Black Friday starts on Thursday now

Black Friday....

Rampant, unrestrained, consumerism.  The world watches the darkest side of capitalism run amok.  No wonder they hate us.

Why do people still camp in front of stores for days just to get last year's TV marked down 50% from the 80% markup 2 months earlier?

Have you not heard of Amazon?

By the Way, In case you weren't aware the "Black" in Black Friday has nothing to do with how dark it is outside when the store opens. 

Nor does it have anything to do with the darker side of human nature although you'd be excused if you've ever made the mistake of participating in the madness.

There was a time, supposedly, that retailers counted on the holiday shopping season to bring their books into positive numbers aka "being in the black."

Which assumes the rest of the year they're operating at a loss. 

Which may be true but gross sales have less to do with it than the perverse trickle down economics of corporate structures that reward CEO's with multi-million dollar bonuses.  

Shed no tears for a corporate empire built on the standard of indentured servitude and slave wages.  

I find nothing more distasteful than the want ads for a "seasonal" worker with the lure of  some meager discount off merchandise they can't afford.

No wait..

I find something even more distasteful than that...

Stores open on THANKSGIVING!

What the living hell is wrong with you?  I'm not just talking about the stores either.  Why they hell does anyone think it's OK to force people to leave their families just so you can buy some more crap?

Black Friday is bad enough but now we can't even let the pumpkin pie settle before it's off to the races!  

What's the point of a holiday if everybody has to go to work?  

OK, not "everybody"  just those poor unfortunate souls forced into indentured servitude by the likes of Kohls and Best Buy.

Here's a list of the worst offenders. 

• JCPenny stores open at 3 p.m.
• Old Navy is scheduled to open at 4 p.m.
• Best Buy, Macy's, Toys'R'Us and Bonton will open their doors at 5 p.m. 
• Walmart, Target, Kohl's, Dick's, Modell's and Sears will all open at 6 p.m. 

They blame everything from Amazon.com to Obama for it but the real reason is bald-faced greed.  

They'll claim in an age of online stores that they must do this to survive.  By extension they'll claim to support the economy by providing jobs to all those "seasonal" workers to meet the "demand."  

You probably saw this coming but here it is anyway....

Boycott them.  All of them without exception and anyone else that thinks it's OK to perpetuate this outrage.  Oh and before you get on the high horse about all those jobs they're providing.  Know that most of those "seasonal jobs" don't contribute to the economy when people  have to supplement their wages with food banks and government assistance.

It's even worse for the "regular" employees many of which are working 39 hour "part time" schedules.  They're on Food Stamps too.

Talk about corporate welfare.  

Wanna get all biblical about it?  

Fine.  Since the Thanksgiving tradition usually involves somebody spouting bible verses before gorging themselves try this one out...

Matthew 25:46

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

You say you live in a "Christian Nation?"  

Then start acting like it.

Politics as Product

Article first published as Politics as Product on Technorati.

Never has there been such a splendid example that we as a society are severely afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder.  This flavor of ADD  is far from the inattentive child nervously fidgeting in his classroom, however.  

No, this is an affliction of the first world dominated by the churn of  consumerism.   It expresses itself in everything from fad to fashion and increasingly to critical thinking as well.

We in the first world have become so conditioned to reacting to a marketing message that we require no further information to make a decision.  We make the choice based on the promotion we most easily identify with.  No further deliberation is entertained. 

We've come to expect all of our information to be packaged in this way.  Politics enjoy no immunity.

Our impatience is reflected in the flood of campaign ads that have plagued our airwaves for the past year.  Probably the most obvious example is the current U.S. presidential race.  To date, both candidates for president have raised over 2 Billion dollars for their campaigns with approximately 1.5 billion of that spent thus far. 

Half truths, errors of omission and inflated context are the tools of political persuasion and they easily translate to the world of marketing.  Politics promotes the image by obscuring the product. 

FedEx Office Print Online Large order 20% Discount

We choose our leaders with less care than our favorite sports team.  That's by design and the reason why political positions are largely parroted from political propaganda.  Politicians know voters have a low tolerance for long-winded technical arguments.  Instead they choose a popular position with their base and relentlessly repeat the same message regardless of its veracity.

Remember the Go-Daddy commercials?  In 30 seconds we knew who they were but only because we were constantly exposed to scantily clad models that appealed to a core demographic.   How many of us tried them based on a subconscious reaction to those ads instead of their reputation?

It works just as well for politics as it does for web hosting.   Think about where you get your political news.  Is it C-Span or are you more interested in the packaged offerings of Fox News or MSNBC?

Let's look at a current hot button political issue as an example...

Is it really the fault of a sitting president that the worst economic downturn since the depression of 1929 is still affecting the economy?

It is if you ignore the boring technical argument that it took a decade and a world war to bring the U.S. out of the great depression.   

Unfortunately, our short attention spans won't allow the retort.  We crave instant gratification and sway toward the product that promises it.  Ironically, If challenged we frequently justify our position based on that same marketing construct.  It's circular logic which dovetails nicely with our distaste for depth.

Perhaps it's time to examine how informed we really are.