This show highlighted several ongoing nagging problems.

First, how do you deal with the lack of human presence at the big box stores, the Internet taking over so much retail and service, and predatory practices by the “new Monopolies” -cell phone, cable, etc? It seems fruitless to get angry at the powerless customer “service” talking head in front of you, and trying to work your way up the corporate food chain in these massive companies seems almost impossible.

So what do you do? – social media them to death, like Gary Choronzy did – report them to the Better Business Bureau? Simply boycott them and everybody on your Facebook and your email lists that you are boycotting them?

This problem evidences two contradictory trends in this mixed-up decade: first, everyone has an individual sense of empowerment they never had before , where an e-mail “send” button can connect you to thousands of people instantly, and instant access to websites’ “full disclosure” of what used to be held behind closed doors at many corporations, and social media allows instantaneous sharing with thousands upon thousands of people who might be in a similar situation as you. The new media provide a platform for breast-beating that is unprecedented. Conversely, as Mom and Pop stores are killed by giant web-based purveyors like Amazon and big box stores like Best Buy and Home Depot, our individual, personal ability to connect with other individual persons has been pushed away to the point where we can feel powerless.

How do you “Fight The Power”?