November 26, 2011

Black Friday & Pepper Spray



So Black Friday has become more hilariously stupid than ever before, thanks in large part to the occupy movement, and the ongoing double standards of the corporate-owned media.

Now the Occupy Movement, as far as I know, hasn’t actually done anything in regards to Black Friday. All they did was camp out in a public space for the last two months, and then get assaulted by police officers for exercising the most sacred right in our democracy- the first amendment.

I guess who I should actually be thanking then, are the assholes in the NYPD and other police departments around the united states who have reacted to the peaceful demonstrators in the Occupy movement with insanely stupid shows brutality and violence.

Now it’s long been a tradition that on Black Friday, people camped out, not on public property, but on PRIVATE PROPERTY. For DAYS! Using TENTS and SLEEPING BAGS, in the hopes of being first in line to tithe their meager and ever shrinking income to the golden calf of consumption. It’s long been the case here in the USA that you can camp out for capitalism, but not for democracy. Black Friday shoppers didn’t get pepper sprayed.

At least not right away. In a Los Angeles area Wal Mart there was a woman who found a crowd grabbing wildly for discounted XBox game consoles like so many zombies tearing at the flesh of a live victim in a scene from dawn of the dead (which appropriately enough, takes place in a shopping mall).

Now competitive shopping is nothing new here in America. It’s long been something beloved by the news media and retailers alike. Economic Analysts actually use the number of people trampled on black friday as an economic indicator, the more people trampled, injured, and killed, the better the outlook-- which of course carries with it a whole other set of moral implications for capitalism which I won’t even bother to get into here. And this woman proceeded to take Competitive Shopping to a whole new level of batshit insane.

She pulled out a spray canister of that same chemical weapon used against the youth in Oakland, NYC, UC Davis and countless other occupations around the united states, she pulled out a canister of pepper spray, and proceeded to spray 30 people with the product to break up the crowd, so that she could get her hands on an XBox before they were all gone.
Now apparently, in the court of public opinion, Police cannot be held responsible for their actions, but consumers can, because she is potentially facing 20 counts of assault and battery for the injuries caused by the use of this chemical agent.

Now, I want to repeat this, because it’s really interesting how the media covers the same substance being used in two different incidents.

When pepper spray is used against mindless consumer zombies who are engaged in the idiocy that is consumer capitalism, THAT is assault and battery, and the victims are described as having “injuries.” Yes, apparently if pepper spray is used on you while shopping, it can cause injuries.

However, when pepper spray is used on peaceful demonstrators, it’s merely a “chemical irritant.”

Well, I’m pretty irritated by this double standard.




A real life example of what I'm talking about:

No comments:

Post a Comment