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Originally Posted by The One and Only...
How does this promote consumer awareness?
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We can't escape the fact that we are all consumers. We need to eat, we need to have shelter, we need to have energy to power our homes.
The question, though, is not whether we have the right to consume, but whether we have the right to consume more than we really need to. Governments encourage the public to go out and buy 'stuff' to maintain a high GDP. Corporations are bombarding us with ads 24/7, co-opting public space with their billboards and giant megastores. We're constantly goaded to consume, and never encouraged to reflect on the impact of our collective over-consumption on our local and global environments.
The ostensible purpose of Buy Nothing Day - to abstain from purchasing goods - seems silly. Any body can do that on any day. That's not the point. The fact that there are groups of people, large and small, that are voluntarily opting out of the established buyer-seller dynamic for one day will, hopefully, prompt people to look into the reasons of why there is a Buy Nothing Day and debate said reasons amongst themselves.