We had a dream……and in that dream we found ourselves trapped deep within the thronging temple of temptation known as New York City’s Times Square as X-P “W” (definition below) shouted down a fiery sermon from the heavens above via skyscraping Jumbo-Trons, proclaiming, "People! Spend more to save America, and you too, shall be saved!".
The mesmerized crowd around us stared upward as every subconscious mind on Times Square hypnotically absorbed the almighty message meant to mobilize them into martyrdom and saving the world with excessive consumption without thought of the cost.
Just when it seemed the crowd had been fully converted to consume without consequence, the sound of music started to reverberate loudly off of the buildings bordering the Square. Millions of glassy eyes dropped to watch as the ‘Not Buying It Band’ began to march into Times Square from 42nd Street flamboyantly followed by the Reverend Billy and his ‘Stop Shopping Gospel Choir’ who were singing out their “Stop Shopping” theme song as if our very souls depended on it.
Our dream then showed the crowd’s truth-seeking migration toward the televangelist front-man for the ‘Church of Life After Shopping’ to hear what this proselyte had to say. The Reverend Billy was not only a man who looked like Elvis, talked like Elvis, but refused to shop like Elvis; he was a man with a serious, life-changing message.
Reverend Billy declared us to be in the midst of the “Shopocalypse”, and he wasn’t talking fire and brimstone. It was time, according to the Reverend, to slay the dragon and replace the Devil’s holy days of Black Friday and Boxing Day with sanctioned boycotts and “Buy Nothing” days.
When the crowd began to jeer and hurl their credit cards at him in protest, Reverend Billy’s body lurched forward without warning, then it began to writhe and shake uncontrollably as he lapsed into a credit card exorcism by way of response. As the exorcism wound down, the crowd shifted and moved into sheepish retreat with their recovered credit cards - CRV codes irretrievably obscured and PIN numbers permanently erased from memory.
And then we woke up and realized that we’ve been sold down the river. And we’re not talking trickle down.
Apparently the bill of goods we’ve been sold has strategically passed the buck onto the credit card balances of those who can least afford it by seducing them into thinking that they must buy, buy, and buy some more in order to save America’s economy. Yet it seems that those with the financial means to put a serious dent in the nation’s obscene deficit by simply paying their fair share of tax get to have it both ways because the more the rest of us spend, the higher their bottom line, and the more they get to keep.
What we really want to know, though, is if every citizen were to run their personal finances like corporate America, how would life in America and the economy look then?
We generously lend credit to the tireless work of the charismatic Reverend Billy and his Church of Life After Shopping. We’ve enjoyed his message immensely.
Control the money, rule the world. Read between the lines and learn how to take your power back in our ‘Dream Sequence’ October 4, 2010 posting "More Moves To Dominate The World".
