Good Morning Friends and Neighbors! The Reverend Squeaky-Eye has completed the Saturday morning chores around the Fortress. The birds are fed and the walk is swept and laundry is a-churning.
A few evenings ago the Rev was hanging with some of his esteemed compeers, sipping on a bubbly water, whilst others enjoyed their oat sodas. The discussion, as at all of our gatherings, was boisterous, varied, and eclectic. The proprietor of this fine establishment and I were discussing consumer debt and consumption. I know this is a shock to you, my Brethren, but it is true.
In the course of our conversation, my most worthy Brother related a recent conversation he had had with some mutual friends. It seems that while holiday shopping for their three year old son, they had spent $300. Three hundred dollars on a three year old! I was, quite frankly, shocked. This discussion caused me to do a little snooping into our holiday spending habits. Statistics on consumer spending tend to vary wildly, but some of the figures I have found show holiday spending on the average of about $650 per adult person polled.
Before the Rev's genetic envelope became a 6'-4" teenager, he enjoyed toys as much as any kid I have met. Many were the days, however, when I would find him joyfully playing with, or inside, a big cardboard box, while the toy that had recently been packaged in the box sat idle nearby. Brothers and Sisters, this extravagance of consumption is a plague on us, and we have let it happen. The corporations are only able to sell us cheap, plastic crap because we buy cheap plastic crap, and lots of it. Kids are perfectly capable of being happy, joyous and free, without piles and piles of toys moldering beside them while they watch children's television whose only aim is to sell more piles of cheap junk.
The Rev would like to throw all of the blame for this onto the slippery shoulders of the Down-Pressor man, but alas, he cannot. It is we who are at fault, my Brethren, for giving the Corporations a window into our children's minds. Infomercials, thinly disguised as cartoons, stream into our homes, and into our children's consciousness, because we allow it to happen. If we give the Corporate Demons access to our children's minds, they are only too happy to oblige, planting the seeds of consumerism in the fertile soils of younger and younger brains. The Down-Pressor is not only happy, but eager, to make consumer zombies of our young people. Remember, "Start 'em Young" was always the moto of the tobacco companies!
Sisters and Brothers, we are the ones who choose our traditions and our values. We all, as individuals, parents, and members or our communities, choose what messages are beneficial. It is each of us, my Brethren, that can see the falseness of the Down-Pressor's unctuous and omnipresent stream of manipulative codswallop. We must not allow the Corporations to turn our children into a generation of consumer automatons. This is their constant desire, make no mistake Friends and Neighbors.
My Brethren, the Rev encourages each of you to lavish love and affection on all of the members of your families and communities, both during the holidays, and throughout the year. The Rev loves giving and receiving presents, and encourages this wonderful tradition. What I am urging all of us to do, including myself, is to look to our own traditions and values for what is reasonable and appropriate during the holidays. Why should we settle for the corporate view of the holiday tradition? The Corporations would offer us a soiled parody of a tradition, whose only aim is to enrich the Down-Pressor. Our own traditions of family and friends and community have served us well for generations. I implore all of us to enrich ourselves, and our fellows, by tapping into the wealth that our own traditions offer us.
Sisters, know the Down-Pressor's deceit for what it is, for there the truth is not in it! Brothers, shield and nurture our children, teaching them about that which has real value, according to our esteemed traditions! Whether your holiday season tradition is Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or naked Wiccan dancing, the Rev encourages all of our Brethren to wrap each other in the tradition of love.
Once again folks, Keep The Faith and Fight The Power!!!
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