Discuss: The Gospel of Consumption

This system will soon fail.  We can only survive if we do share the work and the wealth.  The failing of the system will painfully purge.

The idolatry of consumption {and unbridled economic growth}.

Many too many economic powerbrokers have been playing “the only game in town” the way everyone “in the know” has been participating in the construction of a global, leviathan-like “house of cards” called the global political economy.

Can we share an understanding of the many attacks on Earth and climate scientists by saying loudly and clearly that their assailants’ activities are venal efforts to spread garbage and junk science, based upon nothing more or less than the duplicitous promulgation of ideological idiocy?

The many arrogant and hostile efforts toward Earth and climate scientists are for the sole purpose of shoring-up and building trust in a con game; supporting the most colossal pyramid scheme in human history…..a modern version of the ancient Tower of Babel. Only this modern ‘edifice’ is an Economic Colossus, one not made of stone but rather built out of filthy lucre as a house of playing cards. The entire game is a patently unsustainable, gigantic ruse perpetrated by a tiny, greedy minority of outrageously conspicuous consumers who are recklessly consolidating and relentlessly hoarding great wealth and power. For these self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe and their worshiping minions, nothing else matters.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
established 2001

When it comes to CON-sumerism
and black people in this country.
We are witnessing another form of
updated 21st century slavery going
down.
Now is the time to disconnect
from the matrix of exploitation.

The dangerous devotion of so many leaders to a “business as usual” status quo as well as to unbridled global economic growth and outrageous per capita overconsumption could prove to be lethal for our children also to worship because these forms of idolatry could soon become patently unsustainable on a relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planet like the planetary home which God has blessed us to inhabit…...and not to ravage as the leading elders in my “Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation” have been advocating so religiously and doing so recklessly in these early years of Century XXI.
 
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176

Attending to “CON-fidence” games, Ponzi schemes and other financial vehicles for funneling, accumulating and CON-centrating billions in unearned wealth into the hands of a tiny minority of people who comprise the top of the global economy.

There are many minions who “spread the word” of these schemes. CON-men operate pyramid schemes. They assure “plausible deniability” and “legal cover” for all that is said and done.

Only a telling of the truth is forbidden in their speech and actions. That is the one and only thing that is forbidden. Do not break their vow of silence by telling what is true about their schemes {ie, the only games in town, so they say}, because the “houses of cards” out of which the modern Tower of Babel is built immediately is exposed.  These pyramidal CON-structions can withstand any force except that which is presented by speaking out loudly and clearly about what is somehow true.  As soon as light of what is true was shed on Bernie’s scheme, the house of cards he had constructed fell.

Bernard Madoff may be the first of my “Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation’s” kingpins to find that his “house of cards” has collapsed; but I dare say, Bernie will not be the last. There are other kingpins and many too many minions ready, willing and able to play along in what looks like the greatest self-enrichment scam in human history.

Why not say that greed is not good? Why not assign value to personal honesty, accountability and transparency?

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001

My goodness, I stumbled upon this article by accident and was amazed by its message and content! This has to be one of the most inspired and inspiring articles I’ve read, thank you for an informative, thoughtful, researched and motivating message! It has truly made a difference in my life and has given me more reason to continue the changes I’ve been making in my and my family’s life!

It appears that hundreds of billions of dollars, now amounting to trillions of dollars, and every available tool of governance and human enterprise, are being put into service for the sake of rescuing the global economy, but precious little money and scant tools are used to address the larger and much more forbidding, human-driven global challenges posed to the family of humanity by unbridled per-capita resource overconsumption and runaway climate change?

Are the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe who organize and manage the global economy refusing to recognize that there can be no such thing as a viable global economy on Earth if the planet’s limited resources continue to be recklessly dissipated and its frangible environment relentlessly degraded?

Who knows, perhaps necessary change from a soon to become patently unsustainable leviathan construction to a sustainable global human economy, one that benefits a democratic majority of the human community, is in the offing.

Back in the pre-bubble times of the early ‘90’s, I used to jokingly argue that, “American capitalists would sell the death of American capitalism if it sold, and guess what? It does.”

After reading this article, I feel like I should dust that bumper sticker off and try it out again in these diminished and exhausted times.

What I was originally thinking about when I coined that question / phrase was the dumbing-down and crassness of so much American cultural “product.” I was wondering how a culture that celebrated and sold a prideful ignorance could sustain itself over the long haul?

No pun intended, but I have to admit that I later found myself “buying into” the tech boom ethic that so many of my fellow Austinites embraced. We competed to out work and out busy one another - bragging about our caffeine dependence. In fact, hey! I still work 50 hour weeks!

So, reading this excellent article helped me remember a few things…
like shared meals, and daylight hours in my garden, and recreation. There’s an interesting word: re creation.

Hmmm. I am glad I took some time off today to stop by the Orion site.