What Black Friday Says About American Society

On November 23rd of this year, the day after Thanksgiving, I noted that every news outlet in the U.S. were touting the fun of BLACK FRIDAY and urging us to get out and shop our hearts out so that the retail industry could put themselves in the profit column and thus assure that the chief executives of these corporations will have Christmas bonuses equal to the entire yearly pay, and more, of most American workers.

And as I watched the TV news and read the papers, my mind turned to what I had been taught about Black Friday, 1929 when the stock market dropped and plunged the United States into the worst economic depression in our history. And as I watched and read, I wondered if on the Thursday before that fateful Friday, were Americans out there shopping their hearts out and oblivious to the fact that within 24 hours, the world, as they knew it then, was about to fall down upon them.

And I was also minded of a more recent black day in our history, let's call it Black Tuesday, September 11, 2001 when our world crashed upon us once more, and we were (shortly thereafter) urged to go back to the malls and continue to shop so that the "terrorists wouldn't win". The day before 9-11, as fate would have it, I was shopping in a major mall near where I lived (as were many others) and in obedience to the urging of our government (who got the word out through the various news media), I was back shopping as soon as the Mall reopened (within the week or so of the 9-11 disaster).

But while I, and many other Americans, were doing our part to keep the American economy going for the good of all of us, there were others in our country who were doing what they could to enrich only themselves and damn the rest of us.

I am referring to corporate greed, aided and abetted by our own government who allowed American jobs to be sent overseas while American workers, who had previously held these jobs went looking for unemployment offices.

I am referring to corporate greed, aided and abetted by our own government who allowed products and goods manufactured in countries outside our borders to come into the country without adequate safeguards so that our kid's toys are loaded with lead paints and components, and our medicine and food is coming into the country contaminated. All this detrimental to our country and citizens, but quite profitable to the corporations.

Our government, it is now becoming very clear, has done little to protect us from corporate greed on all levels and in every corporate avenue. Banks and Saving and Loan companies have been pillaging the public even at the expense of their own small stock holders. Corporate executives at the highest levels enjoy million dollar year end bonuses even as their companies are showing record losses and many are going out of business leaving their stockholders holding the bag with nothing in it.

And now, in November 2007, while hundreds and thousands of American homeowners are losing their homes, while middle class bankruptcies are being filed in record numbers, while millions of Americans have lost their jobs to out sourcing and millions more have no health insurance, while gasoline and heating costs are rising, food prices are rising and the American dollar is falling in value, the news media are covering Black Friday, 2007, as a bacchanalia and urging Americans to shop till they drop to make sure the retail corporations can post banner profits for their executives.

It is time, and past time, to hold all those accountable, including ourselves, responsible. On a personal level, we must begin to look at our individual situations and make responsible choices to bring back our individual solvency and peace of mind. Beyond that, we must demand that our law makers, on all levels, become accountable for their actions and to those who put them in office.

We must come to understand that the news media, in our country have become tools of their corporate owners and no longer report the news unless they can spin it to reflect the corporate position. We must read more than one newspaper, listen to more than our favorite news program and anchor and weigh the facts of each situation for ourselves.

In short, we must regain the sense of ourselves as free and independent Americans, bring our country back to the tenants of our Constitution and reclaim our country for ourselves and our children and we better do it soon.