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For those of you not in the know, "Buy Nothing Day" is a concept created by AdBusters to try and convince consumers to not go out shopping on the infamous "Black Friday." The idea is that Americans are the most voracious consumers in the world, and our overconsumption is causing the world a mess of problems.
For more info on BND, go here.
Anyway, Buy Nothing Day isn't the point of my post per se. I wanted you all to see this CNN interview with the Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of AdBusters magazine.
Whether you agree or disagree with the ideas behind Buy Nothing Day, you gotta admit that what happens in this interview is VERY interesting.
Pay close attention to how hard the interviewer rides him.
Pay close attention to how she interrupts him.
Pay VERY close attention to the way that she makes "Black Friday" sound like a national holiday in which everyone and his brother goes out shopping no matter what, when the truth is that only a portion of Americans do so. Most people I know don't even like to go near shopping centers on this day for fear of the traffic and long lines. I know that I don't participate, but it's not really so much for the AdBusters reason as it is for the reason that 10% off of televisions isn't enough to make me go out and wait forever to get one. I'd rather pay the extra 10%.
At any rate, her treatment of this guy is very telling. I'd love to hear the pep-talk her producer gave her before the interview began.
"How can you make sure that it sounds like this guy is a kook? How can you make sure our customers continue to consume while not looking like we're ignoring such a large movement?"
Liberal media my ass. Look, folks, I'm reading Edward S. Thompson and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, and many of my suspicions about the media are being proven in this book. The media is controlled by a few huge corporations whose primary interest is making money for themselves and their stockholders. Banking and business entities have huge holdings in these media firms and they have no choice but to make sure that the people they give their "objective reporting" to continue to BUY BUY BUY!
For instance, NBC is owned by General Electric, who is one of the top defense contractors, so of course NBC won't ever try to make any of our wars sound really bad.
But you don't have to take my word for it...
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