Bare Naked Consumers
I've come across the excellent Barlow's Blog, a Canadian musician who talks about politics, popculture, philosophy and sophistry. I particularly liked his post on Christianity.

"I have a massive amount of respect and admiration for religious people. People who study their religion and pray to their God; people who embrace a relationship with their religious community. People who call themselves Christian and haven’t read the manual, drive me crazy...How about this often ignored commandment. I mean there are only ten of the things you figure people would read them all.

#10 "You shall not covet you neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

Every day Americans see thousands of advertisements. The ONLY purpose of these ads is to get you to covet something. Our economy is driven by coveting as is our entire culture and the American dream it self. If we stopped wanting our neighbour’s stuff we would have a recession of devastating proportion."

I used to be a Consumer and a shoe addict. I even developed a case of shopping bulimia back in the UK. I was so unhappy in my job that I used to spend every lunchtine buying crap, get a brief high as I left the shop and then spend all afternoon wondering how I could take it back the next day. Then I moved back to New Zealand and spent a year living in the countryside, away from the bombardment of billboards, bus ads, and all the fads & fashions of the city. Now I’m a good Westie chick and live in Ugg boots for 6 months of the year.

I enjoy the column in the Sunday Star times by Jo McCarroll, a Kiwi hackette currently based in the UK. She went on a recent press trip to Serbia and charts the frustrations she and her fellow hacks went through when they found it impossible to buy any ‘luxurious little frivolities.’

“After a couple of days, we were practically elbowing each other out of the way to pay for rounds of drinks. At Belgrade airport on the way home I begged for an opportunity to buy everyone overpriced water and snack food. “Spare change, spare change” I pleaded, holding out a fistful of notes like a reverse begger, “I’ve got all this spare change.”

It made me think about how much pointless consumerism there is. When did wasting money become the nearest thing we have to a shared hobby? On arriving at the 24-7 shopping mall that is Heathrow, I took a long hard look at my core political values and asked myself: do I really need a 15th sheer pink lipstick?”

She bought the lipstick by the way.