Forum Post: How people and the planet can coexist with Capitalism

I am a clinical psychologist in California who greatly appreciates your efforts. I have been espousing our message since I was in college in the early 70's marching against the Viet Nam war, the "military industrial complex", and for ending exploitation of the environment. I am unable to join you in person, but am with you in spirit and would like help provide an aspect to your message I have not heard and an intellectual foundation.

The buzz message is ""Consumer as Nigger". The softer presentation is corporations have lulled us into being objectified and dominated by identifying us by one superficial aspect--our ability to be molded to buy. We are no longer people with hopes, dreams, values, families to support and an environment to learn to live with, we are just consumers to be manipulated. We need to free ourselves from this well-calculated effort of every increasingly sophisticated marketing efforts to get us to buy ever more things to "buy a sense of self-worth"--though only a transitory one needing endless refreshment like a junkie a "fix". Read books such as "The Hidden Persuaders" published about half a century ago. This is an easy to read treatise on the advertising/marketing industry that has become ever more adept and damaging to us. Read "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" by B"F" Skinner which helps us understand how we can be manipulated by subtle forces beyond our recognition.

We each need to take back our full humanity by understanding the manipulative efforts of those with insatiable greed and power motives. We need to take back capitalism as a system that supports our humanity and this fragile planet. Those sharing thoughts and community protesting to reach common goals are re-establishing skills for cooperative co-existence--the antidote to consumer addiction". Today you will be visiting the "Pusher Man's houses. Take the opportunity to free yourself more external manipulation. Think of Steve Jobs, for instance. He grew enormous wealth by offering us tolls to enrich our lives while maintaining a purity of spirit and focus on his passion, not the manipulation and domination of the "consumer". If you have a desire for help to shape this aspect of the message or others and to use the existing knowledge base to educate all further about how this bastardization of capitalism happened, I will be very happy to help. I provided my email address when signing up on this web page. Thank you again.