Wal-Mart Trampling

“Black Friday” is a day that every year kicks off the holiday spending season. That same day is also “Buy Nothing Day”, but it is sadly becoming more and more clear to me that this day will most likely never even be acknowledged by the mainstream media. Every year it seems like there is at least one story that proves how product-happy America is. I remember a couple of years ago when the PS3 and Wii came out, a man was shot for a PS3 outside a Wal-Mart. Continuing their lovely tradition, a man was trampled to death by Long Islanders while standing with fellow employees to barricade a door at 5:00 am. Four other people were trampled with him, but there injuries were not fatal, however a woman who was 8-months pregnant was trampled and lost her baby as a result.

This is a sad commentary on Americans and shows the state that we are in. Now while no one party is to blame for this death, it led me to think of “Black Friday” and the effect that sales have on people in general. The shoppers were described as “savages” by Kimberly Cribbs, a witness to the event. However, I doubt that these people are constantly this savage and inhumane. Sales do this to people. The corporations trick you into buying more than you need. Now, I am not going to say I’m better than this. I have wants and there are things I like too and would buy if they were on sale. I do think though that when a store sells a product at an extremely low price when it is still new, that they are being irresponsible. Their doing this makes them partial to blame, because they know they are selling something dumb and scamming people. This goes back to how the corporations trick people into buying stuff. They brainwash us. We don’t notice it all the time, but they do. I don’t need anything other than food, water, a home, and air. Material possessions are pointless and trivial. If people took time to think about this, they would realize I’m not being stingy, but realistic. In fact, for Christmas I don’t want anything expensive. I am happy and making any change I need to in order to make myself happy. If more people had a mentality like that, people wouldn’t be killed for a T.V. Their trampling him is the opposite of what Christmas is supposed to represent. America really sucks sometimes.