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Monday, July 16, 2007

Consumerism SUCKS

Some of you who know me well will know how opposed I am to people blindly buying in to marketing campaigns without really analysing the product or its necessity to anyone's life.

Working in financial services, I am daily exposed to people who cannot say no to anything that is well-marketed - meaning marketed in such a way that these people think they 'need' such products. In 99% of cases, there's no 'need' at all. There's 'want' and 'entitlement' and 'image.'

Diamonds and the diamond trade are a case in point. The international perception that diamonds are rare is the result of a 80 year long marketing campaign by one company. The damage, death, poverty and war that has resulted from the De Beers campaign is more devastating than all recent wars combined due to the irreparable destruction of numerous cultures and countries, most of which are in Africa.

Click this story for a chronological expose of how YOU came to believe the hype about diamonds.

Now go be a rebel and start analysing every marketing campaign you're exposed to.

Oh, and go see SICKO while you're at it ... and 9/11: Fear and The Selling of the American Empire... and then apply the "art" of immoral and unethical manipulation to global warming....

Arghghg.. I feel a rant coming on.

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