Rev. Billy Talen: How Consumerism Makes Us Powerless

[marmar]

from AlterNet:



Posted by Reverend Billy Talen at 1:48 pm
February 27, 2010

How Consumerism Makes Us Powerless
First sermonette in a series…


Not about politics. Those folks default to racism and conspiracy theories. They have a point about how they feel, which is how a lot of us feel. We are surrounded by a creeping dullness. A lack of traction with the outside world. How do we touch others? How do we have power?

Simple acts of living have lost the feeling of social power. We know that the corporations have kept us in a state of consumer passivity for a long time. For many millions – since Ronald Reagan. But like the climate change that Consumerism causes, it’s hard to measure the exact damage. We know what we feel. We know we can’t “breathe free.” We know we can’t “speak free.” We feel an exhausting interloper in even our most everyday experience. It is the market — whispering, screaming, selling, then fading to Muzak and white noise.

Our community becomes very spacey. You can live somewhere all your life and find yourself surrounded by products – you might quickly become an utterly un-selfed consumer like a game-show contestant or a tourist. Products are not psychologically neutral. You can turn off the TV and head for the hills, but the hills are alive with fluorescent and bug-eyed tchochkes leaping from the walls of shopping centers that came out of nowhere.

The Tea Party blames Washington. Well, American politicians believe in Consumerism as our primary economy and culture. If the retail grosses are edging upward, then all’s right with the world. The electeds can say “I feel your pain” when the teleprompter tells them to, but our current existential crisis isn’t something they grok. The politicians aren’t nearly as bright as the marketers. They’ll be taken aback by the hunger riots coming soon. I’m referring to the hunger for meaning, for community intimacy, for the satisfaction of our social souls. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/02/27/the-tea-party-has-a-point/

[handmade34]

1. love Rev. Billy

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. Wow! What a profound observer, and what a gift for words.

[Kievan Rus]

3. He's a true Christian...unlike the Talibaptists and Teabaggers