Safety Concerns High; Walmart and Black Friday

Patrick T. Fallon, Bloomburg

Bloomburg reports that Walmart, whose concerns stem from an employee trampled to death in 2008 are taking steps to deter customers and distract them from violence. This weekend an estimated 140 million, crazed, obsessed, and in many cases drugged and drunken consumers will descend on the Chain stores relentlessly hunting "bargains". As the Bloomburg article states, "Malls are beefing up patrols with off-duty cops. Chains including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT)are using quota systems for popular doorbusters from iPads to jewelry. The National Retail Federation issued crowd management guidelines, urging stores to prepare for flash mobs, long lines of angry customers and crowded washrooms. The Washington-based trade group has sent out the memo annually since a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death in 2008 during a Black Friday melee."

Walmart, and other retailers motivation for encouraging this orgy of rapacious stupidity are obvious. Sales between "black Friday" and Cyber Monday" will total 40.5 Billion dollars. The crowds will as always curse, fight,and trample each other. Apart from what is says about human greed, peoples behavior on "black Friday" tells of our Post-Modern, Post-Christian cultures declining civility. It is easy to see how close such a pack could go from "bargain hunting",
to looting and pillaging. In the film "Act Like Men: A Titanic Lesson in Manliness (2012)" a contrast is made in how most acted on the Titanic, where most of the men died so the women and children could be saved, from today where things would be quite different.
"Black Friday" is a sad foretaste for what is in store living in our post-Christian society.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-28/wal-mart-uses-wristbands-to-deter-holiday-shopper-melees.html
http://www.amazon.com/Act-Like-Men-Titanic-Manliness/dp/B008ENG02C