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#1
12-06-2008, 08:26 PM
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Black Friday Death
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/ny...30walmart.html
I knew it was coming. I'm surprised it hasn't happened before now to be honest. What shocked and sickened me was the crowd's reaction to the news of his death. It was anger at the employees who tried to stop the crowd long enough to get the body of their friend out of the door way. How can anybody trample a man to death and carry on with their Christmas shopping? Black Friday indeed. I think the soul of everybody in the nation just got a little blacker. Everybody who was out on Black Friday is a murderer, whether they admit it or not. Consumerism is killing our nation. We have sacrificed a man's life for discounted Christmas shopping. We have murdered a pure and good man. All for a few dollars off of a big screen TV.
__________________
Man will never be truly free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. 
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#2
12-06-2008, 10:28 PM
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Quote:
Rick Last edited by Rick336; 12-06-2008 at 11:58 PM. Reason: correction
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#3
12-07-2008, 02:37 AM
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Quote:
__________________
Live a life none can condem, Walk with God hand in hand, None can harm you nor hurt you then, Take off your mask, and open your heart Walk the walk, and play your part.
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#4
12-07-2008, 11:19 AM
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I completely agree with Unmasked's assessment of the situation. I teach 6th graders and they are so desensitized to death and destruction that they actually think it is funny. We have watched "Ben Hur" and they roared when in the chariot race scene, and one of the racers was dragged around by his chariot. I was horrified! Now we are watching "Gandhi" and the opening scene is of him being shot by a Hindu radical. They laughed. I was like "You people are inhuman!" They laugh when someone at school gets hurt.
We live in a society where death and destruction are seen everyday in their video games and movies and they just don't think they are susceptible. It is fiction and in their minds, not real. And the movie industry as well as the video game industry is making lots of money making death funny and thrilling. It isn't until death hits them in the face that they actually begin to think it isn't a game or very funny anymore.
__________________
If everyone cared and nobody cried, if everyone loved and nobody lied, if everyone shared and swallowed their pride, we'd see the day when nobody died. IF EVERYONE CARED/Nickelback
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#5
12-07-2008, 11:45 AM
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We're dealing with a seriously unnatural situation -- this society-wide desensitization to violence. I find it extremely unnatural and I don't understand it.
Put me in the middle on the walmart discussion. I wasn't pleased to hear that, bc hubby dragged me out to Ikea on that day (the first time in my LIFE I let myself get pried out of the house on black friday,) I'm a murderer. We quietly bought holiday napkins and a funnel. Some murderers. The Ikea was perhaps slightly less trafficked than it used to be on any other ordinary day, and the parking lot only about half full. You wouldn't have known it was a monster shopping day in this town. Even the malls looked calm. Probably a very sad thing for our state economy. Regarding the specific walmart incident, it is absolutely appropriate to place blame on people who behaved that way. Sure, if in the crowd you were kept completely unaware of what had happened, you are not to blame. But SOME people did the actual trampling, obviously, and others obviously walked over an injured, dying person - we know they must have as he was lying in the only open doorway. But the most telling fact of all was the refusal to stop shopping so that emergency personnel could tend to the dead body. That shows us everything we could possibly want to know about where those shoppers' heads were at the moment. They are each very, very much responsible for their response to the death for which many of them contributed individual responsibility. Our society is very sick and needs a lot of healing.
__________________
*** Never linger too long with the ignorant, throw stones at their talk. Walk only with the lovers, the mirror of the soul gets rusty when dipped in muddy water. -Rumi
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#6
12-07-2008, 06:27 PM
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Violence glorified
Where this incident happened is not far from where I live. It's amazing what people will do just to save a buck. What happened was not intentional but it goes to show what the mob mentality can do.
People are desensitized to violence because it's sells. Look at many of the movies produced the past couple of years. Look at all the wars, crime stats, and random lawlessness glorified by the media. What happened at Wal-Marts was an accident but no one should be surprised that it happened. Gennee
__________________
'Be who you are.' Let no one define who you are.' blog:www.difecta.blogspot.com www.epistle.us
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#7
12-07-2008, 10:13 PM
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Yes, it was terrible. The people who trampled over the dying man definitely need to be held accountable. But the news media always makes things look much worse than they really are. Anytime something like this happens, especially around the holidays, they make it the top story 24/7.
What you didn't see were the hundreds of thousands of stores around the nation where millions of people went about their normal Christmas shopping routine without incident. Anybody who believes violence is getting worse in America only needs go back 75 years at a time when thousands of innocent African Americans were lynched in the South. All over America people who were suspected of being homosexual were often brutally beaten or murdered while the law looked the other way. Violence by men against their wives and children was considered a "family matter." Go back 150 years in the American West and arguments were settled with guns in the street. Hundreds of thousands of Native Americans men, women, and children were slaughtered. In New York in 1863 thousands of people rioted against the Civil War and dragged innocent African Americans from their homes and murdered them. America has a violent past. The rest of the world's past is even worse. It's good to be upset when something like this happens but it's not the end of the world. The mere fact that so many people were bothered by it is proof of how far we've come. There's still a lot of violence and greed in America but at least it's not what it used to be. When you see things in retrospect, you appreciate the fact that the good old days weren't then; they're now. Rick
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#8
12-08-2008, 04:38 AM
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I am disgusted every time I hear/think about what happened at this Wal-Mart. It is very sad to think that somebody could trample a man and continue rushing to the TV isle.
Quote:
__________________
If it's bitter at the start, then it's sweeter in the end.
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#9
12-13-2008, 08:16 PM
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I still am appalled about this example of tragic state of humanity. Greed and self absorption, callous disregard for other humans. A sad state that people are so hurting for money and so feeling they need to buy things. It can't be an excuse to kill someone and injure a pregnant woman. Materialism triumphs over humanity and compassion - ouch.
__________________
~ It's not the body that needs correction. It's the soul.~ The Complete Idiot's Guide to Kabbalah
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#10
12-14-2008, 03:09 AM
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I want to apologize for my reaction. I have caused a stir, and become somewhat extreme in my criticizing. But my point is this. People are too materialistic, and too desensitized. I was too, until I was awakened.
Christa, I play the games too. I enjoy the games, I enjoy the films, but they come with a price tag. The games are not to blame. I know gamers who are completely off their rockers. The ones at my school have let their minds completely rot. I would never put anything past them. It's like alcohol. Some people can enjoy it and be fine, but some people should never let it pass their lips. Most people can have a drink and not kill somebody because they are too stupid to know when to quit, or to call a cab. Some can't. I agree that most people would never have acted like that crowd in New York, and a lot of Black Friday shoppers at other stores behaved like reasonable human beings. Not many would trample a man to death, or injure a pregnant woman in a frenzied rush to get a television, but the fact that this happened shows us that there are more than any of us want to believe. Their minds were far gone. The only thing we can hope now is that this death galvanizes people and wakes them from their sleep. Not likely. On September 11th 2001, I was making jokes about it. My friends and I joked and laughed. One shook his head and blamed Muslims for everything that was happening to us. Perhaps growing up means becoming more sensitive...but in this America, how many people every really grow up?
__________________
Man will never be truly free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
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