Why

Overcoming
Consumerism?
Imagine yourself living in the following world:

You live in a safe pleasant and unpolluted community where you actually
know your neighbors and interact with them, be it a small town, a suburb
or a city neighborhood. You can easily walk, bicycle or take effective
mass transit to your nearby job, giving you time to think or read as you
get there.
The work that you do improves our future, benefits your community and
means something to you and those with whom you interact. You look
forward to Monday. The longer that you are employed the more you learn
and the more valuable you become to your employer with an increasing
level of pay.

Your work schedule leaves you sufficient time to enjoy your friends,
family and outside interests. Money isn't a controlling influence in your
life because your needs are easily met. Your possessions are few, yet of
high quality, thus allowing your home to be smaller and less expensive to
own or rent.
You're connected to your surroundings, rather than just dwelling in them,
your backyard, for example, provides most of the produce you might
need plus a surplus that you can trade with neighbors. You have a stake in
your community and participate in local decision making at the Town
Council, P.T.A. and other grass roots organizations.. You buy what is
necessary in nearby establishments whose owners are known to you and
live in your community. If you have children, they walk to a nearby well-
funded neighborhood school in safety and then learn authentic social
skills as they interact with a community of honorably employed adults
outside of school.
Occasionally you need to travel to a large store on the edge of town. You
do this on a free shuttle bus or perhaps in a simple, older vehicle, the use
and costs of which you might share with others or a car that you rent only
when you need it, thus preserving for yourself the weeks or months that it
takes to earn the thousands of after-tax Dollars that owning a new car
would take away from you each year. Your interests, the things that you
really like to do with your mind and your hands, all the possibilities of
your life, are there to be explored because you have the time.

"But this is America, you say, all this is possible."

Not anymore it's not.

There are growing forces making this way of life almost impossible to
attain or maintain, even for the wealthy. If you are among the lucky few
who still have the kind of life outlined above, these same forces threaten
you. Whether you live in an isolated small town or a big city and prefer
your anonymity as well as the multiplicity of things available to you,
these same forces will erode your security and ability to make choices for
yourself.

Do you think what's outlined above can only occur in some mythic long-
past small town? Before the hegemony of consumerism and bottom-line
economics, you could do all of these things anywhere, including our
cities. There is no reason that we cannot live like this again if sufficient
people work to identify and disempower the forces that promote and
profit from limiting our social and economic horizons.
These forces are manifested as consumerism: At first a growing number
of pleasant conveniences for housewives in the 1950s, then a car for
everyone with the gradual erosion of transit, then the ubiquitousness of
things and chemical products technologically unimaginable a few
decades earlier, then growing availability of consumer credit and debt,
the over-dependence on labor-saving devices, total dependence on the car
and absolute necessity of full time work, the two income household to
pay for more and more, then the importation of cheaper and cheaper
goods and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs and now the decline
of service work with professionals next to be downsized.. The ongoing
disenfranchisement of people from their community, replaced with
commercial transactions..where will it end? When America looks like
some faded Third World fragment of the old British Empire? An
overpopulated wasteland of pollution, eroded landscapes and hungry
people digging into landfills for salvageables?

We shouldn't let this or anything like this happen. Things may be starting
to turn around in our favor. But it takes work and time and attention to
details and a willingness to try new things for our own and our children's
benefit. There are serious changes ahead. We can control some of these
for our benefit or we can just react to them after they have happened.

Simply stated, there's a lot of money being made and a lot of power being
gathered by the people that promote consumerism. You pay for it in
gradually limited economic mobility, pollution, threats to your health and
a declining standard of living, as measured by the things that really
matter.

