SCAM

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  The Society for Consumer Advocates and Mavens

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ECOCIDE

Western consumer culture, as we know it today, is unsustainable! Like the fall of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 20th Century, the American dream may turn into a nightmare.

The diminishing quality of life, a fading economy for middle class Americans and a more widespread degradation of the environment are all locked into a disillusioning, slow downward spiral.

In 1903 the personal income tax was 3%. Today, it averages 25% or more! Making matters worse, now the U.S. government is even having to undo Americans' safety net of Social Security and Medicare. This furthers the nation's mental and economic breakdown as a whole.

If we cannot control our wanton consumer lifestyle and economy on to a sustainable path, and if the descent is irreversible, this is called ecocide. It is kind of like suicide by lifestyle and uncontrollable, wasteful habits.

Today's consumer culture is bloated and decadent. Industry is cancerous. Economics have replaced the Bible. The corporations are in control. Our brains are pickled by commercialism. Our only hope may be in the activist tradition but even this is bogged down by the "spent ideology" of the liberal left wing.

Are we, the people, even up to the challenge? What we may need is the birth of a new American dream, better ways to eat, think and behave, as well as a new political movement if we are to reverse the seemingly irreversible ecocide.

SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: ADBUSTERS MAGAZINE WINTER 1996

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