On materialism

"What bothers me the most is the rampant materialism in our society. It's not just celebrities; although, like you said (in *this* video) they're the ones that COULD be making the biggest positive impact. It's the poor, middle class and upper middle class (mostly), and the rich. When I park on campus, I too often pull up next to a monster truck. When I jog through the streets in my neighborhood, it's a sea of tinted windows and shiny rims.
Christmas just having recently passed, witnessing this just further fuels my anger. People can't/don't want to see the large problem with running out to retail stores and wasting money on piles of stuff so we can collectively celebrate our consumerism. I'm well aware of the drawbacks of communism and totalitarianism (Western European socialism is working the best right now), and I know you were joking about the totalitarian government thing. But how many years will it take before it becomes obvious that capitalism has caused more destruction over the last few decades than there would have been otherwise with communism keeping America's materialism at bay? The not-so-distant future when world hunger, poverty, and inequality spiral completely out of control."

-Tony C