Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

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ZoWie
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Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by ZoWie »

This the year that it finally went over the edge. The president looked silly pardoning two turkeys with funny names, neither of which (fortunately) rhymed with "rump." What really looks silly, though, is the Black Friday ads. The retailers have fallen strangely silent, meanwhile the car dealers have Black Friday commercials every 10 minutes. If you're cursed with our provider, they break in on all channels except C-SPAN and run them twice to catch the thousands of viewers just returning from the pissoir. You can buy a Jeep on Black Friday. You can buy a Beemer on Black Friday. People who install new windows in your house have popped for Black Friday commercials. Some builder has a Black Friday special if you contract them for your next real estate development. Really. And, of course, then you get the spawn, five other days with catchy names that sound like some parody show but are real, and quite silly really.

I ran across Buy Nothing Day online. At one time it was the anti-consumer-culture alternative to BF. Real big in New York. People would get busted attempting street theater in Herald Square. Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping. He got led off by the cops at least once. That was a halcyon and long departed age.

Guess what.... it still exists. AdBusters is still doing it. That's a name from the past. It was real big in the days of Indymedia centers and self-proclaimed anarchists, with their false sense of hope that people could actually organize against the robber barons using the net. Those days, of course, have been gone for decades now. Elon Musk didn't kill them, he just gave the eulogy. This is proven by the fact that Buy Nothing Day vaporized in the face of all the Black Friday hype. Even I thought it was dead.

Oh, but actually, it is. Dead man walking.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
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Number6
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by Number6 »

I wouldn't dare go shopping on Black Friday in the morning or early afternoon because the parking and crowds is insane. The only store I'll hit is the Navy Exchange because whatever crowds they have will have cleared out by 2 pm. I can go in and see some of the smaller items they put out but don't advertise that might interest me. I don't need a new TV, cell phone, headphones, vacuum cleaner, jewelry, etc..
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Number6
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by Number6 »

ZoWie wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 11:47 am This the year that it finally went over the edge. The president looked silly pardoning two turkeys with funny names, neither of which (fortunately) rhymed with "rump." What really looks silly, though, is the Black Friday ads. The retailers have fallen strangely silent, meanwhile the car dealers have Black Friday commercials every 10 minutes. If you're cursed with our provider, they break in on all channels except C-SPAN and run them twice to catch the thousands of viewers just returning from the pissoir. You can buy a Jeep on Black Friday. You can buy a Beemer on Black Friday. People who install new windows in your house have popped for Black Friday commercials. Some builder has a Black Friday special if you contract them for your next real estate development. Really. And, of course, then you get the spawn, five other days with catchy names that sound like some parody show but are real, and quite silly really.

I ran across Buy Nothing Day online. At one time it was the anti-consumer-culture alternative to BF. Real big in New York. People would get busted attempting street theater in Herald Square. Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping. He got led off by the cops at least once. That was a halcyon and long departed age.

Guess what.... it still exists. AdBusters is still doing it. That's a name from the past. It was real big in the days of Indymedia centers and self-proclaimed anarchists, with their false sense of hope that people could actually organize against the robber barons using the net. Those days, of course, have been gone for decades now. Elon Musk didn't kill them, he just gave the eulogy. This is proven by the fact that Buy Nothing Day vaporized in the face of all the Black Friday hype. Even I thought it was dead.

Oh, but actually, it is. Dead man walking.
Consumerism is a form of human programming designed to part us from our money. Halloween is when they tell us to buy candy, decorations, and costumes. Thanksgiving is when they tell us to buy turkeys, hams, booze, and decorations. Christmas is when they tell us we need to buy stuff for others, decorations, and trees/ornaments/lights in the effort to recreate a nostalgic past that didn't exist except on TV and in movies.

Black Friday is the time of the year retailers go from operating in the red (loss) to the black (profit) so they go all out to sell as much as they can. I don't blame them because their business is to sell and make a profit. But come on, how many people really buy someone else a car for Christmas. With cars, the dealers and car makers are keeping their brand in front of the consumer.

