Well, it’s almost here…Black Friday. A time for all consumers to do one thing; CONSUME!!!
Time for the merchants to feed the cravings of their pigeons.
Get up at half past dark, throw on your clothes, and start driving even before you wake up. Battle your way through the war zone called Department Store. Fill your carts with whatever you can wrestle away from fellow combatants. Then, swipe your credit card before you have time to add up the charges.
When you finally make it back home, after completing a dozen or so “military campaigns”, you unload your car just before the suspension gives way. As you drag the spoils of war into your “headquarters”, you barely make it to the easy chair.
Black Friday has consumed you!
The store owners just about love you to death!
Black Friday reminds me of another plague, commonly known as “The Black Plague”, or Black Death. Here’s a bit of information for you from Wikipedia:
“The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1348–50 CE.[1][2][3] Although there were several competing theories as to the etiology of the Black Death, analysis of DNA from victims in northern and southern Europe published in 2010 and 2011 indicates that the pathogen responsible was the Yersinia pestis bacterium, probably causing several forms of plague.[4][5]
The Black Death is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching the Crimea by 1346.[6] From there, it was most likely carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships. Spreading throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, the Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60% of Europe’s total population.[7] All in all, the plague reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million down to 350–375 million in the 14th century.”
Did you notice how the disease spread?Sick, flea infested rats were regular travelers on MERCHANT SHIPS; traveling back and forth between Europe and the rich Orient. People just had to have silk and other oriental commodities, even if it killed them.
Just how much more consumerism can we take? How much discontentment can we swallow before it eventually poisons our nation beyond recovery?
If the merchants would have said “no, we won’t trade”, people would have lived.
If the consumers would have used self control regarding certain things, they probably would have lived longer.
There’s always gonna be an infected rat, running around, spreading the “fever”!
But we don’t have to buy it.
Jan Grace 