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  • Oh, hello! Hey, tell me honestly.

  • Do these pants make my ass look too big?

  • Or wait, maybe not big enough? Is it time for a little butt cheek augmentation?

  • Or maybe a little liposuction to take away these love handles, at least;

  • and perhaps while I'm at it, a nice tummy tuck. That can't hurt to even it all out!

  • But wait, why should I stop there?

  • Since I'm a bit too lazy to work on these pecs,

  • perhaps some implants might be in order

  • along with a nice minor neck lift.

  • Of course, I'll have to do something about this male-pattern baldness, right?

  • What's that? An eyebrow lift?

  • No, I don't know if I want to look all alert all the time.

  • Rather, I think I'm going to finish off with a plethora of Botox injections

  • that tighten up these wrinkles. You know Botox, that chemical neurotoxin

  • that temporarily paralyzes your nerves for the illusion of youthfulness?

  • Marshall McLuhan once said

  • that the last thing a fish would ever notice in its habitat is the water.

  • Likewise, the most obvious and powerful realities of our human culture

  • seem to also be the most unrecognized.

  • It is only when we take pause, often at the risk of social alienation,

  • to question the foundational principles and ideas to which our lives are oriented

  • does a dark truth about our supposed 'normality' become more clear.

  • Today, we live in an ocean with enormous waves of status obsession,

  • materialism, vanity, ego and consumerism.

  • Our very lives have become defined

  • not by our productive thoughts, social contributions and good will,

  • but by a superficial, delusional set of associations

  • where the very fabric of our society now radiates with cheap romanticisms

  • connected to vain competition, conspicuous consumption and neurotic addictions

  • often related to physical beauty, status and superficial wealth.

  • In effect, [it is] social conformity masquerading as individualism

  • with the virtues of balance, intelligence, peace, public health

  • and true creativity left to rot on the sidelines.

  • The cultural water we inhabit today runs deep with heavy pollution.

  • It starts in our formative years, where to be smart and achieving

  • is to be a nerd, a dweeb or a geek

  • with social praise instead relegated to those of accepted appearance,

  • wealth and mindless brawn,

  • reinforcing the idea that to think, know and challenge is to be ridiculed,

  • while to uphold the status quo, conform to the ideals imposed by society

  • is to be rewarded.

  • At what point does that multi-billionaire with the 5 mansions

  • go from being a peak icon of culturally accepted success

  • to an example of a severe mental disorder

  • amounting to compulsive addiction, in fact, where the billionaire is revealed

  • as nothing more than a social abomination in disguise

  • by their decision to hoard such excessive levels of problem-solving wealth

  • for no other utility than mere ego status.

  • But then again, we can't be too hard on them, right?

  • For what they're doing is simply what they've been taught.

  • Just as the religions you believe or the gaming strategies you use for survival

  • are groomed and cultivated by the environmental condition of your existence,

  • so are the many other waves of influence in this

  • ocean of memes that comprise the zeitgeist of the time.

  • So maybe we should start to question what it is

  • we are actually trying to accomplish rather than complain

  • and look at the social normalities of progress and success as they exist.

  • I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to suspect

  • that the new commercial lifestyle that has been touted by economists

  • and historians as some marvel of human/social development

  • is actually a hidden form of retardation:

  • an unseen manifest-value distortion that is making us sick,

  • antisocial, increasingly vain,

  • ecologically indifferent and perhaps

  • more and more malleable for the controlling factions of our society itself.

  • Maybe, just maybe,

  • our modern cultural strives for so-called 'success' itself are in fact

  • not symptoms of social progress at all,

  • but symptoms of a culture in decline.

  • A new disease has struck America, rapidly moving across the world:

  • a disease largely unknown in earlier periods

  • and almost entirely unnoticed by those who carry it,

  • a disease spread not by a physical virus or genetic predisposition

  • but through cultural memes, ideas,

  • ideas which are in fact infecting minds, growing and mutating in various strains,

  • inhibiting the mental well-being of many.

  • It's called C.V.D., Consumption-Vanity Disorder.

  • It's a plague of modern society which not only pollutes

  • the minds and values of those infected,

  • it is also turning our world into a cesspool of mini-malls

  • and self-image disorders, wasteful materialism

  • and belligerent social transgressions.

  • So, I've been working with these girls for a few years now.

