Consumerism

Black Friday, the much-hyped retail sales day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., inevitably brings news of stampedes at Walmarts and violence over the latest kiddie toy on sale. Mind you, this is about Christmas shopping. Christmas. You know, that Christian myth about the birth of a Prince of Peace.

Our media, our schools and our social conversations are poisoned by consumerism. In the height of the 2008 collapse of the U.S. economy, caused largely by idiotic consumerism in the housing sector, the media tried to convince the American public that buying things for Christmas would be patriotic. Curing toxicity with more poison does not work.

Dedicated protesters live in tents in the capitals of the developed world to bring attention to the failed capitalist system based on corporate materialism. Manipulated pawns of that system camp out in front of Walmarts to grab things on discount for their brainwashed children. They perpetuate the cycle of their own exploitation by corporate greed. 

There is an inevitable endpoint to this madness. Our feet rest on a real planet with real physical limitations. We need to breathe clean air. We need real clean water to drink. Our food can either nourish us or kill us. Our human species now numbers at 7 billion with geometric growth projected. How many plastic gadgets will it take to eventually choke the beast of consumerism? There is probably an algorithm for figuring this out, but nobody seems to be paying attention.