Victims of our own humanity. The Feeling.

The particular "feeling" disseminated here was premised upon the unique diversity of The United States...as someone who was born there in the late eighties, I have the perspective of the past two decades from which to observe this gradual erosion of the country's ineffable identity. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone intimate with the city--in fact, I've been pondering this for years. The transition from a melting pot to a corporate enclave has taken half a century, in 2011 the city is no longer what it was; the arts communities cannot afford the rents, the quirky bars and night-spots have been replaced by The GAP, Starshmucks, and a vapid variety of other Yuppie venues. The kids who used to come to the city to be musicians, actors, writers have moved to to the suburbs; corporate-conformity does not blend with an edgy, gilded neon-washed metropolis--just the opposite. It instills recognizable signatures and confirmations of its conquest. In a sense, the eradication of this once mysterious, lively and unpredictable mystique called Los Angeles is emblematic/symptomatic of the corporate takeover of our lives and politics over the last twenty years. Even in the late nineties you could walk the city at night and still feel this unique vitality...now it is gone. Dominant cultural trends entail consequences. We are spiraling into a corporate culture in so many respects--many that we fail to recognize because they have been so gradual. In the seventies there was popular ferment, political-action groups, lively dialogue, a diverse political culture that demanded progressive change, and petitioned our leaders--even questioning their very authority. Today we are dismally pacified by superficial technologies that constitute an anemic substitute for more direct human interaction. We are becoming more isolated and more conformed to a corporate lifestyle that has been inculcated through a generation of a predatory commercial culture and the false-materialism it celebrates--this can only intensify in the near future. Today's younger generation is unaware of the degree to which their minds and impulses have been molded by a sinister commercial-culture, they have no point of contrast, they don't regard the culture they inhabit as a culmination of overtly materialistic trends. The difference is apparent to those of us wise enough to remember the history of our nation: thirty years ago when a group of people sat down together, the conversation involved diverse politics and social examination, today that same group will invariably parrot the latest celebrity break-up, or discuss the newest cell-phone being marketed. Corporate America and the Madison Avenue hucksters who work for them have converted Americans into a placid consumer-culture, obsessed with new cars and techno-toys.