How About Occupying Christmas?

A Commentary by Doug Draper

 Okay, so we’ve had Occupy Buffalo and Occupy Toronto and all the other occupations in cities and towns across the continent to draw attention to the greed of a few and the declining fortunes of the rest of us who make up the 99%. Now wher does the Occupy movement go next?

The kind of encampment the 1% likes. Bet they won't pepper spray this one.

 You don’t have to spend cold nights sleeping in a tent to Occupy Christmas and you don’t have to worry about being evicted and pepper sprayed. We can Occupy Christmas by spending the next four weeks up to and including Boxing Day not purchasing a single item from big box, corporate-owned stores. We can make a Yuletide pledge to make all of our purchases at locally-owned, independent shops instead.

 The encampments set up in parks across the continent this fall did a good job of drawing more awareness to the widening income gap caused by unemployment and under-employment and to the diminishing public services and opportunities for advancement that face far to many of us. But if we really want to get a message to the 1% that they ought to share a bit more of the wealth we helped generate through our blood, sweat and tears, we’ve got to hit them in their pocketbooks where it truly hurts. And one way to do that is to do everything we can to stop spending what money we have left in their corporate chain stores.

 On the U.S. side of the border, there is this thing many Americans and even quite a few Canadians partake in each year on the day after American Thanksgiving called Black Friday. It is the day the 1% want us to swarm their corporate stores and max out our charge cards on digital gadgets and other crap that is now mostly manufactured in filthy, polluting sweatshops overseas, Black Friday is the official start of the holiday shopping season and the 1% eagerly await the sales counts that day eagerly to determine how merry a Christmas it is going to be for them.

 Sad to say, many of us 99 percenters swarm the big box stores like locusts that day and speaking of encampments, some even camp out in front of the stores for days leading up to Black Friday, just to be the first to grab that half-price television or whatever other discounted crap is in there. What we need to understand is that by engaging in this corporate-sponsored pig fest, we are supporting many of the same enterprises responsible for shipping good-paying jobs overseas and bankrupting us.

 There are better options for the 99%, however. Aside from cutting back on gift buying, we can do more of our shopping at local, independently owned stores.

  This November 26 and for the second year in a row on the American side of the border, local shop owners across the country are promoting something called Small Business Saturday. Coming the day after Black Friday, it is aimed at encouraging us to do our buying at independent stores in our communities.

 The promoters of Small Business Saturday point to studies and statistics showing that for every dollar spent at a locally owned store, at least 60 cents of it stays in the pockets of people who live and work in community. Contrary to what some want us to believe, smaller businesses can also be the greatest generators of secure, decent-paying jobs. Contrast that to corporate chains that destroy local businesses, if we let them, and transfer most of their bounty out of town in return for jobs that often pay below the poverty level.

 It doesn’t have to go on that way if we don’t want it too folks. We have the power to do something about the depression the 1% have left so many of us in, and we can start with an Occupy Christmas movement that turns Small Business Saturday into an everyday occurrence for building healthier, wealthier communities for everyone who lives and works in them.

 You can also find out more about Small Business Saturday – something that should also be established on the Canadian side of the border, by the way, by visiting  http://smallbusinesssaturday.com/.  For quick primer on the destructive powers of big box chain stores, click on the following link – http://http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals/big_box_mart

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