The movie opens this month, maybe in your city too. I'd love to see it, looks right in HP's sweet spot.
I do hope that as housing and the economy melt down next year, that people think more about what they're buying, who they're buying it from, why they're buying it, how they're paying for it, how it was made, how it was marketed, how it was shipped, who made it, and where it comes from.
Our culture has a problem, perhaps even an addiction. But the collective consciousness is changing. And that's a good thing.
December 24, 2007
Interesting movie on consumerism, commercialism, retail and religion - "What Would Jesus Buy"
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Check this one out too
In Debt We Trust
http://www.indebtwetrust.com/trailer.php
Pretty magnetic guy. Like the one collar in one out thing.
Very good vid. Definitely a great Christmas pick.
No movie will ever slow J6P's squandering of OPM.
Only a long and painful depression will cure, or kill him.
If he dies all around him will be better off.
For the very best holiday Jesus viewing:
Marjoe (video clip), featuring Marjoe Gortner (who also played the creepy National Guardsman in Earthquake).
Merry Christmas
This will all change when we are reduced to digging through the garbage and eating rats on a skewer.
Have you seen this video:
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
It's really well done. Unfortunately, I don't think consuemrism will drop unless a few things happen:
- a huge recession
- China starts consuming and uses up the world's resources leaving us high and dry.
- Mother Nature squishes us with her thumb
Our economic system is based on ever growing debt and we've exported it to every country in the world, brainwashing them into consuming as much as us.
But but, I accepted jezus.
As the guy fills up his bus with gas...he speaks of redemption from consumerism...
Bwhahahahahahahahahahahah!!!
Oh the hypocricity!
Naw Keith ....the dominant culture will continue until it cannot.
We will rape, pillage, and burn every last resource of value...then will will perish.
There will be no awakening.
Enjoy the die off.
And watch:
"What a way to go, life at the end of empire"
I've confronted Bible-toting Christians in my own family, who are as steeped into money and materialism as anyone, with questions like "didn't Jesus live a simple life with few possessions"? "Didn't Jesus say the kingdom of God is within us and not at Neiman-Marcus"?
I, on the other hand, haven't been to church in years. Yet I'm pretty frugal. Go figure...
god, I love this blog.
Thanks Keith
I saw this documentary and was mildly amused. Rev. Billy's message is close to my heart, but as a film it had several issues:
1) took twice as long as it needed to make the point
2) Billy's message is to "stop shopping" but he doesn't really offer any alternatives or solutions - just some street theater. Now I love street theater and would be hugely amused to encounter him and his choir anywhere -- but in the end the audience goes away with nothing but the injunction to stop doing something that everybody has to do.
So many folk are now creating alternatives to our consumerist economy, and making blogs/websites/listserves about their efforts (with book contracts on the way) - see No Impact Man; the folks in SF who have the Compact; the Riot for Austerity and Sharon of Casaubon's Book, etc. Rev. Billy's message seems very 2002. The young ones have moved on to taking action to stop consuming, to reduce/reuse/recycle to the max.
I still like his style, his attitude and the music he gets out of his ensemble. He's in the great tradition of American huckster preachers.
Got the wife a mp3 player for Christmas. She asked for a iPod that was over $200 but I got this generic one with the same capacity and features for $39.
"But it's not an iPod"
"But can you download tunes from iTunes?" (NO, but from a dozen other sites for half the price)
"But it doesn't have a clip to clip it to your belt like the iPod." (For $185 I'll Superglue a clip to it)
And then to top that off, my 6 year old daughter said, "We didn't get as many things from Santa this year". -- No, but they each got $120 American Girl doll sets.
I'm really sick of the whole American Consumerism thing.
A tale of two gifts:
Yesterday evening we went to a friend’s house for a Christmas get-together. After a pleasant evening of good food, spirits, and conversation, we drifted into the living room to exchange gifts.
A bag given to us by one couple contained some chocolate bars, crackers, and a tin of cookies.
A second bag - given to us by our hosts - contained an expensive perfume for my lady; in addition I was given a mini-stereo with CD/DVD/MP3/etc...
We were thankful for both sets of gifts, but to tell the truth, we appreciated the first bag no less than the second set of gifts; in fact the latter also contained the heavy weight of holiday guilt!
(The presents we gave to our hosts were comparable to the first bag described above.)
What to do…what to say? You can not refuse a gift and insult your friend. Is it better to just make a pact BEFORE the holidays to not exchange extravagant presents? But wouldn’t that be in poor taste – to discuss gifts beforehand and thus convey the expectation of presents?
What a monster that has been spawned by mindless consumerism! Ah, for a shopping-free, guilt-free Christmas!
----------------------------
When I stumbled into work this morning, the company manager asked if Santa was good to me, and I had to restrain the urge to say, “F* Santa! That ISN’T what Christmas is supposed to be about!”
-Mammoth
The best present I got for Christmas---
My 8 year old daughter gave me a Gift Certificate good for an unlimited number of hugs during the coming year.
The new Lexus my wife surprised me with was an anticlimax after that.
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