This is what this site is about, identifying these forces and giving you
opportunities to lessen or eliminate their control over your life
through the completion of everyday things, that in the aggregate,
fight the big battles. We're not suggesting that you pick up guns and
start blasting away. What we advocate does far more damage than bullets
to these forces and the people behind them and makes life much more
enjoyable for you while it returns to you the possibility of living the way
that you choose. It's up to all of us to do this. We cannot rely on
politicians because if they have any true power they have been bought
and paid for and if they haven't been bought and paid for they probably
don't have any real power. (with a few notable local exceptions).
In addition to the everyday things that you can do, there
are concepts that need to be discussed and not just in a
trite way. The mantra "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle" is
pregnant with meaning, and reflects worthwhile goals,
but it hardly contains solutions to the real integral
problems of the world. For example, why doesn't
America have decent mass transit? We provide links
further along in the site to allow you to see what we
once had, what happened to it and what can be done to
bring it back. (Image: after General Motors bought up
many of America's streetcar lines and replaced them with
diesel busses the streetcars were burned so that they
could never compete with less efficient busses.)
Here's how this page is laid out:

How consumerism affects society, the economy and 
the Environment.
Economic costs of consumerism
Environmental costs of consumerism
Getting away from consumerism

How
consumerism affects society,
the economy and the Environment.
Consumerism is economically manifested in the chronic purchasing of 
new goods and services, with little attention to their true need, durability,
product origin or the environmental consequences of manufacture and 
disposal. Consumerism is driven by huge sums spent on advertising 
designed to create both a desire to follow trends, and the resultant 
personal self­reward system based on acquisition. Materialism is one of 
the end results of consumerism.

Consumerism interferes with the workings of society by replacing the 
normal common sense desire for an adequate supply of life's necessities, 
community life, a stable family and healthy relationships with an 
artificial ongoing and insatiable quest for things and the money to buy 
them with little regard for the true utility of what is bought. An intended 
consequence of this, promoted by those who profit from consumerism, 
is to accelerate the discarding of the old, either because of lack of 
durability or a change in fashion. Landfills fill with cheap discarded 
products that fail early and cannot be repaired. Products are made 
psychologically obsolete long before they actually wear out. A 
generation is growing up without knowing what quality goods are. 
Friendship, family ties and personal autonomy are only promoted as a 
vehicle for gift giving and the rationale for the selection of 
communication services and personal acquisition. Everything becomes 
mediated through the spending of money on goods and services.

It is an often stated catechism that the economy would improve if people 
just bought more things, bought more cars and spent more money. 
Financial resources better spent on Social Capital such as education, 
nutrition, housing etc. are spent on products of dubious value and little 
social return. In addition, the purchaser is robbed by the high price of 
new things, the cost of the credit to buy them, and the less obvious 
expenses such as, in the case of automobiles, increased registration, 
insurance, repair and maintenance costs.
Many consumers run out of room in their homes to store the things that 
they buy. A rapidly growing industry in America is that of self­storage. 
Thousands of acres of land are paved over every year to build these cities
of orphaned and unwanted things so as to give people more room to 
house the new things that they are persuaded to buy. If these stored 
products were so essential in the first place, why do they need to be 
warehoused? An overabundance of things lessens the value of what 
people possess.

"You work in a job you hate, to buy stuff that you don't need, to 
impress people that you don't like."

­ Unknown 

Malls have replaced parks, churches and community gatherings for many
who no longer even take the trouble to meet their neighbors or care to 
know their names. People move frequently as though neighborhoods and 
cities were products to be tried out like brands of deodorant.

Consumerism sets each person against them
self in an endless quest for the attainment of
material things or the imaginary world 
conjured up and made possible by things yet
to be purchased. Weight training, diet 
centers, breast reduction, breast 
enhancement, cosmetic surgery, permanent 
eye make­up, liposuction, collagen 
injections, these are are some examples of 
people turning themselves into human 
consumer goods more suited for the 
"marketplace" than living in a healthy 
balanced society.

