Don't Buy The CRAP!

 

Yesterday was Black Friday. Indeed. What more need be said for a day so commercialized that it gives Christmas a run for its commercialized status.  After a day of thanksgiving for all the bounty of the earth and the products of our hands, came a day of mobs, pepper spraying, non-stop advertising from corporations and news stations (yeah, even the newscasters go in on the scam), and stores and malls from the California coast to the purple mountain majesties of the East, and across the fruited plains down to the sweaty gulf coast, filled to bursting with the excitable and panicked shoppers whose stress hormones filled the air like a mild form of pepper spray.   I only know this because yesterday for the first time in my life I ventured into a store on Black Friday to be part of a whirl.  You know what that is, right? It’s where a group of people pushes empty grocery carts around in a long line of silent awareness raising for them personally and hopefully for those around them.  After walking in a line of kindred “stop shoppingness” for several minutes, snaking through a store’s isles and becoming aware of how much crap is on the shelves around you, a person develops self empowerment  and a resistance to the advertiser’s hypnotic chant of “buy this cheap crap!”.   I don’t care how cheap your cheaply made piece of crap is,  it’s still crap and I DO NOT NEED IT!  Seriously, no one needs that crap.

Once a person becomes aware that they are being peddled crap in one department, it becomes easier to see other types of crap.  Like political crap being peddled by both parties, albeit especially the fascist Republican party.  Crap like the Super Committee, which was an exercise in how much smoke they could  blow up the nation’s ass and still look like they actually cared.  Or the pleading from the DCC to donate to their campaign to fight off the onslaught of the right who are so well backed by pharma and big oil. Tell me again why I should donate to an organization that has members (Blue Dogs) who blocked the Public Option and would deny 51% of our nation (% of women in the USA) their human right to choose whether to be pregnant or not?  Smells like a load of crap to me.  Or the disingenuous, and very stupid suggestion from the Righties that we should trust corporations to self regulate and that would be so good for the country.  Right… That worked so well for us at the turn of the century. Plain old CRAP!   Or that we really need two dozen GOP debates to determine who to vote for, as if we actually get to choose our presidents.  CRAAAP!  And that the news on TV is actually news and not spin, aka, bald faced lies. CRAPOLA!! Or that the economy is on the mend. HOLY CRAP!  Or that women and minorities are finally equal to their white brothers and we no longer need any kind of affirmative action. HOLY F’ING CRAP! 

Yeah, that whirl was really enlightening, it’s like a whole veil of lies and deception has come down off my eyes and opened my awareness to the crap everywhere.  Okay, I lie a little bit, the veil came off a very long time ago but it did begin with making the connection with the garbage on store shelves to the garbage coming out of the mouths of politicians.   It’s all the same crap; fabricated cheap plastic crap,  polluting our world and poisoning our minds and our lives.  When we stop buying all the crap we’re being peddled, then we will be free citizens. 
Here’s a great way to begin the freeing of your mind: Tomorrow, Sunday, 11/27/11, at 2pm the Reverend Billy http://www.revbilly.com/will have a show at The Highline Ballroom, on 431 West 16^th St, NY city.  And if you can’t get there, you can watch his film, “What Would Jesus Buy” on instant watch on Netflix.   A guaranteed crap free experience.
Read his blog on nonviolence here http://www.revbilly.com/chatter/blog/2011/24/nonviolence-is-creative

 And check out this blog page of political writers that I was just invited to. Very cool.

 http://politicsanonymous.com/