CELEBRATE BUY NOTHING DAY

When was the last time you could help a movement buy sitting on you ass at home? As we will be reminded ad nauseam over the next twenty four hours, tomorrow is known as the biggest shopping day of the year. It is also Buy Nothing Day, a day when you can use your free will, break away from the pack, and stay away from malls, department stores and sales. You can refrain from spending part of your life waiting in line to buy that heavily discounted flat screen that you don't need and can't afford. You can stop giving credit card companies your money to fortify the power and control they have over your daily life. Tomorrow could be the day that you start to think for yourself, objectively, and ignore what the media and sale ads tell you. Tomorrow, you can be free.

It should go without saying that, by not shopping tomorrow, you can also help the Occupy movement, without spending the night anywhere, without holding a sign, or participating in a demonstration. Buy Nothing Day, which has been in existence for several years, is part and parcel of what the Occupy movement is about. Freeing ourselves from the power that corporations, banks and big money hold over us. Buying nothing for a day, whether tomorrow or any other day, is empowering, liberating, and as any of my fellow tightwads will tell you, highly addictive. It's how you dig yourself out of that hole. And believe me, even if it takes a long time to do it, once you're out, you'll want to stay out.

As I did last year, for this Buy Nothing Day, I'm including the music of Poly Styrene (RIP) and X-Ray Spex, because for many in my generation, she was the first person who raised our awareness about conspicuous consumerism. (You can read more about her on previous posts here and here.) You also ought to check out The Story of Stuff and The Story of Broke video links below, they're great to share with anyone dubious of the Occupy movement. (Your pep talk free posts will resume tomorrow.)

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Poly Styrene - Black Christmas mp3 at Perfect Porridge
X-Ray Spex - Art-I-Ficial mp3 at Krucoff
X-Ray Spex - More cuts on this post (a few links are dead, but most are good)
The Go! Team - Buy Nothing Day mp3 at Naive Harmonies
Buy Nothing Day - The Album - 18 mp3s at Ted Dave
Video:
Poly Styrene - Black Christmas at YouTube
The Story of Stuff at YouTube
The Story of Broke at YouTube
Visit:
#Occupy Christmas page at AdBusters
The Story of Stuff official site
Buy Nothing Day at Wikipedia
International Buy Nothing Day
Occupy Wall St.
Occupy Together

PETE SHOWS UP

Around midnight last night America's citizen laureate Pete Seeger joined the Occupy Wall Streeters on a 36 block trek to Columbus Circle in NYC. He's 92 years old. and he did it walking with two canes. Yeah. Once there, the crowd joined in as he sang "We Shall Overcome," a mainstay in his repertoire for decades. He's always been one of us, long before most of us were even born into it.

Woody Guthrie

Here's a few from him. Along with the song mentioned above, here's "What Side Are You On?" which is really about drawing the line in union issues, but is semi-relevant. The other "A Dollar Ain't A Dollar Anymore," is just about financial hardship, so it slips in. There's also Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings' cover of "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie (an old friend of Seeger's), because the song has never ceased to be relevant, and because we could all use a little funkiness in our revolution.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Pete Seeger - We Shall Overcome mp3 at RichardSilverstein.com
Pete Seeger - Which Side Are You On? mp3 at NB Books
Pete Seeger - A Dollar Ain't A Dollar Anymore mp3 at Cover Lay Down
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings - This Land is Your Land mp3 at Stinky Tofu
Video:
Pete Seeger marches to Columbus Circle, 10/21/2011 at YouTube
Pete Seeger, with Occupy Wall Street - We Shall Overcome at YouTube
Visit:
Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie Occupy Wall Street at the Huffington Post
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Together
Pete Seeger at Wikipedia
Woody Guthrie at Wikipedia

I'M WITH THEM

Full disclosure: I'm one of the 99%, and I am fed up. When I hear of bank bail outs, obscene profits and salaries, it pisses me off. I've worked consistently since my first job as a paperboy. I've been unemployed only when laid off, or after moving to a new city (totalling less than eight weeks in my adult life). I'm well past the age that my parents were when they had a house, and five kids, on one average salary. I am not a spendthrift. My tightwad-ness is the subject of jokes with some friends. I cannot afford to buy a home in the neighborhood that I grew up in, and my neighborhood is not affluent by any stretch of the imagination. My American dream is little more than the pot to piss in. I am a working American grunt. To paraphrase the Talking Heads, where is my beautiful house?...How did I get here?

This snippet, from Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize speech, in 2002, really sums up the crux of the problem (link to entire speech below) :

"At the beginning of this new millennium I was asked to discuss, here in Oslo, the greatest challenge that the world faces. Among all the possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now seventy-five times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them."

Now that that's out of the way, I tried to think of a song that would aptly portray the frustration that those of us near or on the bottom rungs of the income ladder. I thought a Pete Seeger song might hit the spot, but couldn't find an mp3 of any that were completely appropriate. I thought that the Dil's "Class War" might be a tad militant for some of you who weren't around back in the day. Then, while looking for something else online, I happened upon the song that seemed written for this day, this mood, this movement. Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder they Come."

Well, they tell me of a pie up in the sky
Waiting for me when I die
But between the day you're born and when you die
You know, they never seem to hear even your cry

Chorus:
So as sure as the sun will shine
I'm gonna get my share now what is mine
And then the harder they come
The harder they fall
One and all
The harder they come
The harder they fall
One and all

And the oppressors are trying to track me down
They're trying to drive me underground
And they think that they have got the battle won
I say, forgive them Lord, they know not what they've done

Chorus

And I keep on fighting for the things I want
Though I know that when you're dead you can't
But I'd rather be a free man in my grave
Than living as a puppet or a slave

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come mp3 at Backseat Sandbar
The Dils - Class War mp3 (zip file) at 7 Inch Punk
Visit:
Occupy Wall St.
Occupy Together
We Are the 99%

Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize speech, December 10, 2002