7.9.06

Consumerism is the opiat of the people.

Bill Mahr claims that religion is the thing that stops people from thinking.
Neitze said that religion is the opiate of the people.
They are both wrong.

Commercialism stops people from thinking.
And, consumerism is the opiate of the people.

We think this gihad is between Christian faith and Islamic faith. It is not.
It is between American consumer-driven, self-protective, money grubbing religion and Islamic faith.
Do you believe that our scantily dressed women would offend the Islamic world as much as it does if we were people who lived and loved like Christ - caring for the marginalized and caring for the orphans and widows rather than as global litterers, treating people and countries as our trash cans as we attempt to keep our small park of the world clean from any unpleasentries and allow our ambition and self-seeking lust for wealth drive us? Do you think our lives would be so sexually driven if our hearts were compassionately living?

It is not religion, but religions all-too-easy submission to the love of money - religion's deep sleep in the lullabye of the American deam - blind to the rest of the world - that stops thinking and births this war of terror.

3 comments:

james said...

Spot on Beck, spot on. I've been known to say at time that "Reality Television is the opiate of the masses," but i think consumerism works quite well!

Becky said...

some day, if i write books and get famous, i want that to be the quote that everyone who has never read my work but pretends to says. i think i'd like to write an entire text on deconstrusting consumerism.

elnellis said...

i think you are well equipped to do it, too. it would take someone with courage and fire because it is a book no american (or human being for that matter) wants to read but a book we all must read.