We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

‘Noche de los Shoppings’ and Other Terrifying Consumeristic Niceties

Click here to access article by Adam Corl from The Bubble (Argentina).

Here we get a taste of what Christmas shopping is like in Argentina.
In addition to being a gross misuse of a gerund, a “shopping” is a mall. Malls have gifts – you need gifts. Do the math. Night of the Shoppings is the Argentine answer to the North American “Black Friday”. This is about as close to finding something “on sale” as you can get in a place that is notoriously harsh on importing anything you might want.

For a few hours every year, malls are turned into capitalistic hellscapes. Full of loud music, horns, wistels, and employees in terrifying elf costumes. There are actual sales that occur on top of “happy hours” which are intense sales periods for specific stores that get yelled out over loudspeakers and last for about 5 minutes....
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