Read   COSMETIC PROCEDURES ­ TRENDS: 1992, 1996, 1997, 1998 1998 PLASTIC SURGERY 
PROCEDURAL STATISTICS 

Tidbit: " The 1992 Procedural Statistics have been adjusted to 
incorporate breast­implant removals for purposes of comparison 
with 1996 statistics,"

The mindset of humans as consumer objects triumphs when 
women, failing to meet the standards dictated by the availability 
of the above "services", are traded in for a "newer model". This 
same way of thinking allows parents to justify entering their little
girls in beauty contests as though they were prize livestock.

Here's the affect that unobtainable good looks have on the happiness of 
the "average" person:

 
 " Why beautiful people create an ugly mood " a surprising twist on 
The 'Beautiful People'

And the following from the Wall Street Journal 1/17/97

"Each year an estimated 1.5 million Americans choose to have nose jobs, tummy tucks or
breast enlargements. Many of these people would be unable to afford these vital surgical
procedures if it were not for the public spirited efforts of loan companies like Jayhawk
Acceptance Corporation, a used car lender that has turned to covering the booming demand
for elective surgery. Lenders in this field face an unusual challenge," explains the Wall Street
Journal: "A lender can take a used car but can hardly repossess a face lift." Consequently
lenders like Jayhawk have to charge a slightly higher interest rate, up to 22.5% to be exact.
Says Michael Smartt, Jayhawk CEO, "We're capitalizing on America's vanity."

Here are the numbers, proudly presented by the American Plastic Surgery Association
 Click on the link below to read Real B
what to buy and how to use lots and lo
advertisers') products. i.e. "check out
waters that do the job with the swipe
ball-no real water required"!

From "human commodity" Magazine

name changed to protect the guilty)

Ifyou don't look like this- well then we say that society thinks
that you're ugly!

It is impossible to win a war against yourself or your uncontrolled 
desires. A good example of this is the simplistic materialist psychosis of 
the bumper sticker:

"He who dies with the most toys wins"

Is psychosis too strong a word to use here? Appreciate the following line 
of reasoning:

"I can imagine it, therefore I want it. I want it, therefore I should have it. 
Because I should have it, I need it. Because I need it, I deserve it. 
Because I deserve it, I will do anything necessary to get it."

This is the artificial internal drive that the advertisers tap into. You 
"imagine it" because they bombard your consciousness with its image 
until you then move to step two, "I want it...etc. " This is one of the 
things that allows people to surrender to consumerism. As a society we 
have gone from self­sufficiency based on our internal common sense of 
reasonable limits to the ridiculous goal of Keeping up with the Jones then
to stampeding for the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, or at least as far
as our credit limit allows us to go.

The New Road Map Foundation illustrates with cogent statistics the 
dichotomy between things, happiness and the health of the environment.

Happiness can't be purchased in the marketplace, no matter how much 
advertising tries to convince you of it. Market driven forces have 
ursurped the role once assumed by family, home and community. We 
have been programmed to believe that we should pursue more money to 
spend on more things offered in the marketplace, to be living mannequins
for the material adornments of the hour, our worth determined by what 
we have or don't have, rather than what we are, what we do or what we 
know.

Consumerism, already having captured death as a consumer obligation 
whereby sadness and regret are quenched by spending lots of money, 
now turns major life events like weddings and births into consumer 
events with their own hierarchy of demands for the things which assume 
a life of their own. For example, the bride's dress and accessories 
assumes far more significance in the telling than the bride's state of mind.
Baby shower gifts take precedence over helping with the baby.

Recreation has become commercialized. Special leisure clothing, 
sporting equipment and attendance at expensive sporting events rife with 
advertising and corporate sponsorship are the manifestation of 
consumerism in recreation. Oakland, California, a community with high 
levels of unemployment and poverty has banks that are now creating 
special loan categories so that people can get personal lines of credit to 
buy season tickets to the taxpayer­financed stadium.
"Sports is another crucial example of the indoctrination system . . . It
offers people something to pay attention to that is of no 
importance . . . It keeps them from worrying about things that 
matter to their lives that they might have an idea of something 
about . . . People have the most exotic information and 
understanding about all sorts of arcane issues . . . It's a way of 
building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and 
group cohesion behind leadership elements, in fact its training in 
irrational jingoism . . . That's why energy is devoted to supporting 
them . . . and advertisers are willing to pay for them." 