I'm one of those people, who probably like ZoWie, who know the difference between wants and needs and isn't swayed into buying something simply because it's advertised on TV.
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ProfX
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

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The alternative etymology of course comes from retail employees who know it to be one of the worst days of the year for them.

Consumerism is one thing; what irritates me about the day is everybody seems to let their inner demon out, and fight each other to the death over the last Turbo Man doll. If I want to see the worst in humanity, I'll watch Survivor, where everybody fighting to the death is on some island far away.

I feel for the employees. There are stories every year about the poor schlub who has to open the gate holding back the herd at Mao-Mart at 5 AM, and proceeds to be trampled by everybody in search of the 5 doorbusters that will be gone at 5:01 AM.
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gounion
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by gounion »

My wife and I don't really do Christmas. She'll be visiting her dad for Christmas, and I'll be here at home with our dog.

I won't be out shopping at all on Friday. I won't shop much the rest of the year. But the guy that puts up my Christmas lights will be around on Friday. I like the season, but I'm not into the consumerism.
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Number6
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

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ProfX wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 2:12 pm The alternative etymology of course comes from retail employees who know it to be one of the worst days of the year for them.

Consumerism is one thing; what irritates me about the day is everybody seems to let their inner demon out, and fight each other to the death over the last Turbo Man doll. If I want to see the worst in humanity, I'll watch Survivor, where everybody fighting to the death is on some island far away.

I feel for the employees. There are stories every year about the poor schlub who has to open the gate holding back the herd at Mao-Mart at 5 AM, and proceeds to be trampled by everybody in search of the 5 doorbusters that will be gone at 5:01 AM.
I used to work at K-Mart back in the early 70s and Thanksgiving through New Years was hectic. I didn't mind because I'd rather be busy taking care of customers than standing around doing nothing. Customers can be rude and pushy and I feel for those working retail today because it seems customers become too self-centered and that increases their bad behavior.
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Number6
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

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gounion wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 2:15 pm My wife and I don't really do Christmas. She'll be visiting her dad for Christmas, and I'll be here at home with our dog.

I won't be out shopping at all on Friday. I won't shop much the rest of the year. But the guy that puts up my Christmas lights will be around on Friday. I like the season, but I'm not into the consumerism.
My family, parents and siblings, decided back in the 80s not to buy each other gifts because we figured we know best what we need so it's easier for use to buy something we need rather than getting something we don't need. One nice thing about this is our stress levels are down considerably.
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gounion
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by gounion »

Number6 wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 2:36 pm My family, parents and siblings, decided back in the 80s not to buy each other gifts because we figured we know best what we need so it's easier for use to buy something we need rather than getting something we don't need. One nice thing about this is our stress levels are down considerably.
Yeah, and we're at the point in our lives that if we want something, we get it. My wife's pretty picky, and I don't pretend to know what is the perfect gift for her. To me, the Christmas gift-giving thing is for children. It truly is a cool thing, but no kids, no need.
Glennfs
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by Glennfs »

I love Chrisman especially the giving and receiving. When I was a kid we always has the best Christmases.
My wife on the other hand grew up pretty poor and to this day just isn't into Christmas .
This year will also mark the 45th year of our annual Christmas fight. I want to give people games and toys. While she wants to give them practical things they can use. To date I am an undefeated 44-0 and looking forward to my 45th strait won.
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ZoWie
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by ZoWie »

1. Yes. "Black Friday" was the cynical retailers' name for the day everyone got a guilt attack and went shopping, nominally for the holidays but actually to get a deal on some shit for themselves. It as often as not put the store into the black for the year.

2. The real mass hysteria surrounding the date seems to have hit critical mass about 10 years ago, about the same time everything else went into a steep decline. Internet seemed to have something to do with the sudden proliferation of subsequent gimmie-money days, like Small Business Saturday, Local Sunday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, and of course my favorite, Everyone Send Z $1000 Wednesday.

