Where Are We Heading?

Sunday night, my roommate and I were playing some football on our Playstation 2. The game was ESPN 2K5. It's a regular football game - just like Madden - however there are some twists to it. One being that there is a cool halftime report where they talk about key plays made in the first half. The other involves "crib credits." You get crib credits - money essentially - for making touchdowns, sacking the QB, playing for certain amounts of time, and other such activities. What can you use these crib credits for? Only one thing: pimping out your crib!!

That's right. You have no choice but to buy more and more expensive furniture, TV's, DVD players, home theaters, etc. You are given no option to save your "money," no option to invest it or even give some to charity. The entire goal of the game is to get "money" so that you can buy things; buy really expensive and honestly unnecessary things. What kind of message are we sending to our children? We give them no options but only point them in the direction of consuming more and more and more.

There was a time when this nation was above that - wasn't there?


I read an interview today with a woman who has written a book on the luxury industry and how it impacts our society. This part really struck me:

"Yesterday, after a signing, I went to have dinner with friends out in Mill Valley and they showed us the town and the town square, and there was a young boy selling lemonade, and my daughter wanted to get some, so I gave her a quarter and she went to buy it. I went with her, and one of the little girls there was about 8 years old -- about the same age as my daughter -- was standing there with a little Louis Vuitton handbag on her shoulder. I said 'Well, that's a nice handbag," and she turned to me and said, "Thank you, it's Louis Vuitton." Eight years old! That is how they are realigning our social network and our self-worth."

It doesn't matter what you do for a living. It doesn't matter if you are devoting your life to picking up all of the trash I and my neighbors generate; it doesn't matter if you devote your life to researching a cure for cancer (both extremely noble, by the way). No, no, no. This little girl didn't have such lowly ambitions. She's already at the top of her game, respected among her 8-year old peers. She has a Louis Vuitton handbag. THAT is making it American style. That is success, accomplishment, and truly making something of yourself.


Here is it comes. Are you ready? It's being done just the way it was before. Subtle hints of deception along with public pronouncements - more each month - that we're doing all we can, we're trying our best but it's really their fault that our diplomacy is failing. I don't blame the Administration anymore. I blame the media - and unless you protest this, I blame you.