What is wrong with people?
Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede.
With our current ailing economy, there are sacrifices one has to make this holiday shopping season. Unfortunately, the temporary maintenance worker at the Valley Stream, Long Island Walmart didn’t think he would be the sacrificial lamb of the post-Thanksgiving consumer onslaught. How can people be this stupid? Where is the common sense and decency that is our responsibility as a people to one another? Is this the change for which we fought so hard? Obviously our right to consume has consumed us. My heart goes out to the worker’s family and friends and the poor pregnant woman who miscarried after also being pushed to the ground and trampled underfoot.
I find it hard to believe or, maybe not, how insanely materialistic and insensitive our society has become, if indeed we have anything at all resembling a society anymore. My heart goes out to the family of this young man and, I only hope that someone will be called out on the carpet on this one, at as high a level as possible for even allowing this situation to occur and, that any individuals who were directly responsible on the scene will be identified and punished to the greatest extent of the law. I expect that the local and national authorities will be relentless in bringing all the guilty, very guilty, to justice.
I think that everyone who trampled this man should be singled out and charged with 2nd degree murder. Sure, they might not have meant to do it, but how unaware can you be that you’re stepping on someone? Get real, people. All of these sick bastards should be hanged or burned at the stake. I think we should put an end to the Black Friday madness by having random deals at random times during the Christmas season.
As a side note, I have no faith in society and I am deeply embarrassed that our “brothers and sisters” who so graciously embrace us any other time of the year could be capable of such a heinous and vile act just because of some stupid after thanksgiving deals.
Mike- It is hard not to become cynical when these things happen. Burning at the stake is a method of justice I have never quite understood. I’m sure you don’t mean that literally. We have to try not to become polarized and extreme when such extreme occurrences present themselves.
Peter- Unfortunately we have become a nation of consumers and lack the ability (and opportunities) to produce. In other cultures, even the simpler things like music and performance are part of everyday life. For us, it is “reality TV.”
Peter – “I expect that the local and national authorities will be relentless in bringing all the guilty, very guilty, to justice.”
Personally, I don’t expect that at all, although it’s what should happen.
And we all know that the occasion and the stampede is a welcome publicity ploy to show how we are all “dying” to shop at Wal-Mart.
While everyone in that stampede should be charged, the company itself has the ultimate absolute responsibility for this tragedy, as their experience and security preparations should have ensured the safety of all concerned. Instead of that, they are prepared to pay for the publicity stunt with the lives of their own employees!
Their motto is “Save Money. Live Better.”
How tragically ironic!
The country is a shambles; many have nothing left to live for. Running to Walmart to purchase something is a bright spot on a dark horizon.
Unfortunately as Americans, we measure our worth not by what we can produce but what we can consume. Next Black Friday, stay home and write a song. Teach your child a chord progression on the guitar. Write a poem. Bake brownies. Read a book. Don’t trample a brother in an entranceway to make some old white man rich. This is worth a read.