I'm not reflexively against consumption. I consume things. I discard things.
I own a car. When I am done with my car--After I drive it as long as it will run--I will discard the car.
People need jobs making and selling things. There are many valid reasons that people want to make use of material things.
I'm not looking to make a softball point that our Texas and United States flags stand in large part for our right to use stuff and then to toss it away.
Yet there is the picture as seen at an auto demolition yard near the Houston Ship Channel. There sure are a lot of cars in that lot.
So make of it what you will. See the picture using both nuance, and a recognition of what the photo shows--Even if unintentionally--clearly enough.
(Photo copyright 2011 Neil Aquino.)
I don't think it's necessarily hypocritical to be against consumption, while consuming things yourself. It's awfully difficult to break out of this system we're in.
But we very may well be seeing the beginning of the end of this system, with the uprisings currently going on in several Countries... If this isn't it, it's going to come soon. It is unsustainable, this life we're living. Truly.
I think we are seeing the beginnings of nothing short of the end of crapatalism as we know it. And this revolution will come last to lazy, fat America.
Hint: We lost our way somewhere..America was founded on freedom, NOT Corportism.
Frankly..the world's only chance, IS if consumerism ends very soon...
GO EGYPT!
Interesting observation and commentary.....
With your permission, another perspective.....
My employers own an old K-Mart store in west Housston taht has been turned into a storage facility. Inside storage "lockers" for personal items, and the 5 acre parking lot contains 237 old (and usually wrecked) automobiles, trailers, RV's and a few boats.
Contrary to your photo, this is CRAP that people don't need or use, but they don't want anybody ELSE to have it. To quote George Carlin, "MY crap is stuff, YOUR stiff is crap."
Over the past 25 years, an entire multi-billion $$$ industry has grown up based SOLELY on stuff people don't use but can't live with the thought of somebody else owning it. And, to guarantee that, they are willing to PAY somebody to watch it and make sure nobody takes it.
"What a country!"
Yakov Smirnoff
Cars get discarded when they are no longer useful to the owners, either by wearing or by being damaged beyond economical repair. Once they go to the scrap yard, the recycler may hang on to them for some time, waiting for scrap prices to improve. A few years back, every scrap yard in town was full over capacity because the price for steel had dropped. Once the prices went back up, the scrapyards emptied fairly quickly.