Consumers

I hear we live in a consumer economy. The term is used in media constantly. It is a given. By defining human beings as consumers, some human beings exploit human greed and materialism for great profit. This is not new.

Stepping away from the addictive process of consuming every new thing is part of an awakening. The brainwashers of advertising use peer pressure and fear of isolation to peddle electronic devices, cars, clothing, alcohol and soft drinks. They used to peddle cigarettes in the same way, before the product was revealed to be more toxic than being the odd man out.

Watching television with commercials has always felt like manipulation to me. I could not enjoy the content of a drama or comedy without the nagging feeling that my brain was being programmed to do things against my better interests. I stopped watching commercial TV about twenty-five years ago.

I come back to the Japanese Buddhist mantra , "Person environment one." If you are submerged visually in commercial advertising all day, your mind and your environment are no longer your own. You are inhaling messages, overt and covert, which shape your ideals and your interests. The goal of the originators of these messages is simple. They wish to own you.

You are what you eat. In a similar way, you are what you watch and consume. Taking time away from the messages of media and the process of consuming or planning to consume is essential to finding your center. Meditation is a useful tool for this. Yoga is another. Other forms of focused activity, geared to releasing the mind from cluttered thought, are useful tools to break the pattern of wanting and buying and wanting more.

As I have said before, wanting more when you are full is a symptom of disease. The lords of the consumer economy never want you to stop wanting. This is a struggle for your health and mental well being in a world driven by money and profit. The choices are difficult and require great balance and persistence.

Corporations

I communicate on this blog via a broadband cable connection, purchased from a national cable provider, which also provides me with telephone and television services. I recently discovered that my "on demand" television feature was inoperative. I got an error message, similar to the error messages we all dread on computer monitors.

I had gotten the same error message when the cable system was activated by two separate technicians about a month ago. The second technician, who came to replace faulty equipment left by the first, had assured me it was all fine. When I pointed out that the external cables on the outside of the building were hanging out of a broken plastic box like black spaghetti, he shrugged and said, "I don't have a ladder."

This time, I called the 800 number. A rather brusque woman, identifying herself as Dawn in a New Jersey accent, humored me, told me to recycle the box by unplugging the cable from it and then wait 25 minutes. I found, of course, I would have done just as well to spread a circle of garlic on the living room floor and do a rain dance in it. Next, a thickly Spanish-accented man, who insisted on calling me "Mr. Paul" over and over again, said he was going to electronically send me a very special (magic?) signal which only he possessed. He guaranteed his signal would get through. Perhaps this line works for him in his local singles bar. It did nothing for my cable box.

The third call put me in touch with Joe, an average-sounding young man with a warm personality. He took me through yet another rebooting experience which did not leave my cable box glowing any more effectively. But, he did set me up with a real service technician, who is due later today. Hopefully, this technician will remember to bring a ladder to look at the knotted spaghetti cables on the side of the building.

Welcome to the Corporate Soviet of America. If you have seen and understood the film "Brazil", you will understand my point. As bureaucracy grows, it begins to exist for its own benefit. Its original function or purpose becomes secondary to its own survival and prosperity. This is disastrous for the consumers of service industries. Ask anyone who goes to a huge medical center with a serious illness. The insertion of layer after layer of barriers between the consumer and someone who provides an actual, on-site service is an attempt to decrease the payrolls of higher-paid technicians in favor of lower-paid hand-holders, whose job it is to keep the consumer at arm's length.

Meanwhile, at the top, the executives and shareholders are pulling out the resulting profits at the expense of poor customer service, lower wages for customer-service tele-workers and higher workloads for fewer on-ground technical personnel. Deregulation under Reaganite politicians has made this situation worse.

It is common knowledge that increasing the access of a population to internet bandwidth increases education, productivity and participation in the workings of a society. But, is this what corporations by their very nature want? Why would corporations, which sell mediocre services at a premium, unhealthy food cheaper than healthy food and cheaply made consumer goods based on an oil economy, want to provide the consuming public with the tools of their enlightenment and liberation from the very junk they are peddling?

When you next hear Libertarians and Tea-Party devotees screaming against Government, you will be hearing the shrill voice of corporate-funded or corporate-inspired stupidity. Think about whether you really want to spend your future calling 800 numbers while the quality of your life slowly slips away.

Money

Greed is the social motivator in current human societies. This is simply a reaction to the obvious deterioration of the planet's resources and human overpopulation. Animal, mindless responses, translated into complicated derivatives and securities.

There is little rational basis for hoping that this trend will let up, since the destruction of the planet's health is well under way at the hands of those who hold financial and political power. The only possible hope lies in the heart of each individual who sees the value of human life beyond consumer comforts and the accumulation of things. If this hope is allowed to grow and spread to others, there may be some hope for humankind.

The salvation of the human species does not lie behind a teller's window or on the trading floor of a stock exchange. The salvation of the human species lies within your single individual heart and mind. By adopting a mindful, compassionate and loving daily practice, which turns its focus from getting things to doing good, you may well be turning the tide of greed and destruction.

Materialism

Today I have been bombarded with breathless accounts of people shopping by journalists at National Public Radio, considered by some to be the font of intelligent reporting. What is wrong with this society?

Several months ago people were assaulting politicians who were finally trying to do something to help people by reforming a broken health care system. Today they were rushing into stores to charge gadgets, for which many of them have no money. The brainwashing to buy is coming from those disproportionately unaffected by the current Depression, in which millions of middle class people are spiraling into poverty.

Wake up, America. Wall Street is not your friend. Mainstream media is no longer objective. Your future is at stake.