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Thom Hartmann/Sam Sacks: Walmart's Hunger Games
Walmart's Hunger Games
Monday, 26 November 2012 15:09
By Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks, The Daily Take | Op-Ed
Every year after Thanksgiving, the nation's wealthy elite, still fat-bellied from turkey and cornbread stuffing, tune in to their local news outlets and observe what has become an annual tradition of bloodletting and frenzied consumerism.
We call it "Black Friday." But to those like the Walmart heirs who together own more wealth than the bottom 40% of the nation combined, it might as well be called their very own "Hunger Games."
It's their stores, after all, that play host to this one-day battle - waged by poor and working class people - to get discounted appliances, clothes, and toys for their kids.
Like Suzanne Collins' dystopic future portrayed in The Hunger Games, in which impoverished teenagers battle each other to the death once a year for the amusement of Panem's wealth elite, Black Friday "Battle Royales" often end in death as well. In just the last few years, we've seen shoppers and retail workers shot to death, trampled to death, pepper-sprayed, bitten, punched, and kicked, all in their pursuit for Black Friday shopping deals. ..............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12970-walmarts-hunger-games
