10.04.2008

AOL Time Warner and What's Wrong With America

Yes, I'm still going on about this. AOL Shopping had a pictorial warning older women not to dress too sexily. Cougar, indeed. My initial anger has given way to deeper thoughts 'on this crisis.' (Don't you love that phrase? Will anybody give me $700 billion dollars now?)

Patriotic American electrons are being manipulated, in the form of the Internet, to tell women that they have to buy certain clothes. It's all part of the media machine telling the public to consume, consume, consume.

Remember after September 11? We were not advised to enlist, nor to become a paramedic, but to buy, buy, buy. We have built a culture and an economy based on relentless consumerism. What a surprise it didn't last.

I will be denounced as naive for observing that content is being skewed to sell things. It began so long ago.

But after the financial collapse on Wall Street, hasn't the message filtered down to AOL Time Warner web site staff? Americans can no longer buy-buy-buy. In fact, we will have to stop buying whether we want to or not.

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