“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
verified knowledge reigned supreme and consumerism breathed its last breath”
As the magical, no pun intended, holiday (root words: holy
day) roll upon us hastening in a new winter solstice and a new western
Gregorian calendar year, there is no better time to contemplate the holiday in
historical, ideological, and economic perspectives in order to develop a clear
understanding of what exactly we are dealing with under all of the beautiful mass
produced images of peace of earth, hope, and selfless giving. I must admit that I have come to peace with
the end of the year holidays as an American cultural time of year, and
certainly enjoy the time off with our family, but I still stand firm against
the historical inaccuracies of the scriptural religious events at the center of
the holiday, the individualism of the religion, unhealthy norms and values of
the holiday, and the excessive consumerism, wasteful spending and accumulated debt
that is associated with the holiday.
Briefly, the history of the holiday, and essentially the
religion behind it, has been verified as possessing historical inaccuracies
based on possible scriptural plagiarisms.
The holiday itself surrounds the virgin birth of Jesus, a man who very
little historical documentation exists about outside of the gospel accounts,
both synoptic and those not included in church canon after the councils of
Nicea and Laodicea. History shows us
that the virgin birth story was not originated with Christianity as there are
many pre-Christian virgin birth stories in various cultures to include Mithra,
Buddha, Krishna, Odysseus, Romulus, Dionysus, Horus, Attis, and a handful of
others. It can also be rationalized and
researched that the birth of the historical figure of Jesus, if he existed, did
not occur at the winter solstice of December 25th of the Gregorian
calendar, and possibly not even in the year marking the transition from B.C.E
(before common era) and C.E. (common era), and that the church placed the
holiday of Christmas over the winter solstice celebration of Saturnalia, which
was recorded as a celebration with high levels of drunken and sexual
debauchery. Ideologically speaking, the
holiday concept is not a healthy one, especially under a capitalist society and
an international stage of trade blocs and globalization, for the future for our
children. This doesn’t just include the
irrational religious ideologies with no historical authentication that
influences congressional politics from the domestic level to imperialism across
the international stage; it begins at the micro-level of pagan traditions, the
holiday tradition of excessive spending, and the ideology of jolly old
Santa. The Christmas tree, so
reminiscent of the maypole, seems harmless enough if you do not consider all of
the foreign manufactured gifts, many of them symbols of consumerism, and the
current dominated condition of the American job market that is consumer service
heavy. Santa on the other hand would
seem to be an especially unhealthy ideology for children, and I certainly have
never allowed you children to believe in such fallacy. What kind of culture allows their children to
believe in magical lies about a magical, wait…what the hell is Santa? A Spirit?, who brings free presents to
children in a some twisted social ritual which prevents, or delays, their real
world understanding of the domestic or international market, labor hours and
wages, Interest rates on credit cards, trade blocs and manufacturing, and the
foolishness that anything in this world is free and given (even though there is
quite a bit of fraud in government assistance both domestically and foreign)? How shameful is it to see unappreciative children
tearing through the wrappings of presents and quickly tossing hard earned wages,
in the form of foreign manufactured gifts, to the side with no understanding of
how hard a parent worked, or of where these consumer gifts were manufactured,
or economic consequences, whether good or bad, to the family-unit purchasing
these gifts. The light of Christmas
gift-giving illuminated at 8-12% interest rates as Americans, and people
world-wide, plunge into various levels of consumer debt to celebrate merry
consumerism while the private sector, so talented at painting marketable
Christmas images of giving across every form of mass media outlet and to every
marketable demographic, amasses another annual seasonable capital profit on the
backs of the people. Thanks to regional
trade blocs that have emerged under globalization, the state has agreed to many
international trade agreements to eliminate tariffs from products coming from so-called
lesser developed countries and, in doing so, has agreed to rely solely on
federal, state and sales tax, thus allowing the private sector to maximize
profits while the individual consumers pay the state in the absence of tariffs. Don’t get me wrong, it is a satisfying
feeling to do nice things for your children and provide them with some nice
things, but to do so as a ritual that becomes detached from reality and
responsibilities, both to families and state, becomes an unhealthy tradition
urged on by inorganic corporate processed images of a mythical white man with a
beard. As I told my oldest daughter once,
if there IS ever a bearded white man in our house in the middle of the night,
you better take serious caution and wake me the hell up! The younger siblings will be disillusioned to
the Santa foolishness as quickly as their older sister was, and I encourage any
parent to do the same. Some traditions
are simply meant to be broken. In
addition, I find it completely irrational and unsafe for parents to take their
children, whether younger than 8 or in their teenage years, and allow them to
sit upon some Santa-dressed stranger’s lap for pictures without actually
knowing who is underneath that costume.
Yes, the holiday is capitalistic-based consumerism, and nothing displays
the true economic motives of the thirsty capitalist than the creation of a
shopping holiday called Black Friday where mobs of Americans trample, mob, and
fight over manufactured items at 40% off retail price, of course manufactured
in foreign states, while behaving in the most uncivilized manner imaginable.
Let us quickly look at capitalism in the age of globalism as
it pertains to gifts under the Christmas tree.
Private sector corporations will manufacture in lesser developed
countries with the lowest wage requirements in order to produce manufactured
items for consumption, from Disney princesses to electronics, which are shipped
into consumer states such as the United States, especially at Christmas. Economic benefits for the consumer state have
already been reduced by the elimination of tariffs under regional trade blocks or
bilateral trade agreements. These blocs that
reduce tariffs allow private sector corporations to import raw materials into
the lesser developed states with the lowest wage requirements without having to
pay importation tariffs, manufacture the product in a lesser developed state at
the lowest wages, and then export the manufactured product out of the lesser
developed state and import it into the consumer state without tariffs, in this
case the United States, where the products will be consumed resulting in the
private sector profit being maximized.
Yet, how does the consumer state benefit? The private sector pays minimum tariffs and
taxes, and the bulk sales and domestic taxes fall on the labor of the
individual consumer. The consumer state
no longer manufactures products or exports natural resources of value,
therefore developing jobs mainly in the service industry based on this
capitalist consumerism as it eats itself to feed itself. What happens to
the consumer state when the population becomes disillusioned by consumerism or
the state’s debt to GDP ratio surpasses 100% and consumerism dies of its own
accord?
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