Black Friday
The Fear has arrived. Panicked animals fighting for their lives. Faces smashed against glass doors. Wild-eyed unabashed greed -- the real face of humanity.
Black Friday has begun. Retailers have marked up their stock, only to mark it down again to make it look like they're doing a favor for the hordes of the weak-minded. The consumers are manipulated into a deep psychological need for getting ahead of their fellow competitors and getting that TV for 10% off.
The corporate boards of Wal-Mart and Federated have tapped into something primal. By combining the survival-fight instinct of the human animal with mob psychology, and putting it under the umbrella of religious necessity, they have created salivating, clawing, biting monsters, who have lost all sense of self, and will do anything for a dollar off.
It is a manufactured tribal war, within the context of a socially acceptable rationale, and everyone from the physically fit to trailer-park teenage moms are invited. It is the one time of year where the downtrodden and disadvantaged can get a financial advantage, and all they have to do is show up early and fight for it.
The stores feed this desire daily. From "leaked" advertisements to 5am opening times, the mobs are offered specials and branded souvenirs for being the first ones there. Because mobs create excitement. And excitement drives more consumerism, something the stores are desperate for this year.
And it's all wrapped up nicely under social religion. Christmas has taken over as the tithe of the masses. The 10% (pre-tax, please) that would have gone to the church is now going to the economy -- the last bastion of a failing free-market that needs a manufactured buying rush to survive.
But what has it wrought? Initial reports are one man trampled to death by a crowd that took him out on purpose and never looked back, and one woman stomped brutally until she miscarried, left crying on the floor while shoppers fought over designer clothes.
The only surprise is that the toll was not worse. It's a Christmas miracle.
Update from article: "Early witness accounts that the woman suffered a miscarriage were unfounded, police said."
Black Friday has begun. Retailers have marked up their stock, only to mark it down again to make it look like they're doing a favor for the hordes of the weak-minded. The consumers are manipulated into a deep psychological need for getting ahead of their fellow competitors and getting that TV for 10% off.
The corporate boards of Wal-Mart and Federated have tapped into something primal. By combining the survival-fight instinct of the human animal with mob psychology, and putting it under the umbrella of religious necessity, they have created salivating, clawing, biting monsters, who have lost all sense of self, and will do anything for a dollar off.
It is a manufactured tribal war, within the context of a socially acceptable rationale, and everyone from the physically fit to trailer-park teenage moms are invited. It is the one time of year where the downtrodden and disadvantaged can get a financial advantage, and all they have to do is show up early and fight for it.
The stores feed this desire daily. From "leaked" advertisements to 5am opening times, the mobs are offered specials and branded souvenirs for being the first ones there. Because mobs create excitement. And excitement drives more consumerism, something the stores are desperate for this year.
And it's all wrapped up nicely under social religion. Christmas has taken over as the tithe of the masses. The 10% (pre-tax, please) that would have gone to the church is now going to the economy -- the last bastion of a failing free-market that needs a manufactured buying rush to survive.
But what has it wrought? Initial reports are one man trampled to death by a crowd that took him out on purpose and never looked back, and one woman stomped brutally until she miscarried, left crying on the floor while shoppers fought over designer clothes.
The only surprise is that the toll was not worse. It's a Christmas miracle.
Update from article: "Early witness accounts that the woman suffered a miscarriage were unfounded, police said."