Noam Chomsky from Manufacturing Consent

Pro-sports contribute next-to-nothing to communities economically yet

they are sucking public dollars that could be better spent on parks, schools
and public services into millionaires/billionaire's pockets and deluding a
whole generation of at-risk youth into believing in the possibility of an
"athletic career". Sports Still No Ticket Out Of The Ghetto

Professional sports are are just an example of synthesized and packaged
reality designed to enrich people already rich, subject the observer to yet 
another layer of advertising, and to maintain the mental impoverishment 
of those watching.

"College­sports any better? Football is the S.U.V. of the college campus: 
aggressively big, resource­guzzling, lots and lots of fun and potentially 
destructive of everything around it. Big­time teams award 85 
scholarships and, with walk­ons, field rosters of 100 or more players. 
(National Football League teams make do with half that.) At the highest 
level, universities wage what has been called an ''athletic arms race'' to 
see who can build the most lavish facilities to attract the highest­quality 
players. Dollars are directed from general funds and wrestled from 
donors, and what does not go into cherry­wood lockers, plush carpets and
million­dollar weight rooms ends up in the pockets of coaches, the most 
exalted of whom now make upward of $2 million a year. . .College sports
now consists of a class of super­behemoths ­­ perhaps a dozen or so 
athletic departments with budgets of $40 million and up ­­ and a much 
larger group of schools that face the choice of spending themselves into 
oblivion or being embarrassed on the field." N.Y.Times Magazine 
12/22/02

Take all the mental and sometimes physical energy, the money and the 
time that the average American spends on professional and college sports
and divert it to the care and maintenance of local public schools; we 
could be the best educated people in the world! Notice how recent talk 
about revitalizing our schools revolves around the purchase of computer 
equipment and wiring rather than raising teacher's salaries and spending 
more money per pupil?

Local sports teams and activities are healthy and wonderful. There is 
however, a tendency of the ongoing commercialization of these if people 
allow it.

 The constant cycle of work and consumption is destructive enough of 
values, but when extra hours must be worked to maintain the same level 
of consumption, or when insufficient work, or no work at all is available, 
and a family goes into debt to accumulate more things, or feels worthless 
because of a lack of the "right" possessions, consumerism is slow 
societal suicide.

Time, the precious shrinking commodity of our lives, is exchanged for 
money to buy things that there usually is little time to enjoy. What time is
left after work is often devoured by television, basically a series of ever­
more mediocre filler programs inserted between ever­more­spectacular 
commercials whose purpose is to stoke further desire for more things. 
When these insatiable material desires fail to be satisfied, people grow 
unhappy with their lives and in extreme cases riot and loot to get that 
they have been "programmed" to want.

People become used to the intrusion of advertising into their 
consciousness in the form of television or the massive bundle of 
advertising pulp that masquerades as a Sunday newspaper and and so 
they fail to protect themself, or worse, their children from being seduced 
by it. Convinced that their self worth is based on $200 athletic shoes or 
designer clothing, children are already on the road to spiritual 
dissatisfaction and resentment as well as a perception of diminished self­
worth. When they become adolescents they are probably not going to be 
happy or productive even were they provided with an endless supply of 
things that few parents could afford. An extreme example of this is when 
some, usually poor adults, who could often better use the money for 
education, nutrition and improved housing, demonstrate their self worth 
and strength of character by turning themselves into human billboards in 
plastic clothing advertising millionaire's sports franchises. Their children 
may, to the detriment of education, pin all hopes on an athletic "career", 
i.e. lots of money for endorsing consumer items. This is nation 
building? 

