GEAR, BIKES, INSTRUMENTS, TRAVEL... There really is no end. I am no different from every other middle-class punk who always has more to buy than money to spend.
For reflection:
Colossians 3:5
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
Jeremiah 6:13
From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit.
I saw this on Yahoo today about the changing middle class. A number of the stats are snapshots instead of comparative numbers, which makes conclusions hard to nail down, but it's thought provoking all the same. The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking (15 July 2010)
Dissident Voice ran quite a few articles on this topic over the first half of the year:
By posting these links, I'm not trying to promote a middle-class consumptive way of life. But I am saying that I believe that increasing income disparity is a problem. These are complex and loaded statements.
For more on economics, listen to this Econocast conversation with Richard Horsley.
"[T]he title of two works, a speech [1930] and a booklet [1935]... in which Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests have commercially benefited from warfare."
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
2) Narco Cinema
Want to disappear down a rabbits' hole of cultural and ethical surrealism? Then this be for you:
Zimbardo's experiment shows that the power differential between those playing the roles of officers and inmates led quickly to social problems. In fact, the experiment was called off after just 6 days because the "experiment quickly grew out of hand. Prisoners suffered — and accepted — sadistic and humiliating treatment from the guards. The high level of stress progressively led them from rebellion to inhibition. By the experiment's end, many showed severe emotional disturbances" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbardo_experiment).
Between 9:30pm and 7:30am, I wrote more than 11 pages on the theology of missions (this paper for my intensive was due at 8am). To celebrate (after I slept) we watched I.O.U.S.A., a documentary about personal and national debt. Sobering. Having been interested in this topic for the past decade and a half, I found a fair amount repetitive, but it laid a necessary foundation. If you haven't seen it, do.
You may call this a cop-out, but I don't intend it to be: "Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Peter 1:13).
You may find this page interesting if you're an Adbusters reader. It looks at the holdings of seven media conglomerates--News Corp, Viacom, Walt Disney, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Sony & Bertelsmann.
Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire by William Cavanaugh -- Challenges churches to discern distinctively Christian economic practices. (Read a review from The Englewood Review of Books...)
Neal Templin describes the "Chocolate Malt-O-Meal Effect" in a nice little piece at the Wall Street Journal:
When I was four years old, I heard about a new hot cereal called Chocolate Malt-O-Meal. It sounded divine. So for my fifth birthday, I asked my parents for it. They bought me a box.
On my birthday, my mother made me a bowl as I sat at the table eagerly awaiting my just reward. I ate a couple of bites and quickly realized I hated the taste. I never had a second bowl.
Read the complete article to see where he goes with this--The Urge to Splurge (29 Jan '09).
