A) corporate power is largely benevolent;
B) capitalism is synonymous with democracy and
C) the United States is a force for good in the world.

http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1199

The Post-Dispatch is doing a damned good job of acquiescing.

At the same time, I don’t agree with the extreme opposite- the “Buy Nothing Day” or the “Church of Stop Shopping” movements. They don’t work for the same reason that starvation diets don’t work: temptation breaks through and ruins the fast.

Successful dietary changes involve long-term alteration of behavior with some modest allowance for bad behavior. Go ahead, eat a little chocolate now, lest you eat a whole cake later when the cravings become unbearable. By telling people to stop shopping entirely, I think we risk creating something of a false dichotomy. Either you throw money on frivilous things and suffer debt, or you live life as a monk. People love their shopping, and they wont’ eschew it all in one fell swoop.

Instead, I think those movements should help educate people on how to responsibly spend their money. Help them calculate the amount they can actually afford to spend on Christmas presents, encourage them to craft personal gifts or do nice deeds in lieu of material items when possible. Also, let them have their little “snack” of occaisional shopping rather than making them feel terrible for every penny they spend on something silly.

By lightening up the message, and making it a bit more realistic to the average American consumer, I think the movement would cause more people to change their ways.

The local media is the mental equivalent of anti-Viagra. The constant stream of insipid articles tell us that we are irrelevant to the process; that we are all disempowered to such an extent that there is no need to really get involved in our society in meaningful ways. Therefore, we don’t need to KNOW anything important anymore. Just give us enough sound bites so that we can delude ourselves that we are well-informed. Just give us two choices at the voting booth so that we can convince ourselves that we are doing something meaningful when we vote, even though the politicians who can fight off the corrupting influence of corporate money are rare birds, indeed.

Yes, bread and circus. And the corporate media is leads the way with a shallow materialist celebration of “Christmas” that goes on for more than a month.

It’s all just bread and circuses. That Jevenal sure knew what he was talking about. See here: http://woowooteacup.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/bread-circuses/