Heretics And Their Follies

The natives of Jesustan are inscrutable.

A couple of days ago, The Washington Post had an article on a movement to reject consumerism and predatory global capitalism. Some people, apparently, do so by refusing to shop at the sales on the day after Thanksgiving. Much of the article consisted of the views of a young woman on the subject; readers were also treated to a photograph of her in the process of rejecting capitalism. This took the form of working on an Apple notebook ($ 2,300,394,837,987.99 before taxes) while sipping coffee at Starbucks (starts at $ 9,384,498,879,223,387.99).

Neither the newspaper, nor evidently the young lady in concern, saw anything strange about this. I am sure there is code here to be decrypted, which will then unlock a larger understanding of Jesustan. As things stand, however, the graven image of the young lady at the Starbucks in Tenleytown, Washington DC, seems to me to be symptomatic of a certain malaise that afflicts heretics in Jesustan. You can save the environment by shopping more, they seem to think, only shopping differently. You can live healthy even if you eat helpings of the same size they give for lunch to elephants at New Delhi zoo, as long as it comes from Whole Foods and has a label marked organic (what exactly is an inorganic cucumber and where is it to be found? And can you play deviant games with it?).

For these heretics, salvation lies within the official faith of Jesustan; its just that they think the holy relics ought not come out of a can. Personally, give me the can any day. At least you can use it for target practice. Now, if the lady really wanted to subvert the system, she should have ripped off her clothes and started casually playing with herself whilst seated at Starbucks. I'm not sure The Washington Post would then have carried an article on the subject, but rest assured, a fair few would-be shoppers would most certain have paused to think. Alright, someone would have stopped for the sheer prurient pleasure, but someone, I'm sure, would have found the spectacle reflection-inducing.