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capitalism and Thanksgiving
Nov. 28th, 2023 11:56 amI find it amazing and daunting to see how the capitalist machine took a holiday that has very little that's commercializable to it (you buy food; you may buy tickets to visit family--that's it) and turned it into a multiday festival of consumerism of all flavors.
Black Friday--buy buy buy from major retailers of all stripes!
Small Business Saturday--don't forget the little guys, especially those near you! Buy buy buy!
Cyber Monday--*wringing hands* But what about the online vendors? Please cast some money their way too! Buy buy buy!
Giving Tuesday--oh yeah! And, uh... please don't forget to sink some funds into nonprofits, charities, and the like. Good works can soothe the consumer soul! Donate donate donate!
Black Friday--buy buy buy from major retailers of all stripes!
Small Business Saturday--don't forget the little guys, especially those near you! Buy buy buy!
Cyber Monday--*wringing hands* But what about the online vendors? Please cast some money their way too! Buy buy buy!
Giving Tuesday--oh yeah! And, uh... please don't forget to sink some funds into nonprofits, charities, and the like. Good works can soothe the consumer soul! Donate donate donate!
Exchange (airport poem, 8-30-2022
Aug. 30th, 2022 08:48 pmI had to pick up Wakanomori from the airport today, and these thoughts went through my head, looking at the currency exchange booth)
Exchange
Give me paper money in different colors & sizes w/metallic strips/clear windows & the faces of unfamiliar important people/flowers/mountains.
Look, I brought shells/rare seeds/these diamonds washed clean in the blood of innocents
surely
we can trade
Exchange
Give me paper money in different colors & sizes w/metallic strips/clear windows & the faces of unfamiliar important people/flowers/mountains.
Look, I brought shells/rare seeds/these diamonds washed clean in the blood of innocents
surely
we can trade
where moth and rust destroy
Jul. 6th, 2021 07:12 pm“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy (Matthew 6:19)
That's a common enough adage and moral lesson, but for some reason the portrayal of it in our current Colombian series was visually super affecting and got me thinking.
One of the secondary characters is an army officer, undercover in a mission to take down the supply portion of a drug operation, but he seems at times to have lost himself in his role, though he insists to one of the main characters that that's not the case. In a scene about halfway through the series, he hies himself off on his own in a canoe, drags it ashore, and heads off into some portion of the rain forest armed with a map. He digs into the wet earth and uncovers two pots that contain guns on top and underneath---
Cash money! Benjamins!
Cackling with delight, he plunges his hand in and pulls out a fistful.
And then...
It comes apart in his hands. Turns out a shallow grave in a humid location isn't the best storage decision for paper.
And the character is almost driven mad ...
(The actor's name is Toto Vega. The show is called La Ley Secreta/Undercover Law)
In that moment, the money goes from being a symbol and source of power to rotted paper. When an authorized agent prints money, it's like it imbues the money with a kind of soul. A soul of commerce, I guess. A soul of exchange. No longer a piece of paper, now it's a token that gives you access to things.
But he went and buried it in the ground, like a dead thing, and deprived of its role as a token of exchange, it did in fact die. And now he's holding mere corpses.
.... Well then! That concludes my weird meditation on cash.
That's a common enough adage and moral lesson, but for some reason the portrayal of it in our current Colombian series was visually super affecting and got me thinking.
One of the secondary characters is an army officer, undercover in a mission to take down the supply portion of a drug operation, but he seems at times to have lost himself in his role, though he insists to one of the main characters that that's not the case. In a scene about halfway through the series, he hies himself off on his own in a canoe, drags it ashore, and heads off into some portion of the rain forest armed with a map. He digs into the wet earth and uncovers two pots that contain guns on top and underneath---
Cash money! Benjamins!
Cackling with delight, he plunges his hand in and pulls out a fistful.
And then...
It comes apart in his hands. Turns out a shallow grave in a humid location isn't the best storage decision for paper.
And the character is almost driven mad ...
(The actor's name is Toto Vega. The show is called La Ley Secreta/Undercover Law)
In that moment, the money goes from being a symbol and source of power to rotted paper. When an authorized agent prints money, it's like it imbues the money with a kind of soul. A soul of commerce, I guess. A soul of exchange. No longer a piece of paper, now it's a token that gives you access to things.
But he went and buried it in the ground, like a dead thing, and deprived of its role as a token of exchange, it did in fact die. And now he's holding mere corpses.
.... Well then! That concludes my weird meditation on cash.
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