Can't put my finger on it

There's something wrong with us.

Our culture - American Culture - (go ahead laugh, I'll wait) - American Culture is so screwed up, I'm struggling for words to define what I mean.

Let me explain.

People who know me, know I really don't like TV very much. I think Television was an incredible tool, designed to bring information and knowledge to the masses in a way not seen since Gutenberg invented the mass printing press.
And, that tool was (at least at first) used very effectively, until someone, somewhere decided television was also the perfect way to advance an agenda. Then slowly, so very, very slowly, we hardly noticed, TV was manipulated to convey messages to us about everything, from food purchases, to clothing styles, to social behavior. Now, I'm not so naive to think that social manipulation never occurred prior to the idiot box being in every American home. My point is, it's become so prevalent in our culture that we go to that box for our very thoughts on how we're "supposed" to live.
What we should buy, what we should wear, how we should interact with our spouses and children are all very artfully portrayed for us right there on TV.
Leaving aside the interpersonal aspects (because that's a whole 'nother blog post), the fact that we've been turned into a society of consumers rather than citizens ought to scare the hell out of you.
Ever notice that people aren't called PEOPLE anymore? We're called CONSUMERS.
Because that's what we are. It's what we DO. We CONSUME.

We consume everything - so much so, that I can't help but equate CONSUMER with Glutton or Scavenger...
The American public is no longer a group of citizens who live in the same country under the same flag, working towards a brighter future, we're a group of consumers, hell bent on getting anything and everything we want (whether we need it or not) and fuck the rest of the world, we're Americans, we're ENTITLED to the best.
The problem with a consumer society, is it requires constant infusions of money to make it survive. The damage that cult of consumerism creates is horrifying.
People always after the next best thing, throwing out what is still useful, but outdated. Discarding perfectly good things, simply because a "better one" is available. Filling up landfills and disregarding the cost to humanity and the environment at the true cost of producing all of this "stuff"...
Wastefully spending on stupid, trivial, shit, simply because they can - except now, they can't.
Job losses, housing values dropping, price increases, credit limitations - all of these things are effectively encroaching on our "God given right to consume!"
But we've been so well conditioned, that we still want everything newer and better, even when we can make do with older and maybe not so bright and shiny.
What we've done is consumed ourselves into abject poverty. We've been manipulated through media to believe we need newer, better, faster, even if it means digging yourself into a lifetime of debt to achieve it, and the really sinister thing about that is, it will never end. There will always be something new to buy.
There is no such thing as perpetual growth, eventually something somewhere has to fail - we're at the dawn of that failure.
And for that you can thank the stupidity box (or maybe flatpanel/LCD) in your livingroom.