Friday, November 28, 2008

"They kept shopping"

NYT:
Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the [Wal-Mart] doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside Mr. Damour trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.

Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to Mr. Damour, but he had been fatally injured, the police said. Emergency workers tried to revive Mr. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, at the scene, but he was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream...

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”
Really, you make me sick.

And who is "You"?
“I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,” he said. “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.”
Wal-Mart. The most arrogant, hyper-aggressive, destructive retailer in America. The bane of American downtowns, mom-and-pop stores, any human being trying to earn a decent wage, and any manufacturer trying to earn a decent margin.
“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”
The Wal-Mart shoppers at the Green Acres Mall, who lined up like pigs at the trough, to stuff themselves on holiday "bargains" as they purged their own souls. Hope that $9 "Incredible Hulk" dvd was worth it.
Ugly shopping scenes, a few involving injuries, have become commonplace during the bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when America’s anxious retailers say they finally turn a profit for the year.
The media, who, year in and year out, assist Wal-Mart and other equally putrid retailers in inciting such "ugly shopping scenes" by breathlessly trumpeting "Black Friday" as though it were some sort of heartwarming quintessential American ritual rather than yet another in a long line of lurid consumerist spectacles.

To the family of Mr. Damour,

I'm sorry for your loss. You need a lawyer and a good one. I'm not competent to take your case, but if I was, I would take it pro-bono.

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