prayers to Baal

By the millions this year, during the days immediately following Thanksgiving, otherwise self-respecting Americans of all religious backgrounds, socio-economic strata, and ethnic heritages will dutifully bow before god Baal, the ancient deity of wasteful excess. Featured prominently in the Christian bible's old testament, Baal seduced the children of Israel while they were waiting for Moses to return from the Mount Sinai; within a short time they went from considerate and caring individuals to rapacious, lustful, and greedy cunts hellbent on grabbing, stuffing, wanting, needing, taking. Intended to be taken more as a metaphor than as an historical event, the seduction of the faithful by Baal was so great, and so extensive, that it caused Moses to ruin the first copy of the ten commandments, whereupon he slunk back up the mountain to obtain – from his jealous and spiteful god YHWH – another set.

The seduction continues this year during the celebrations of excessive and unnecessary consumption referred to in the press as Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. Once again, otherwise considerate individuals will shake off the cruel yoke of frugal moderation in order to buy slightly-newer copies of things they already have, purchase gifts for distant relatives who wanted something else entirely, and generally act as if they were total fucking jerks while racking up personal debt on their credit cards and mortgaging their children's future in order to buy television sets slightly wider than the ones they already have. Once again, tens of millions of self-proclaimed Christians will spit in the face of YHWH, he who demands that all praise be given to him and him alone, he who calls for the death and banishment of those who mock his name, his power, his glory, his and his alone, now and forever. (Failing to follow the clearly-stated directives of one's god amounts to mocking that god's very existence.)

Do these poor fools realize that they're perpetuating the culture of me-first consumerism that is surely and steadily dragging America down into sad oblivion? Do they see the hypocrisy of driving to their churches in gleaming cars while dressed in fancy and expensive clothes in order to scrape perfunctorily before Jesus – a god who urges them to give as much to the poor as they can bear to give and to live their lives in simplicity, humility, and moderation – when in reality they sit in their single-family homes hoarding greenbacks and coveting baubles? Last year's retail sales numbers and this year's sales projections indicate that millions of Americans believe in Baal above Jesus and in consumption above compassion, that they allow advertising firms to dictate their lives, and that they have succumbed fully to the hollow grasp of their black and twisted egos. No amount of talking about this foul erosion of our nation's erstwhile and honorable frugality will make things better; I rail on this blog against these excesses just as my father once railed against them from his pulpit, all but begging his parishioners to choose love for one another over love for self. But, just as his words fell mostly on dead ears, so I feel do mine, woeful warnings wantonly ignored. If people wish to violate the tenets of their religion in order to save a couple dollars, that is their choice; if they would rather give in to the siren-call of conspicuous consumption than nurture in their hearts a wondrous and peaceful tranquility, who am I to say that they are wrong to do so? And besides, when the savings are this good, it doesn't matter if a few more people get trampled this year than last – it just means less competition. Save sanity, serenity, and soul – boycott black Friday!

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

on the United Slaves of America

Do you often drive to malls and to other places of direction-less shopping, only to buy something you don't really need? Do you buy the newest gadgets just as they are released, spending your hard-earned money without a second thought? Do you while speaking in polite company wax suddenly poetic about television shows, explaining their plot-lines instead of making conversation, speaking emphatically about people whom you do not know personally and who do not actually exist? If you have answered Yes to any of these questions, you are more than likely self-enslaved to conspicuous consumerism, to driving around in your car wasting gasoline without a clue as to your purpose, to accruing superfluous debt, and to staring at the compelling and intricately woven tales that emerge regularly from a flickering plastic box (which you likely bought at high price and labored diligently to mount upon your living-room wall).

Can you imagine living now, today, without electricity? Can you imagine living in a world in which electricity were in sporadic or limited supply? Can you imagine not being able to purchase, at any time of day or night, as much cheap gasoline as you to wish buy at any one of thousands of separate, well-lit retail locations? Do you consider resource-conservation, composting, and recycling to be a waste of time? Have you become so addicted to your pocket computer that your mind has lost its ability to reason, to recall important information, to think for itself, or to keep itself occupied past the setting of the sun? If you see a reflection of yourself in any of these scalding but poorly-worded questions, you are a slave to Big Oil, a slave to your own automobile, a slave to electricity, a slave to your electrical devices, a slave to the white men who own the electrical companies, a slave to the coal that makes the steam that runs the electrical plants, a slave to the railways that transport the coal, and a slave to the whims and fancies of the fat-cat fuckers on Wall Street who trade in and control the price of coal futures (and who, by fiat, trade in and control you and your ability to Pursue your Happiness).

If you are a self-respecting, happiness-loving patriotic American, you would do well to fight self-enslavement to any external thing, person, device, physical condition, and state-of-mind. The patriot is self-sufficient in order to preserve his country's limited natural and national resources and to make sure his (self-imposed) need does not affect his country's ability to provide for the common defence. The patriot does not rest her hopes and dreams on external conditions such as bandwidth speeds or back-to-school-sales – rather, she maintains a pure and loving heart into which and from which all the Blessings of Liberty flow; she keeps her heart in its nebulous state and denies herself all but the basic necessities; she is a tough and hardened operator who minds not cold, heat, nor personal privation – she focuses rather on providing for the general Welfare, on establishing Justice, and on forming a more perfect Union in her own life and, by extension, in the life of her vast and beautiful nation.

A mere one hundred and fifty years ago, we Americans went to war amongst ourselves to battle the evils of slavery (among other reasons), yet now, in 2012, we pay good money to enslave ourselves willingly to TV shows, digital gadgets, internal home lighting, pillow-top mattresses, rich and fatty foods, automobiles, shopping malls, and gyms. One of my ancestor died fighting the evils of slavery, shot by a sniper's bullet during the battle of Vicksburg; by remaining vigilant to the ever-grasping, ever-enticing tendrils of our ridiculous modern society and of their power to destroy my virtue, I shall make sure his sacrifice was not made in vain.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

p.s. the author would like to point that he is no less a slave in these matters than most other Americans living today

on ambitions in cash

  During a recent conversation about the merits of socialism, my counterpart argued that ambition, ingenuity, and creativity would disappear in the absence of monetary remuneration for labor. In other words, he claimed that people would stop working if they stopped getting paid money to work, that ambition would vanish if the potential for gain were to also vanish. If this theory were true, fathers would stop showing up to coach their kids' little league teams, our interstate hiking trails would become overgrown for a lack of volunteers to keep them cleared of brush, and nothing would transpire within the walls of churches other than those tasks performed by paid clergy.

  Unknowable man-hours of labor are performed every year in the United States for which the laborers are not paid. This labor is performed to satisfy an ideal, to give back to the community, even to calm that deep inner need to do something positive with which the unlucky among are burdened. I believe this zeal to provide for the common good is inherent to all persons (although most of us have it stamped or beaten out of us at one point or other in our lives). I also believe that our current economic system has ensnared this zeal, and subjugated it to the fleeting, hollow satisfaction of conspicuous consumption.

  It is not as if the people are bad, or shiftless, it is that we have unlearned to cherish those things that are precious beyond their monetary value.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp