We're Calling it 'Harvest'
We're Calling it 'Harvest'
By Kathy Reschini Sweeney, retail veteran
It's fall. School is back in full swing. Apple orchards are booming. Corn mazes, hay rides, Halloween is in sight, and that kicks off the holiday season.
If you've ever worked in retail or in marketing, you know that the most important thing about September-December is sales. Hence, the need to come up with a reason for people to buy more stuff. This year, it's the concept of Harvest. Have a Halloween wreath for the front door or a pumpkin for the hall table? Get with it. It's all about the Harvest this year. Fall leaves, tree cones, branches, squash and other fall vegetables, stalks of wheat or whatever - that's what everyone needs to say "Oh yeah, I'm hip to the home decor scene." Or maybe not.
Perhaps in a nod to the economy, most stores and catalogs are no longer trying to push the expensive stuff - the Hammacher Schlemmer $5,000 life-size hay wagon, for example, is long gone. Which reminds me - I have to say it - who in the HELL spends that kind of money for something they've only seen on glossy, photoshopped paper? Seriously! Must be that 1%, or their staff.
[image error]Which is the other big harvest concept this year. We the People (you remember us, the ones who sought to form a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility?) are finally starting to gear up to clean house. For the first time in at least a decade, people are demonstrating - in large numbers and in an overwhelmingly peaceful manner, in an effort to get our elected officials and the bagmen who elect them, to pay attention to what is actually going on outside of their leather and marble offices.
It started with a young, grass-fed, I mean, grass-roots, group of people who didn't even have a clear vision of their grievances or goals. And it grew - across the country and across the world. There have been public governance and public safety problems (that is smooth talk for political chicanery and police brutality) but the movement grows. Just last weekend, OccupyPittsburgh set up its formal protest area.
If you want to support these movements, there are ways to do it other than camping out. They need supplies and water and blankets and all kinds of things. If you do not want to support these movements, then stay the hell out of it. Nobody is making anyone join, or camp, or protest, or anything else.
But pay attention. This is democracy in action. This - the peaceful assembly and speech of The People - and the resultant non-violent transfer of power that occurs with each November election, is our greatest gift.
Democracy is hard and messy business - if it were easy, more people would do it without bloodshed. And, as our young country ages, we are having growing pains. It's a little scary, when we look around and realize our executive, legislative and judicial systems may no longer be truly representative. There is no glib answer, except that we cannot simply let it disintegrate into a form of government that no longer protects and defends the rights of all The People.
The answer is not name-calling or vilifying or violence - not that I don't personally enjoy all of those things. Those tactics are the marks of the ignorant and close-minded. The answer is peace and collective action - to take the country in whatever direction you think it should go.
Because you could have the most sublime decorations in the world on your front porch, but if the inside of your house is chaos, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.
