consumerism
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UK Riots: The violence of the violated By A. Sivanandan
Everyone is clutching at explanations for the riots – gangs, greed, family breakdown, lack of respect. But I would like to go into their deeper causes. Continue reading
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Live from Planet Norte: Totalitarian democracy and the politics of plunder By Joe Bageant
The uniformity on Planet Norte is striking. Each person is a unit, installed in life support boxes in the suburbs and cities; all are fed, clothed by the same closed-loop corporate industrial system. Everywhere you look, inhabitants are plugged in at the brainstem to screens downloading their state approved daily consciousness updates. iPods, Blackberries, notebook… Continue reading
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The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. Continue reading
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The Iron Cheer of Empire: No free tortillas in the Workhouse Republic By Joe Bageant
It may be my bias, or my imagination, or my distaste for toil, but from here [in Ajijic, Mexico] America looks like one big workhouse, “under God, indivisible, with time off to shit, shower and shop.” A country whose citizens have been reduced to “human assets” of a vast and relentless economic machine, moving human… Continue reading
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Can a revolt of ‘consumers’ spark a revolution… By William Bowles
The power of big, transnational capital has transformed not only the economic landscape but also the nature of the way we live — from the food we eat (and where we buy it) to the fundamental fabric of our social spaces, and judging by the level of dissatisfaction with contemporary capitalist society, great swathes of… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 