“....the fact that we aren't outraged by it is an indication of the extent to which we've been pacified into oblivion by the marketing machinery of popular culture.”

Who says we aren't outraged? It's just with the fact of the matter being that there's nothing much we can do about most things in that area, we just end up with a sense of acceptance along with our outrage and disgust. At least, that's MY take.

“How does it affect our sense of spiritual identity when we're constantly told we aren't inherently beautiful, worthy, or complete unless we produce lots of profit and buy lots of goods?”

Well, it could lead us into a spiritual identity crisis. I know some strong spiritual people who have not exactly felt that they needed to dress a certain way or necessarily LOOK a certain way with fashion in order to have worth BUT I have known the same people – including myself – who have felt much lower on the totem pole when we haven't accomplished certain goals (education, careers, promotions, strong relationships....) or when we haven't come to own better things (better house, stronger furniture....). Sometimes, those feelings are justified in a large way for they are telling us something in us needs changing – in a HEALTHY manner within ourselves. BUT, there are MANY times when we ARE too busy looking around us at others and comparing our “lack” of accomplishments and material ownership to their accomplishments and material ownership. Which in its' own is a very dangerous thing.

Oh and BTW....I know you wish for us not to get political on this but Annie rubbed me the wrong way. All though I'm not yelling at you – I'm going to let it out here. I love her biased comment on the president when she was talking about what he “said” after 911 that Bush....

"could have suggested any number of appropriate things. To grieve, to pray, to hope. No! He said to SHOP!"

Well, I hate to correct her – *cough* - “oversight” but although I don't like everything – and most of the time - the majority of what most politicians do and say (including the pres.)....I DO believe in giving credit where credit is due (no matter HOW much it pains me to do so at times). And so that comment she made didn't sound quite right to me. It isn't. what he said after 911 was:

“Tonight, I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me."

Interesting thing was that all I had to do was google it and I found it in quite a few places....hmmm....Annie must not have access to google – yeah – that MUST be it.:-/

It's true that he and other politicians of *all* parties asked and encouraged us to shop in order to feed the economy but that was not only to continue to HELP the economy BUT to send a message to those monsters who tried to destroy us in many ways (only ONE of which was through our economy) by saying, “Ok, you knocked the wind out of us. You even knocked some of us back and some of us down. But we're getting right back up and and we're going to keep walking and we're going to keep functioning.”.

Well, that's MO. Sorry, but I had to get that out of my system.:-) (Maybe I'll actually send Annie that email I wrote to her....but something tells me I'll only be waisting my time.).

Julie w

I think most of us, including myself, don't feel that we get our worth from the stuff we have and that is because we justify our stuff when we look around and see all the rich people who have so much more. I convince myself that I don't have too much stuff because of all the stuff I don't or can't go out and get. My eyes got opened recently when I delivered meals-on-wheels for the first time and saw a whole different part of Columbus. To them I am the rich. I have never felt I got my identity from the stuff I have but I am not sure how I would feel about myself if I didn't have it. I am not sure if our society of consumerism can be fixed. We are all about to receive our government rebate that they hope we will spend to stimulate the economy. If we all stopped buying so much stuff what would happen? If nobody bought a new car for a couple years the entire auto industry and all the stuff that goes with it wouldn't exist. Will be interesting to see what she offers as a conclusion. I guess I can only control what I do with what I have.