Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Another year, another scam. Another year, more commercial crap.


You might think that I, as a harden advocate of capitalism, would love Christmas and the frantic shopping sprees that puts a lot of cash into merchant pockets. That is what most people are taught, that capitalism is about buying, selling, profits and stamping all over a sickly grandma to get the last toy in the store. It is not.
Capitalism is about value and property rights of that value. Although commercialism, advertising and shopping sprees may very well be part of capitalism - definitely more so then those socialist ´paradises´ where you need to stand in line for 10 hours to get a loaf of bread – such things would rather be the consequence of free choices on the markets, not an inadvertently building-block of capitalism.  
However the hysterical scam we see nowadays is not just commercialism, it is commercialism with no or very little value. What I mean by that is that we are not getting each other the perfect gifts or hand each other gold, instead we buy crappy useless things or toys that will fall apart long before the next xmas hype. Sure it is still about family and great food and as such Christmas is a fantastic holiday, but I remember that already at a very young age I started to ask questions; why just that day? Why hand out presents that no one wants? I think I was around 10-11 years old when I first said that we should give each other money (if any presents are necessary) and then eat and have fun together.
And then we also have the scam of the season itself, something I cannot, and never could, overlook.
You know that there was this guy that was born around 25th of Dec, born of a virgin, was impregnated by the Holy Ghost and his birth was followed by a star in the East? This guy was of Royal decent and the birth was adorned by 3 kings. He later became a teacher at 12, was baptized at 30 and he had 12 disciples. He was called the light, and the son of God, and he performed miracles such as walking on water and raising of the dead. At his death he was crucified, was dead for 3 days and then was resurrected.
Yes, I am, of course, as you probably already figured out, talking about the Egyptian “sun”/sky God Horus.
Jesus came a lot later and he copied this formula, just as many other God´s did throughout the ancient world.
We can prove, scientifically and historically, that the Old Testament was stolen almost in it’s entirely from the Sumerians. The New Testament in turn was stolen mostly from the Egyptian religion and their book of the dead.
But okay, let’s say that we buy the concept that God did a rectification of earlier misconceptions and did send his Son down to us and things then, partly or fully, occurred as described in the Bible. Even if so, according to what most believe nowadays Jesus, if existed (probably not since there are no historical records outside of the Bible), was born in the summer. Also it seems that not only did the ´birth´ get moved to pagan dates around 22th, 24-25th of December, his death was probably also moved to fit better with Jewish and pagan traditions around Easter. It is all about marketing and perception baby.
Consequently the entire foundation of Christmas is built on a faulty premise and it is a holiday with crappy commercialism induced by tons of lying commercials telling us to buy things we do not need and, even worse; to buy crappy things with no or little value.
I still like Christmas, if spent with family and with lots of great foods and snaps and beer and Glögg (mulled wine) and more food, and of course food. It is a good, traditional way of getting people together, but personally I would rather see that people did so more often, all over the year. Christmas is too much stress, too much pressure and way too much crap changing hands for no real objective reason.

Cheers!