Black Friday and my love of Stampedes Death and Capitalism

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and the traditional start of the all-important Christmas shopping season. However, such was the enthusiasm in parts of the country, shoppers resorted to violence to bag the best bargains. Every year Black Friday brings dramatic price slashing, massive media coverage and hordes of shoppers.

In Today’s News:

Gunfire was reported at one shopping mall in North Carolina. And at a Wal-Mart store in upstate New York, a man was arrested after two women were injured in a fight that broke out.

Authorities in Los Angeles said that 20 people suffered minor injuries at a Wal-Mart when a woman used pepper spray on rival shoppers to get to the front of the queue when the store opened.

A man is in a stable but critical condition in hospital after being shot in the early hours as he left a Walmart with a group of people in San Leandro, California, when they resisted two armed robbers who demanded their purchases

Police are reviewing CCTV as they look for a woman who left 20 people with minor injuries when she used pepper spray as shoppers rushed to buy Xboxes at a Los Angeles area Walmart on Thursday evening

A man was reportedly detained for resisting arrest after a fight at the jewellery counter in the early hours at a Walmart in Kissimmee, Florida

Police are looking for two suspects after gunfire erupted early on Friday at a shopping centre in Fayetteville, North Carolina; there were no reports of injuries

Security workers reportedly used pepper spray on shoppers who began grabbing at goods before they were unloaded from pallets at a Walmart in Kinston, North Carolina

A woman was shot in the foot by a robber as she loaded her purchases into her car in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; the gunman fled as one of the victim’s companions brandished a revolver and fired warning shots

History of Black Friday

Black Friday was first used by police in Philadelphia in the 1960s to describe the massive crowds and traffic jams that hit the sales after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t until the 1980s that an alternative theory started to appear, suggesting that it was the day that marked retailers moving from the red to the black, as they started made profits for the first time in the year. People have died in a stampede of shoppers rushing into get the latest deals.

Blackest Day of Black Friday

Black Friday’s blackest day in recent history occurred in 2008 at the Wal-Mart in the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, New York. A 2,000-strong crowd had gathered over night to take advantage of bargain’s including 75% off a blu-ray player. When the doors finally opened one worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, 6ft 5ins and weighing 270 pounds, was trampled to death by the bargain hungry crowd. Four others, including a 28-year-old woman described as eight months pregnant, were treated for minor injuries.

One shopper Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, told Associated Press the crowd had acted like “savages” even after the tragedy. “When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,'” said Cribbs. “They kept shopping.”

Consumerism at its Best

As someone who is a staunch capitalist, I like Black friday why it stimulates the economy. Those who die and get trampled, it was their own fault. Competition drives the markets which in turn drives freedom. Poor people are poor because of their own doing. Everyone starts off at the line with the same propensities as everyone else. The system at all doesn’t discriminate between race, age, sex, immigrants. It’s all fair 100 down the line. Capitalism is the best thing, since laissez-faire capitalism. The invisible hand of the market is too busy doing invisible things to care about children, the elderly, and other people get exploited and if people get exploited its their own fault, like women who get raped for wearing turtlenecks. Rape, exploitation, and genocide is the fault of the victim, according to Genghis Khan and Mongol Hordes.