BLACK FRIDAY: Crashing Through the Doors for More 'Stuff' to be Happier People?

by Christopher Barr │POSTED ON NOVEMBER 29, 2014

Black Friday as you know is a sale, held by various stores such as Walmart, Target and many many others, the day after Thanksgiving Day in the United States, in some cases even before midnight.  It falls just after a time when many are giving thanks for who they have in their life and the food they have on their table.  Thanksgiving is about being grateful, it’s about being thankful, it’s about being humble.  Then Black Friday comes around a day later and all bets are off.  Maybe the average American Walmart doorcrasher would provide the excuse that it was Thanksgiving ‘Day’ not Thanksgiving ‘Year’.

Black Friday and the crazy events that occur at department stores isn’t necessarily a sign of the fall of civilization leading to an apocalypse, but it is a representation of all that is indecent in society, manifesting itself when those front doors open and waves of heathen shoppers storm over each other to get to that buy one, get one free doll for their kid or that wall-sized flat screen TV that’s half off.

There is this cycle that the world’s greatest civilizations go through that starts with bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; and from dependence back to bondage only to go round and round again.  This savage behaviour is new in America because when I was a kid this certainly didn’t happen.  Black Friday is one more little nudge as the decline in society furthers.  Again, not the death of us all, if you want that look no further then the Fukushima power plant in Japan to state a case on that.

What we do have here are people running amok, without having a clue as to truly why they are doing it.  This consumer culture is so saturated with advertising telling people the only thing they can do to complete themselves is buy ‘things’ is a sign of a sick society.  Reading books and discovering what it means for you to be alive on this planet in this time are signs of a healthy society, sadly that isn’t a society I ever heard of, maybe little pockets in Europe.

The corporate executives have their worker sheep tending to the wolves while they collect all their greed money.  It’s sad to see this because people, average people and let’s face it, not the brightest, have no idea how dooped they really are.  Some camp out before the midnight madness gets underway as most are still digesting their Thanksgiving turkeys.  It’s horrifying to see such animalism among a society of people that are told they are members of the greatest country on this planet.  Certainly beyond the looking glass most of the world knows this not to be true, as they sit and watch video upon video on YouTube, of Americans making complete fools of themselves.  

Let’s not forget that all Americans aren’t savages, so they too will shake their heads at their own countrymen as they trip and fall their way over to the electronics department to get their hands of that last doorbuster, as members of the media film the whole thing to later make fun of it on national news.  There have been people shot, stabbed, pepper-sprayed, kicked, punched, split on and verbally assaulted so crazed shoppers can get into the store only to find out that the product they wanted has been sold out.  What they don’t know is these doorbusters are purposely understocked so the department store can sell other products at their regular prices. 

We are taught to hate ourselves so we buy things to correct that presumed fact.  Maybe it’s a desperate attempt at saving face in a society that, for the most part steam-rolls over the average person trying to make their way in the world, even if it’s a narrow-American-minded world.  Regardless the bait is set and the animals come.  To me it’s odd to have such a need for something like a pot and pan set that turns you into a crazed lunatic.  But I think we all know it’s not quite that, what it is; is displaced anger and a desire to fill in the gaps of that American dream that you we promised.  It’s about taking what’s yours and to fuck with everyone else. 

It’s actually about narcissism because I can tell you that intellectuals and mindful people wouldn’t be caught dead crashing a door for a Guttenberg Bible, no more than you would see a Buddhist strapping a bomb to his chest and running into a Hindu café.  Walmart and the like know that their average customer isn’t the smartest tool in the shed, so they know that they can easily manipulate them with just a little piece of cheese.  Sadly there are too many people ready for the thrills of cheap prices and in some cases, are ultimately too blind to see that they have bought into the spectacle of crowd mentality, driven debauchery.    

Ferguson on Fire because Grand Jury's Decision to let Wilson off the Hook

by Christopher Barr │POSTED ON NOVEMBER 25, 2014  

The people of Ferguson, Missouri and the whole of the United States are completely justified in their grievance of the Grand Jury’s decision to not bring criminal charges against police officer Darren Wilson, for the shooting of unarmed youth Michael Brown on August 9th.  This decision not to indict this man unfortunately isn’t that surprising; it was just the Elite protecting one of their soldiers.  I might add the law and justice don’t apply to them in the same way as it does to all us worker-bees.  They’re special because not only do they run the show, they own the show, so that’s not surprising. 

It’s still upsetting that this form of injustice can be allowed to persist but one thing I do know for sure, burning down a portion of your own town will do nothing, if not straighten their case and continuing their need/desire to use excessive force.  Certainly not all those angered at the Grand Jury’s decision fled to the streets with fire bombs and started destroying everything in sight, but a lot did do that.  

Looting, really?  Again, I get the rage I get the disgust but displacing your so-called anger over a very justified position, only to bust the windows of electronic stores to steal flat screen TV’s loses the point and isn't helping matters.  Burning down part of your town and terrorizing your fellow neighbours, destroying people’s local businesses, and shooting at firemen tasked to put out the fires so the whole city doesn’t burn down, isn’t going to get your point across in the judicial way that it should.

What we are dealing with here is a great hypocrisy.  These rioters not only destroyed the lives of a number of innocent people who had nothing to do with any of it.  They made the very police officers, that they accused of being unjustifiably heavy-handed and brutal now justified with their resolve.  They have given license to police across the country to possibly think a little less, when being approached by a precarious individual in the dark who may or may not be armed.

Group think, group mentality has for the most part, shaved off the IQ’s of most of those that participate in it.  There are injustices everywhere, macroscopically down to the microscopically but what holds a society together is the application of reason and logic, two ingredients that were lacking in Ferguson.  This resulted into madness, animals expressing themselves, not with the full capacity of their neurological functioning, but rather to that of dogs.  

Philae's battery dies as Scientists still celebrate the success of the mission

by Christopher Barr

The mission was a huge success both scientifically and historically, but unfortunately Philae has landed in a shadowy crater.  This problem is preventing the device from the proper amount of sunlight for its solar panels.  The battery as died on the lander shortly after it collected all sorts of information to help scientist better understand the composition of comets.  The Rosetta orditer will continue its own orbit around the comet for more than a year, collecting whatever data it can on the comet as it barrels through deep space.