by MEGAN ROWLANDS
Weekender Correspondent

Just like millions of other consumers, Michael Paulukonis will head to Wal-Mart on Black Friday. Unlike most though, he won't be purchasing anything. Instead Paulukonis will push an empty cart through the bustling crowds, past the towering Chicken Elmo displays. In silence, he'll swerve around the Kathie Lee Collection, steer past the discounted DVDs and add nothing to his cart. Paulukonis, a 33-year-old activist from Throop, will buy nothing on Black Friday. And he is not alone. He's just one of many who celebrate International Buy Nothing Day.

In Tokyo, London and New York City, participants will stage an "oral assault" on consumerism, vomiting on store displays, ATM machines and from mall balconies. Outside shopping malls in Seattle, activists will set-up a credit card-cut-up booth. Some will dress up as consumer sheep and protest Starbucks. Some will open up a shop on a street corner and just sell, well, nothing.

Why? Because they're calling out for consumer awareness on the most over consumptious day of the year: Black Friday. On November 29, the day after Thanksgiving, shoppers are expected to purchase more than $210 billion worth of goods, marking the official kickoff of the holiday shopping season.

The name Black Friday comes from its ability to push merchants' books out of the "red" zone and into the profitable "black" zone, according to CNNMoney.com.

And what better day to protest binge consumerism than Black Friday? Buy Nothing Day is a worldwide movement that got its start 12 years ago in the Pacific Northwest, according to the Adbusters web site, a magazine that sponsors Buy Nothing Day as one of its campaigns. Originally started as a plea for simple living and an alternative to inflated spending, Buy Nothing Day has gained momentum and become an international movement, a revolution aimed at curbing over consumption globally. Its message is still the same, but its messengers have multiplied and taken a plethora of anti-consumer actions to the streets.

One of the prime operatives of Buy Nothing Day is to pry open the eyes of as many people as possible and show them that as consumers, we are all being taken advantage of. To do this every season Adbusters approach the major networks to purchase an "opt-not-to-shop TV uncommercial", and every season ABC, NBC and CBS refuse, claiming the ad would "threaten the current economic policy of the United States." This upcoming Buy Nothing Day, Adbusters will air their ad on "CNN Headline News", the one network that has accepted their money since 1996.

Although Black Friday is just as notorious a day in Northeastern Pennsylvania as it is in every other city, locally, we hear nothing of Buy Nothing Day. While it's common to see hundreds of street corners in big cities or college campuses plastered with Buy Nothing Day posters, this valley is drier than the Sahara.

Paulukonis, along with fellow activist L. Dunn Grossman, who operates RallyofOne.org, an outreach and education web site, is attempting to change this.

Both Paulukonis and Grossman, along with a few friends, will take part in a Whirl-Mart Jam on Buy Nothing Day. The Whirl-Mart movement, backed by the slogan, "our empty carts and silent energy subtly invade the cathedral of consumption," is a peaceful protest aimed at superstores and national chains such as Target, Toys-R-Us and Wal-Mart.

"It's a non-confrontational, nonviolent, less offensive form of action," explains Paulukonis. "We're reclaiming public space."

As an avid supporter of local and independent business, Paulukonis says that mega -chains like Wal-Mart suck revenue out of the community and drive business away from smaller, family-owned establishments.

Grossman, 30, agrees. "I am going to buy absolutely nothing from a store that contributes absolutely nothing to our community and offers nothing that comes close to opportunity for its workers," she says. "For all the Wal-Marts, TJ Maxxs and Marshalls, there are only a few people that benefit from them. What's most aggravating is knowing how poorly they treat their workers and where they get their products and how long we've allowed them to get away with it. We really do have the power to politely, but firmly say, 'thanks, but no thanks.'"

Paulukonis and Grossman see themselves as a rare breed in a matrix of mega stores and mini malls. Refusing to digest what's fed to them, they are each, essentially, a rally of one, fighting what they view as a capitalist monster, one less credit card swipe away from over consumption.

For more info on Whirl-mart or Buy Nothing Day, contact Michael Paulukonis at xraysmalevich or visit his website at www.watermelonpunch.com/whirl