. did you ? When you pass from ignorance of a subject to writing a "book" on it you pass from ignorance to stupidity.
Case closed. I know a way that Tremblay could defend his ignorance of the vast 99.99% of anarchist thought and organization in his world view, but I doubt that the wide one has the wit to discover this . In the interum I am happy that I chose such a vicious target for my ill temper. I expect thanks from those he has tormented in the past.

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