Where once parents shared the home with their adult children, acting as 
baby­sitters and providers of wisdom and tradition, we now have 
corporate owned day care and rest homes. This preservation of nuclear 
family ties is one reason that some immigrant groups are still able to 
excel economically until the second generation (usually) becomes 
affected by consumerism, abandons its parents' values and then often 
goes overboard using material objects as a means of self­identification 
with American society.
"Quality Time" has become a commodity unto itself. Unfortunately, 
there is no marketplace for quality time, you have to preserve it for 
yourself. Why not use the time in your life, skip the money and the 
taxation and go straight for the happiness that usually comes from the 
non­material? This process is part of overcoming consumerism.

Economic
COSTS OF CONSUMERISM
The more consumerism spreads, the weaker is the incentive to 
manufacture long­lasting, quality products, and the greater the likelihood 
that cheaply made products will instead be imported from the lowest­
wage, environmentally unregulated overseas manufacturer that mobile 
capital, ever seeking the highest return, can find.

The nationwide loss of manufacturing jobs leads to a corresponding growth in

unemployment and the number of welfare recipients, less personal wealth, a
shrinking tax base, fewer public services, and greater public and private debt,
hopelessness for job seekers and a growing negative balance of trade. Americans
can't afford to buy the house next door but guess who has lots of dollars to spend
here because of the money that we're exporting to buy their cheap junk.?

By facilitating the sale of whatever is advertised and sold, without examination

by the purchaser of quality, origin, environmental degradation or traditions of
manufacture, Consumerism fuels the destruction of the productive economy.

What about the argument that "we are in a global marketplace and 
exports (and therefore imports) create jobs?"

The flood of spending on imports creates a need for compensating export
earnings. This quest for export earnings turns the U.S. into a traitor to 
principles that this nation supposedly fought for in several recent wars, 
and generates an eagerness to embrace potential export markets, no 
matter what the human rights or environmental records of these countries
may be, or how much damage this does to American workers. Another 
part of this attempted juggling act of trade balances is to justify the 
further strip­mining of our own natural heritage in order to gain further 
export earnings, i.e. Redwood logs from our ancient cathedral forests are 
sent to Mexico to be milled on machinery that once was tended by well 
paid Americans in the U.S. or Alaskan oil drilled in wildlife refuges is 
sent to Japan.

Imports may create a few loudly touted jobs , but their main product is 
quiet but spectacular profits for transnational corporations that export our
employment while importing low quality products and selling them here 
for a slight or no reduction in price.

"Free trade" laws are promoted so that American corporations can export 
pollution finally regulated here and import tariff­free goods back into the 
US from their foreign subsidiaries in whatever Sweatshop Republic they 
can find the cheapest workers. NAFTA is a codified example of this 
policy carried out at a national leve

Some of the corporations behind nafta Here's a little tidbit from the 
link:

"Both GE workers and the community of Fort Wayne got swindled. In 
1988, the employees had agreed to a $1.20 per hour wage cut to prevent 
their jobs from being moved to Mexico. Then in 1992, GE managed to 
squeeze a $485,290 tax cut out of the local government, claiming it was 
necessary to defray the cost of new machinery needed to preserve jobs. 
Once NAFTA passed, the wage cuts and the tax breaks were not enough 
to keep those jobs in Fort Wayne.[they went to Mexico] As one longtime 
GE employee put it, "You give them all your life, and this is what they 
give you. "

(Wonder if he and his family and friends will actively boycott G.E. 
products and services such as Ethan Allen etc.? We hope so.)

The following came into our mailbox.

Maytag: Hecho en Mejico

"They want Americans to buy their products, but they don't want to put Americans to work making those
products."

