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Since about the mid 20th century. Black friday has become a cherished holiday tradition in the United States, which occurs immediately. The friday after thanksgiving central to this tradition is an economic strategy whereby retailers offer high

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percentage discounts as a way to entice high traffic shopping , all of which is aimed at placing their profit margins out of the red and into the black, Hence black friday. Over the past decades, this

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christmas shopping tradition has grown increasingly violent and even deadly . Today's images of the black friday event usually involve a frenzied mob of people stampeding through the entrance of a major retail store, like stealth bombers in search

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of desired merchandise. Once they're targeted merchandise has been obtained, the shopping spree mission is only partially complete . The next obstacle is to ward off other would be buyers of your claimed laptop or flat screen television

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by entering into a relentless tug of war which may precipitate into a fight to the death. Okay, okay, listen to this television news report from an abc affiliated station in the san Francisco area, about

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a typical black friday scene, quote stores created a shopping frenzy on the day after thanksgiving that turned ugly and even violent here and across the country, shoppers fought over merchandise and in one case tramples others,

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the rush to get into a michigan walmart store when the doors opened turned into a stampede, shoppers fell and tripped over each other, A lady lost her wig and quickly put it back on as the mili

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continued as the best buy store in san Carlos. Early morning shoppers created a mob scene just to get bargain priced laptops and other electronics end quote. Yeah , disturbingly, this beloved US holiday tradition has now

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spread over to Britain at one flagship ASDA store in Northwest London, part of a retail chain owned by wal mart. One young woman was seen on the floor desperately clinging to a 40 in discounted television as

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several teenagers tried to grab it away. The B B B B B. C. Reported that shoppers in different parts of the country had experienced gridlock biting , pinching, punching, kicking and stock flying through

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the air as people leapt, leapt over barriers to get their hands on heavily discounted items. Now, I'm all for saving money, especially during the holiday season. Yet what I find troubling is the sort

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of consumer US holiday traditions like black friday or cyber monday are fostering, indeed stampeding mobs, ravaging anything in its way in order to lay claim to merchandise made abroad is deeply disturbing because of what it registers

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about our values as a society. Is it really our goal as a society to nourish and unleash and un insatiable desire for stuff, even if it means impoverishing other human beings and the environment in the process

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. In response to this question, I contend that proverbs 14:31 offers us some needed wisdom in my translation . This verse reads quote, he oppressing the poor economically shames his maker, but he inclining toward the

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needy, honors him in typical proverbial fashion. The logic of this verse is governed by a cause and effect relationship. The first involves the action or check which in the context of the hebrew bible points to

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economic activities like fraud or exploitation. Moreover, the economic activity reflected in Oceanic is usually the kind targeted at widows, orphans and migrants. In verse 31 , however, the victim of oceanic is the doll

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, which literally means door here. The poor individual is understood to be someone who is constantly moving to and fro and fro, just as one finds with the door As reflected in Leviticus 1421, the doll

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reflects a person suffering from material lack, but if he is dull poor and cannot afford so much, he shall take one male lamb for a guilt offering to be elevated to make anoint atonement on his behalf

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. Hence what sort of effect does enacting economic oppression against the poor have. In the majority text, it reads Harris or say who, which is which I translate as shames his maker. The word forever

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receives its root meaning from the agricultural domain, in particular fall harvest and fruit picking. In Aramaic, it takes on a sexual connotation as in deflowering a virgin. Yet its connotation of force points to a

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negative meaning which seems to imply shaming as a result of taking by force that which is forbidden of God's self. Hence, the wisdom offered here can be rendered as follows, enacting economic oppression against the poor

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is an affront to God's essence as creator in that by oppressing the poor, the oppressor simultaneously tries to dominate the divine force that made him or her or in what younger mortman calls the God complex. It

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is this notion of shaming God's self that lies behind Jesus words in Matthew 25. Then they also will answer Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick

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or in prison and did not take care of you ? Then he will answer them truly, I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not

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do it To me. The black friday frenzies for overstocked discounted merchandise bespeaks something more than just a US holiday tradition, sub tending this turbo consumerism is a U. S. Version of neo liberal economics.

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Since the 1980s, the US. economy changed in two important ways during the era of globalization. One , manufacturing jobs have gone abroad and to the service sector has expanded. These trends have continued up to

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the present day as Tania Maria Goulash Boza states quote . There were about 27 million jobs created in the United States between 1990 and 2008 98% of these jobs were in the non tradable sector which produces goods and

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services for domestic consumption end quote. Instead of expanding the manufacturing sector in the United States, U. S. Corporations have moved production overseas like Eastern Asia , Central America and Mexico. In order for manufacturing

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jobs to go abroad, there must be international agreements between US employers and foreign governments. The incentives propelling these agreements consist of privatization of public enterprise, low tariffs on exports, deregulation of labour and environmental laws

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and cutbacks in social services. With increased outsourcing of US manufacturing jobs not only has the foreign working poor increased but also the unemployment of US based factory workers . Indeed, inequality has grown with US economic restructuring

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In 1980. When manufacturing dominated the economy of the United States, Ceos earned on average 42 times more than the average worker today. That figure is 380 in Goulash bosa's words quote, Economic restructuring designed to

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keep the United States competitive in the global arena has led to the impoverishment of large swaths of society and to the enrichment of a few end quote. Although Black Friday is one place where this inequality registers,

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one can also turn to movements like we are the 99% black lives matter and United, we dream to see the nefarious workings of the current U. S . Economic system. As Michelle alexander describes, quote

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thus, it is here in the poverty stricken, racially segregated ghettos, where the war on poverty has been abandoned and factories have disappeared. That the drug war has been waged with the greatest ferocity end quote

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In other words what we have are not simply uncontrollable mobs of black friday shoppers but rather pervasive poverty devastated ecosystems, mass migration and mass incarceration. In the timeless wisdom of proverbs 14 31 this shames God the

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creator. Yet the proverb does not end without offering us a counter cause and effect relationship, especially as it pertains the treatment of the poor as I have translated it, quote, he inclining toward the needy

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is honoring him. The hebrew word for incline toward Hakkinen, which in the active participle form implies continual action. This participle participle counters the first active participle in the verse of chic, which again is the

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continual action of economic oppression. The word for poor is Evian, which like dull, reflects severe material lack. Therefore, central to this second literary unit is a practice that privileges the poor. More importantly

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, the results of this everyday practice is that God , the creator, is honored by it in current economic nomenclature, rather than an economic practice that seeks to maximize the profits for a select few wise,

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economic practice always is always focused on the poor and the needy intrinsic to privileging the poor. In our missed is the notion of God's self as a creator . In essence. Today's biblical wisdom is equitable.

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Economic practice draws us closer to God's essence as creator , whereas exploitative economic practice shames God's very existence.