Consumer culture is a hideous thing. Yes, it is currently extending its massive tentacles all over the globe, making sure that people in developing countries know that they too need sneakers manufactured by their own children at 10 cents an hour. Making sure than war-torn nations know they need to eat their Wheaties so that they can build strong healthy bones (which are more resistant, I'll have you know, to landmines).
Yes, consumer culture is insidious. Certain advertising campaigns champion individualism by assembling a gaggle of attractive young people, (making sure of course to represent every racial or ethnic group ever conceived of), all arrayed in the same plain-front khakis and V-neck stretch cardigans. Singing the same song. With faces that have had every hint of expression pounded out of them with a meat-cleaver. Yes, the Gap is a propaganda machine for some fascist state soon to emerge...
Yes.
I agree.
Now shut the fuck up.
It's either that, or action.
You have a few choices. You can use a home-made pipe bomb to dislodge a large mobile piece of corporate art so that it trashes a franchise coffee bar. Please do this. A part of me would love to see it happen in the real world.
However, not all of us can afford to get arrested.
So, instead, stop buying these products. Do not feed the animals. Do not shop at Gap or Banana Republic or Abercrombie and Fitch. Do not patronize Starbucks or McDonalds. Boycott Exxon, Sunoco and the like. Do this.
Do something. Despite the fact that it's inconvenient. Despite the fact that your actions aren't going to bring these institutions down. Do something that will make you less comfortable. Perhaps then I will have the patience to listen to your condemnations of consumerism.