Published on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 by the Chicago Tribune

The Big Lie About Free Trade

Turns out it's American workers who are waving goodbye to

their jobs

by Bernie Sanders

Though I am a congressman from Vermont, it outrages me that Maytag Corp. will shut down production at its
refrigerator factory in Galesburg, Ill., and lay off the plant's 1,600 workers by late 2004. Maytag is using the
North America Free Trade Agreement, which I opposed, to move its plant to Mexico. In Mexico it will be able
to hire workers at $2 an hour, rather than pay the average wage of $15.14 earned by workers in Galesburg. And
the Newton, Iowa, appliance manufacturer is closing its Illinois plant despite recent concessions from the union
and substantial sums of corporate welfare given it by city, county and state governments.

Illinois citizens should have no illusions that what is happening in Galesburg is unique. I can tell you that the
same thing is happening in my state. In fact, it's happening in many regions of the country. In Vermont, in
recent years, as a result of such disastrous trade policies as NAFTA, most-favored-nation status with China and
permanent normal trade relations with China and other trade agreements, we have lost thousands of decent
paying jobs in Shaftsbury, Newport, St. Johnsbury, East Ryegate, Island Pond, Randolph, Orleans, Bennington,
Springfield and Windsor--among other communities.

The simple truth is that our nation's manufacturing base is collapsing. As unemployment rises, more and more
Americans are searching for non-existent jobs. In the past two years we have lost just under 1.8 million factory
jobs nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and, at 16.5 million, we now have the lowest
number of factory jobs in 40 years.

As the U.S. produces less and imports more, we have developed a huge trade deficit of more than $400 billion,
including an $80 billion trade deficit with China. Millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower
wages, many of them at part-time or temporary jobs with minimal benefits. And yet, despite all of this,
President Bush, almost all Republicans and many Democrats in Congress continue to spout the corporate line
about how wonderful unfettered "free trade" is. And the establishment media continue, in editorial after
editorial, to repeat that big lie.

The simple truth is that American workers cannot, and should not, be "competing" against desperate workers in
developing countries who are forced to work for pennies an hour. This is creating a horrendous "race to the
bottom." Aaron Kemp is a Maytag worker in Galesburg. He expressed a lot more understanding of our current
trade policies than most member of Congress when he told a reporter; "This is heartbreaking. This is one of the
most unpatriotic, most un-American things I can imagine a company doing. They want Americans to buy their
products, but they don't want to put Americans to work making those products."

Clearly, we need fundamental changes in our trade policies. If the American economy is going to survive, if our
workers are to earn a living wage, corporations are going to have to start reinvesting in the United States.

In Washington, everybody knows what the story is. President Bush and many members of Congress have
received hundreds of millions in campaign contributions from the corporations that benefit from our free trade
policies. They have taken those donations--and sold out American workers by giving their support to a trade
policy that is destroying our economy. If the U.S. is going to survive as a great economic power, we must
rebuild our manufacturing base and create jobs that pay workers a living wage with decent benefits.

Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the only independent congressman in the House.

Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune

The actual manufacture of products becomes almost a nuisance for 
conglomerates anxious to grow their capital and maximize profits 
through buying and closing factories, raiding pension plans, firing 
workers and using the paper losses to offset profits made elsewhere. 
That's what slaves in foreign countries are for. BUT, how will Americans
buy thier products if they no longer have jobs and if they do have jobs 
why shouldn't we go out of our way to boycott these job destroying 
companies? After reading the above story we will do everything we can 
to encourage everyone we know to boycott all Maytag products. 
According to Consumer Reports Magazine they were never that good to 
begin with.

How NAFTA affects Canadians.
 Even service jobs are now also vulnerable to export. Some companies 
are now using low wage workers in Ireland or India to staff their 
technical­support and order­taking phone lines or do insurance 
underwriting. There is no technical reason why any person answering a 
telephone or sitting at a keyboard has to be physically located in the 
U.S. What we're talking about is you calling a softwear or warranty line 
and talking to someone making $1.10 a day in India or China. Nor are 
 professionals immune from this . The same blind, unquestioning 
acceptance of consumerism will allow the export of even these service 
jobs if the companies that attempt this are not challenged by consumers.

