How does the classic Christmas carol go, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” Not for me. Not when the TV and the radio are jammed wall-to-wall with commercials hyping Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and all the news anchors talk about is the great deals down at Best Buy. Not when it’s all Christmas all the time before the Thanksgiving turkey is even cold. The season has been elongated and stretched, expanded and super-sized by retailers in search of customers. Before the last scream of Halloween fades, up go the Christmas decorations, and the faux cheer spreads like a river of sewage across the land.
Never mind that the unemployment rate is high and holding steady or that banks continue to foreclose on delinquent mortgages or that every day more Americans slide below the poverty line; everybody is a potential consumer and if they have a pulse, however faint, and can walk, however unsteadily, then by all that is holy about American-style capitalism, they must have the latest LED flat screen TV, a new toaster, an iPad or a Kindle Fire.
It doesn’t make a whit of difference that many of the people lined up twelve hours before the stores open should be buying food for their children, not the latest electronic gadget.
Did you see the video footage of the human herds stampeding in search of Black Friday bargains? Did it make you want to hang your head out the window and puke? Fighting over an iPod dock? Slugging it out over a pair of boots? Putting other customers out of commission with pepper spray? What kind of nuthouse has America become? The mindless hoards are goaded and prodded and prepped and primed all week long, tantalized with promises of deep discounts on today’s must have products, mesmerized by visions of gain, and by Black Friday people have lost all contact with reason or common sense and descend on the local mall like the barbarians of old.
If Macy’s or Target advertised a one-pound block of cow dung at a 35% discount, some fool would stand in line for an hour to buy it. Yes, I know, people have free will and critical thinking capacity, and shouldn’t be manipulated so easily, but isn’t that what happens every November? Why else is Old Navy in downtown Santa Barbara open for business on Thanksgiving Day?
Bah humbug. Bah fucking humbug. The reason for the season is buried beneath a pile of gaudy sweaters from H&M, crotch-less panties from Victoria’s Secret, and Black & Decker power tools from Home Depot. Baby Jesus rides the escalator up and down all day long, unrecognized, ignored, pushed this way and that by caffeine and Red Bull addled shoppers. “Outta’ my way you little fucker.” Recognizing a lost cause when they see one, Mary, Joseph, the three wise men, the camel and the donkey have already fled for their lives.
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