More on Black Friday: legal - insane greed; illegal - speaking out about it

i don't know how the insanity of my country could be captured any better than this...



courtesy of twest young via kevin at firedoglake...

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The horror that is Black Friday

i was sitting for the grandsons last evening after my son and his wife left around 7 to go get into line for a 9 p.m. store opening... i received numerous text messages from them reporting on the length of the lines and how far they extended... while there's a rather massive distance between them and me on the matter of black friday, they are clearly free to choose how they spend their time over the thanksgiving holiday and just because i find such an orgiastic display of materialism to be truly horrifying doesn't mean they have to share my thinking...

however...

the entire notion of thousands of people rushing to stores across the country to stand in massive lines for the chance to snatch up more stuff at bargain prices is perhaps the clearest demonstration imaginable of just how far off the rails things are in my country...

moreover, if people are going to get pepper-sprayed, it at least ought to be happening while they're protesting economic and social injustice, not for trying to grab discounted merchandise...

Early-bird Black Friday turns ugly with 'shopping rage' incident

Ten minutes after the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch [Los Angeles] opened, a female customer used pepper spray on other shoppers at the Black Friday sale, injuring at least seven people and forcing employees to evacuate a portion of the store, police said.

"This was customer-versus-customer 'shopping rage,'" said Los Angeles Police Lt. Abel Parga. He said one shopper was taken to a hospital after complaining of difficulty breathing.

Police officers, he said, were seeking a female suspect following the attack. Fire officials said they were treating about 20 people suffering minor injuries at the store, which is located on Rinaldi Street near Corbin Avenue.

Meanwhile, in Torrance, shoppers poured into a Toys R Us store, 50 at a time, when the doors opened Thursday night. Manager Ryan Smith said he figures there were 2,000 people on hand waiting to browse through the sprawling store. Within minutes, shopping carts began to fill up with Transformer action figures, Barbie dolls and video games.

South Bay-area resident Natalie Vyce, 36, was fourth in line with her son Jordan, 15, and they came prepared. "We have it all mapped out. You go in for what you need and you get out. You don't browse." She said she'll be out all night. Her next stop was Kohl's, and she planned to be back at Toys R Us at 5 a.m. when new items go on sale.

"The stores are all opening so early now that it's throwing off my strategy," she said, laughing.

"throwing off her strategy"... patético...

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Let's make Black Friday "Buy Nothing Day"

from adbusters...





adbusters founder kalle lasn in the uk independent...

[A]ll our media and information delivery systems are infiltrated by pro-consumption messages, and that basically every aspect of our lives is controlled to some degree by this consumer machine. Consumption patterns in America have increased by 300 per cent since the Second World War, and the average American now consumes three times more than they did 50 years ago.

even better, adbusters is leading the charge to occupy christmas...!

#OCCUPYXMAS kicks off Nov 25/26

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A year ago, no one imagined an Arab Spring, and no one imagined this American Fall

rebecca solnit...

When civil society sleeps, we’re just a bunch of individuals absorbed in our private lives. When we awaken, on campgrounds or elsewhere, when we come together in public and find our power, the authorities are terrified. They often reveal their ugly side, their penchant for violence and for hypocrisy.

[...]

Does an 84-year-old woman need to be tear-gassed in Seattle? Does a three-tours-of-duty veteran need to be beaten until his spleen ruptures in Oakland? Does our former poet laureate need to be bashed in the ribs after his poet wife is thrown to the ground at UC Berkeley? Admittedly, this is a system that regards people as disposable, but not usually so literally.

Two months ago, the latest protests against that system began. The response only confirms our vision of how it all works. They are fighting fire with gasoline. Perhaps being frightened makes them foolish. After all, once civil society rouses itself from slumber, it can be all but unstoppable.

[...]

[T]he grounds of my hope have always been that history is wilder than our imagination of it and that the unexpected shows up far more regularly than we ever dream. A year ago, no one imagined an Arab Spring, and no one imagined this American Fall -- even the people who began planning for it this summer. We don’t know what’s coming next, and that’s the good news. My advice is just of the most general sort: Dream big. Occupy your hopes. Talk to strangers. Live in public. Don’t stop now.

i confess... i'm a hope junkie... i keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, there will be a breakthrough and we'll see some real change... how that will happen, when it will happen, if it will happen, i couldn't begin to guess...

this morning, i visited the occupy reno site and caught up on what's been going on there while i was out of town... the good news is they're still there and still cranking away... they're going to be at the mall at midnight on black friday and plan to project the bat signal the way it was done on the verizon building in nyc... a lot of people will be gathered waiting for the doors to open so they can trip all over each other in their mad rush to part with their money so it will be a captive but not necessarily receptive audience... i'm thinking i'll join them just to see how it goes...

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A dumbed-down, morally bankrupt society

black friday is an allegory for what the united states has become...

The Madness of a Lost Society



(thanks to information clearing house...)

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Black Friday started at 4 a.m. EST

toys "r" us, target, and wal-mart opened at 5 a.m. and penneys opened at 4... please make it stop...




A shopper carries off with a television at a
Target store in Chicago, November 23, 2007.
(John Gress/Reuters)

Shoppers — shrugging off a spate of lead-tainted toy recalls and higher prices for food and gas — jammed stores before dawn Friday to grab discounted TVs, toys and the hard-to-find Nintendo Wii, for the official start of the holiday season, expected to be the weakest retail showing in five years.

Stores are counting on hordes of shoppers who have pulled back in recent months. Merchants need them to keep coming throughout the holiday season to make their sales goals.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, threw open its doors at 5 a.m., offering such specials as a Polaroid 42-inch LCD HDTV for $798 and a $79.87 Sony digital camera. From 5 a.m. to noon, Toys "R" Us Inc. offered 101 early morning specials on such toys as Mattel Inc.'s Barbie styling set and Hasbro Inc.'s FurReal interactive jungle cat toy. That's four times the number it offered last year.

J.C. Penney Co., which opened at 4 a.m., an hour earlier than last year, served up such deals as a leather massage recliner for $298.88, after a $50 mail in rebate. The original price was $799. Other deals include 50 percent off toys and board games.

In a scene replayed again and again at stores nationwide, about 200 people stood in line outside a Target in Columbia, S.C., at 5 a.m., an hour before the store was to open.

Tracy Jenkinson, 34, arrived just after 3 a.m. to take the first spot in line.

in the interest of full disclosure, my daughter-in-law and her mom were up and out of the house well before daylight, and there have been at least two mid-sortie cellphone shopping "consultations" since with my son who is at home with the kids... yes, i tend to keep my mouth shut...

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