Christmas! Yeah! My favorite time of year. I'm so glad that the Christmas season is getting longer and longer every year. Typically the holiday shopping season starts right after Halloween, but I say we get rid of Halloween altogether and

start the Christmas season right after Canada Day. Halloween's no fun anyway. The only money you get to spend is on liquer and a cog- tume. That's no fun. You.don't gi to go shopping and ¥ your money on use comes from sweats from giant box stor malls that treat thei like garbage, rob o and local businesse ed revenue, and rip process. Seriously corporations really of our money and consume enough al all, they give us wi mum wage jobs wi hours, and refuse to but the managers full-time

they might actually have to give them a living wage and ben fits. Yes, more consumption is j

year round. Okay, you're is sarcasm you smel like Christmas. | lik its, the social gathet ties, etc. But I'm fac dilemma - between w posed to do and what I should do. Yes, there is a difference. See what I'm supposed to do is take all of the money | saved and put it to good use by purchasing gifts for my family and friends. But that's not what's going to happen, for a num-

# process to "developing" t

what

Christmas Wish

ber of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I have no money to spend. So, what should I do? Well in order to determine that I have to start with what I know. I know that North Americans con- sume about 600% of our share of the world's resources. I know that per capita Canada is the largest consumer in the world. ow that in order to maximizespre¢ of the corporations th

ly support move the prog

logic of capital which drives the consumerism and hyper-consump- tion that plagues the West, espe- cially at Christmas. Feliz Navidad, indeed.

So I pose the question

again, what should I do at Christmas? Well according to all this I should go find some fertile land, build a hut and become com- pletely self-sustainable. But that's rather unrealistic. We all consume, but we all too have the ability to be conscientious consumers. So instead of doing what I'm supposed to do, I'm going to celebrate Christmas by giving to those who need a gift more than anything, namely our planet, and all of those who suffer from our industrial exploitation of it. Well that's noble you say, but however will I do it? ‘I'll tell you. By oe

hooked on the cool habit of smok- ing; M&M/Mars for ripping off Third world cocoa growers by refusing to adopt Fair Trade poli- cies; Proctor and Gamble (Folgers) for ripping off Third world coffee

UPEI Cadre December 2 2003 page 8

growers the same way; Coke for it's alleged support of union- tar- geting death squads in Columbia and for targeting children through its sponsorship of Harry Potter; Coke, Pepsi and its fast-food sub- sidiaries (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut), and of course McDonald's and any other fast food chain you can think of for trying to invade public schools and for driving up

our health care expenditures by

feeding us crap. And of course Superstore and Sobey's for driving local grocers out of business and for he t box stores that

list could

reat thing consuming in give a gift st by buy- Participate d if you do then give dependent s Market is produced, gift ideas, shortage year. In one com- ile you're

(all Schwarzenegger supporters) could build a pipeline to that grea! state and rip-off consumers some more. Now that's the Christmas spirit! Happy Holidays!