LunarEclipse said:

Those of us in the good old U.S.A. (and probably most other places in the world) have learned to be wasteful consumers. Some throw out aluminum cans they paid 5 cents deposit on rather than save them up and get their money back. We fill our 60 gallon trash roll carts every week with huge amounts of packaging, junk mail, newspapers, food gone bad, etc. etc.

Flashback to World War II. The government made a huge point of getting people to ration, to save string, to pinch pennies. And why? Because back then people had the philosophy of saving. So, they naturally rallied around the rationing effort. They honestly scrimped and saved and helped out with the team effort.

Fast forward to Iraq and today. The government knows better than to talk about rationing or saving as a way to motivate people today. They know as long as people can afford to spend $ 2.30 on a gallon of gas to fill their SUV and commute 50 miles each way to work, the people are "happy". Team effort? Sure, the Neocon team vs. the Liberal team vs. all the minority league teams. And every team wants things their way, and no one is willing to compromise or sacrifice.

The philosophy of waste and consumerism and materialism is after all a selfish lazy philosophy. But, it sells a lot of product. Cheap product from China. We had better start embracing Chinese philosophies because these people OWN us...

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psilocyberin said:

gotta wonder how many senators, advertisers, corporations took to the concepts laid out in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" about hypnopaedic verses and such.

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