  • What many don't know about CVD

  • is that many sub-strains or mutations have occurred.

  • These women here suffer from H.G.S. or Hot Girl Syndrome.

  • So, I see we have a few new faces here.

  • Would anyone like to introduce themselves?

  • I moved to Los Angeles a couple of years ago, and I...

  • I started noticing weird changes happening to my body

  • like my skirts started getting shorter and shorter, and...

  • I started spending more and more on cosmetics and heels and cheap jewelery,

  • and then the Botox injections started, and...

  • I just couldn't stop.

  • My lips got more and more pouty, and

  • by the second or third buttock augmentation,

  • I was looping DVD reruns of America's next top model

  • and extreme makeover 24/7,

  • dating one hot football star douchebag after the other and

  • the next thing I knew

  • I was on the cover of Vogue. - Ooooh!

  • It's OK honey. I was on the cover of Vogue too.

  • If we go back to the early twentieth century,

  • we find a critical crossroad for industry,

  • where the rapid technological advancement was beginning to challenge

  • the most basic foundations of traditional economics

  • and hence, social operation.

  • You see, at the core of our socioeconomic system is 'Labor' and 'Demand'.

  • Without product demand, of course, there is no need for production or employment;

  • and without employment, the working public draws no income or purchasing power

  • to buy the goods that keep the economy going.

  • Early in the 1900s, a powerful expansion of productivity

  • through machine application and mechanization,

  • brought about something [that] industry really hadn't seen before:

  • a goods surplus.

  • A 1927 article in 'Nation's Business'

  • conducting an interview with then-labor secretary James Davis, stated:

  • "It may be that the world's needs ultimately

  • will be produced by three days' work a week."

  • Years later, engineer R. Buckminster Fuller

  • described the phenomenon as being able to accomplish 'more with less',

  • in that the energy, manpower and resources needed

  • to accomplish particular goals was actually decreasing

  • while the accomplishments themselves were accelerating.

  • In other words, industry was becoming more technically efficient.

  • However, pre-twentieth century America and Western society in general

  • maintained an ethic of being frugal, overall.

  • There was a conservative ethos where goods were obtained for their utility,

  • a culture of needs, not excessive wants,

  • and most people really didn't see the need to increase their consumption

  • simply because they could.

  • So, the ruling industrialists and social planners had a choice at this point.

  • Either the system was to be adapted to this new 'more with less' productivity

  • which could mean a rise in leisure time, a shortening of the work week

  • and an adjustment of pay scales and good values

  • to reflect this new-found abundance as need be;

  • or, something more dramatic had to happen: the very underlying values

  • and affections of the culture would need to be altered,

  • where the very idea of consuming became a utility in and of itself

  • to consume for the sake of consuming

  • in order to maintain the status quo.

  • Well, needless to say, given the very nature of capitalist philosophy

  • the latter... What's that? Oh, right!

  • Well, needless to say, given the very nature of capitalist philosophy,

  • the latter idea was deemed to be the only rational option.

  • The current ruling ethic of ever-increasing profit and gain by industry

  • could not be compromised, so the alternative idea

  • of working toward an abundance to meet human needs,

  • enabling perhaps a level of personal freedom never before seen,

  • maybe even flourishing a new period of enlightenment for human existence

  • was rapidly cock-blocked by the interests of the ownership class;

  • and the world you see around you, full of ever-increasing bullshit,

  • vanity, materialism, waste, debt-locked wage slaves, conflict

  • and impulsive, mindless consumption has been the result.

  • The holiday shopping season got off to a violent start:

  • a temporary Walmart worker was trampled to death

  • by shoppers eager for post-Thanksgiving bargains.

  • A mad dash into a Walmart store knocked shoppers to the ground

  • near Grand Rapids, Michigan at 5 in the morning.

  • Despite several people falling to the ground, shoppers charged ahead.

  • Calm the F@#$ down!

  • Push one of my peeps and I will stab one of you motherF@#$%*!

  • Another incident here, a 28-year-old pregnant woman

  • was knocked to the ground by that same crowd.

  • Witnesses here at he scene say that woman actually suffered a miscarriage.

  • In Southern California, shots rang out inside a crowded toy store.

  • They say that a woman sprayed fellow shoppers.

  • This actually happened with pepper spray.