Okay – you’ll like this one:
Q) What do you get if you cross several million quantity petro-chemical made-in-China Red Noses with a hyped-up dumbed-down UK population?
No? Give up?
A) The end to World Poverty and Global Equality of course!
Ya geddit? Ya geddit? No? Not funny?
Okay, okay, try this:
Q) Why did the celebrity cross the Channel? Continue reading
Rise Above It - Buy Nothing Christmas, from Adbsuters
Following on from the poem “Saved By Shopping”, here’s a couple more critiques relating to the idea that we can help the ‘Wretched of the Earth’ by continuing our consumption habits & trusting in celebrities…
This first article in the Nation links the then current stories of the popstar material girl & the popstar material boys:
Shopping Is Not Sharing: Corporate Consumerism Is Masquerading As Activism – “Africa’s poor had, like, the best week ever. Not since the days of khaki colonialism has buying Africa been so sexy, so fashionable…”
It’s Global AIDS day today.
And there’s a foot of snow outside my window.
How are these two related? Shopping of course! Yes, as well as reminding us that ‘climate change/ climate chaos’ (or better yet ‘climate justice’!) are more appropriate terms than the more easily dismissed and ignored ‘global warming’, this latest record-breaking bout of weather also reminds that Christmas is on it’s way. Christmas and shopping of course being intertwined. Snow, Christmas and shopping – or rather – rampant greed and over-consumption leading to crazy weather patterns a less promoted notion…
World AIDS day has also been captured by the mega-brands and now, just like Saint Nicholas, it sports a suit fashioned from a distinctly commercial shade of red – what else is there to think about on World AIDS day but buying that (RED) branded product to show how much you care?
Here’s a poem I dedicated to Product (RED) recently published in the non-affiliated Red Anthology, the first collection of Contemporary Black British Poetry for 10 years:
not affiliated with Product (RED)
SAVED BY SHOPPING
dear santa
i would really like an afrikan baby Continue reading
Posted in Global Justice, Poetical Political, Poetry, Product (Red), Red
Tagged African baby, AIDS, Christmas, Dear Santa, Peepal Tree Press, Poetry, Product (Red), Red, Sai Murai, saved by shopping, shopping, World AIDS Day
