Surplus — Terrorised Into Being Consumers

Featuring George Bush’s famous “go-shopping-speech”; Castro responding with hymns to the anti-consumerist, advertising-free island of Cuba; Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer preaching that the computer will give us peace on earth, and “bring people together rather than isolate them”, Adbuster Kalle Lasn warns that advertising pollutes us mentally, that over-consumption is unsustainable, that we are running out of oil and there is a coming global economic collapse.

All of this needs to be dismantled says John Zerzan, anarcho-primitivist philosopher and author whose call for property damage has inspired many to take to the streets. “That is not mindless violence. Sitting there doing dope and watching MTV, then you go and get a job, just schlep along — to me that is violence,” he says. “We’re terrorised into being consumers.”