Environmental
COSTS OF CONSUMERISM
 

Consumerism causes the wasteful use of energy and material far above and
beyond that needed for everyday living at a comfortable level.

Money is not the only way to measure the cost of an item. When one adds up
all the raw materials and energy that go into the goods and services consumed
over an individual's lifetime, the toll on the environment is staggering. When
this cost is multiplied out over the lifespan of families, cities and countries, the
proportions are incredible.

An example: 200 Billion cans, bottles, plastic cartons and paper cups, are
thrown away each year in the "developed" world.
"Disposable" items exemplify this. Rather than compete on quality or 
reliability, products are made for a one time use. "Fun" is a catchword 
discarding notions of inherent value, longevity, and the environmental 
consequences of manufacture and disposal of the product. Buying quality
products that are warranteed against failure or wearing out, learning 
about the materials that things are made of, their national origin and the 
conditions of the workers that make them, are some ways of resisting 
consumerism and waste.

While there may be some new appliances and cars that are more 
productive and energy efficient, discarding the old often leads to an 
almost total waste of the energy and material already invested in these 
products. This alone may more than nullify the energy savings of the 
new.

Getting
AWAY FROM CONSUMERISM

Having fewer things means enjoying what you have more and actually 
getting to use it, thereby raising its intrinsic value. The less clutter that 
one has in their surroundings, the fewer distractions there are from the 
essentials such as family, friends, food, nature and study. With less 
clutter, one needs a smaller space in which to live comfortably and thus 
needs to work less to pay rent to store things. If you haven't used 
something in the last year, how much likelihood is there that you 
ever will use it?

"The most important assets are brands.

Buildings age and become dilapidated.
Machines wear out.
Cars rust.
People die.
But what lives on are the brands."

Hector Liang
Chairman, United Biscuits

"Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the
mind."

-Walter Landor
Industrial Designer

"When people have lost their authentic personal taste, they

lose their personality and become instruments of other
people's wills."

Robert Graves

Can brands survive ecosystem collapse or the fall of our 
government?

Making do with less allows one to distance themself from the tendency 
of the victims of advertising to self­define according to the material 
objects possessed or not possessed, driven, drunk, worn, used, seen with 
or abused.

You usually see people thus affected in public places, lurking around a 
piece of machinery, such as a car or a boat. They bask in its radiance, act 
respectful and imply knowledge about its quality and providence. They 
act as they feel that they should act, making sure that others see them 
acting this way in the presence of the thing. They can only communicate 
with each other through the medium of the object, the cold piece of 
metal, in the presence of which they feel that they can speak to each 
other and actually show some emotion and interact.

The thing, the product, becomes a longed for goal, a means of justifying 
their existence, a way of envisioning themself in a different world with 
possession of the thing being the key tenet. Particular speech patterns 
often develop around things to the exclusion of the personal qualities of 
the speaker, as in

"I used to have a....."/"Yeah, friend of mine, he's got a "57.....", "last 
night I drank two....and a six pack of....","she was wearing..."," we did 
two....then a ....have you seen the new...""...how about those Forty­
Niners?..." "Look what I got..."

Empty, hollow words, bespeaking a personal void filled by the pursuit of 
things. Getting away from need for things is at least a start in allowing 
people to communicate and then once communicating, beginning to solve
real problems in their home, community, nation and the world.

*********************************

There are a growing number of people who are aware that these 
aspects of consumerism are some of the main obstacles to living in a 
pleasant safe community, seeing their children well­educated and 
living long healthy productive lives, without squander and waste. 
The following pages offer many different tools to help facilitate this:

Next Link What DOES
    overcoming consumerism accomplish?

See the Educational Resources... section for a large series of effective 
reform organizations and resouces.