CONSUMERISM=MATERIALISM=NARCISSISM=INTENSE SELFISHNESS

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Alleged LA-area pepper-spraying shopper surrenders

The attack took place about 10:20 p.m. Thursday shortly after doors opened for the sale. The store had brought out a crate of discounted Xbox video game players, and a crowd had formed to wait for the unwrapping. Valle says the woman began spraying people in order to get an advantage.

The incident was among those nationwide in which violence marred the traditional kickoff to the holiday shopping season.

In the most serious case, a robber shot a shopper who refused to give up his purchases outside a San Leandro, Calif., Walmart store, leaving the victim hospitalized in critical but stable condition.

Police in San Leandro, about 15 miles east of San Francisco, said the victim and his family were walking to their car around 1:45 a.m. Friday when they were confronted by a group of men who demanded their shopping items. When the family refused, a fight broke out, and one of the robbers pulled a gun and shot the man, said Sgt. Mike Sobek.

Meanwhile, police in suburban Phoenix came under fire when a video was posted online showing a 54-year-old grandfather on the floor of a Walmart store with a bloody face, after police said he was subdued Thursday night trying to shoplift during a chaotic rush for discounted video games.

The video, posted on YouTube, shows Jerald Allen Newman unconscious and bloodied as outraged customers yell expletives and say "that's police brutality" and "he wasn't doing anything."

More here.

I've written about exactly these kinds of Yuletide events here and there for the last few years, not because it's a pet topic or anything like that, but rather because it's happening with increasing frequency. Violence in pursuit of Christmas presents. This is how we now celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. Okay, yeah yeah, I know. This isn't how "we" celebrate. This is a relative few individuals. But these reports don't mention all the nastiness out there that comes up short of violence, don't mention the sour angry attitudes produced by the whole cattle herding experience of modern Christmas shopping, don't mention the 24/7 advertising bombardment that affects children and adults alike. In short, all that's newsworthy, apparently, is when the whole sick and depraved pile of cultural Christmas shit spews over into something truly awful--the cultural shit pile itself is ignored.

And what do the worshipers of the man whose name is half the holiday have to say about all this? Well, I don't really know; they're too busy confusing retailers' unwillingness to lose non-Christian business, by saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," with a bizarre and imaginary liberal plot to destroy the happiness of Dr. Seuss characters. To be fair, I'm sure that a lot of Christians out there have problems with the rampant consumerism that is now virtually synonymous with the word "Christmas," but the loudest voices are the psychotic fundamentalists, and they think Jesus is totally cool with buying stupid shit.

Listen to me, I sound like Linus. But that's a good point, too. A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired in 1965, and the entire plot revolves around Charlie Brown's disgust with the commercialization of the holiday, and his search for an authentic sense of Christmas. That was nearly a half century ago. And things have become much, much worse than they were back then.

Sigh.



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