3. For a year or three, many many years ago, I actually did attempt to observe Buy Nothing Day, and you can't believe how hard it is. Actually it's impossible unless you go off the grid and don't need gas, etc.. The really unsettling thing is that people think you've gone absolutely bonkers, if not downright seditious. People would look at me like I'd finally completely gone off the edge and would soon be wearing a black suit with a pointy hat and a little round bomb in one hand. Mothers would quickly hustle their children across the street. To this day there are a few family relations who think I'm somewhat to the left of the Paris Commune of 1871. I don't bring it or AdBusters up in polite company any more. It's all a fearsome relic of the Seattle Battle era, I suspect.

4. Have a nice holiday. Do something fun.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

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OK... Macy's parade...

The TV coverage is crap. Turn it off. They show the staged dancing in front of Macy's in a blocked off 34th St instead of the parade which starts uptown on the West Side and moves south from the 70s somewhere across to Herald Square.... ish in midtown.

Having been in NYC for the real thing, I can't stand how the networks don't show the parade. After watching it for real out in the typically 39 degree weather and the low sun which makes videography difficult without putting up banks of mercury-iodide arcs, I can't take the phoniness on TV.

They show hours of giggly nonsense and celebrity con jobs, and and practically stick a gun in your face to get your money. They hype Broadway shows which half to 2/3 of the audience will never get a chance to see even if they can afford a trip to Manhattan and the $150 tickets, or their town gets visited by an inferior road company. The commercials aren't about Thanksgiving, which actually has no story except a fake one about a vicious colony that wasn't a bit like that. They're about shaming you into spending your every penny on crap from retail stores owned by business types who shit on you from their private jets.

Thank your favorite deity for USA Today/AP/whoever, who puts up one guy with a camera at 73rd and CPW or thereabouts where there's apparently a bleachers and a bunch of board-certified billionaire co-op residents on balconies. Now, everyone criticizes their camera operation, and yes, it will give you a headache, but having actually covered parades with one camera and impossible lighting and sun in your face, I give the poor guy about a B- or C+. You're not going to do much better without more people and heavy metal to get shots that are exposed right, focused right, and actually look about where at least 60 per cent of the audience wants them to look. Parades by definition go past the camera, and if you don't do whip pans to get back to what's coming from up the street, you'll miss everything. This guy's whip pans weren't the best, but I've seen worse.

It's on YouTube and this year I'll write an electronic memo so next year if I'm not in NYC I'll skip the network TV altogether and just watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=359IGLUlNhE
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by ZoWie »

Right on cue, every channel I checked this morning was going on about how many Americans are shopping, and how this has saved the country for another year. If actors took their cues and hit their marks as well as the Nooz does, directing would be a great deal less stressful.

You will be happy to know that good patriotic Americans who take their national obligations seriously are mobbing the stores at 6 AM, and the country has been saved. Now the Nooz can start talking about gun violence again, but of course nothing of substance will happen to cut down on it.

Thanksgiving was actually real here for about 5 hours last night. Small victories. I love 'em. They're the only victories we have.

We're already ahead of last year. No new variants of concern were announced yesterday. Last year of course was the Thanksgiving Week debut of Omicron, when the waste water tests came back. Of course the mobs in the stores are unmasked, and in a patriotic fervor to change that and get a good all-American covid variant going exponential by Christmas.

I read that only 13% got the new vaccine. This one actually increases Omicron immunity by an amount that surprised even the health professionals. It works, and no one wanted it. That's depressing.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by Libertas »

Stupid fucking people not getting the vax.

There is a "triple threat" this winter and it will hit the schools first and HARD...

RSV
Flu
Covid

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -children/

I was going to do something for the winter that would have increased my exposure, not important what, but having read this I am not doing that now.
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ProfX
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

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Well, I happily participated today in Buy Nothing Day.

(OK, I'm not counting food and things of nutritional value. :D )

Yeah, so all the local big box stores did this thing where they opened up Thanksgiving at 6 PM. Gobble turkey fast, or just don't show. They stayed open till 1 AM. Then closed for five hours, so they could reopen at 6 AM for the Black Friday mobs. Well, the employees got at least five hours to sleep on the shelves (though I think they were all working on prepping the store). Good news: so far, AFAIK, nobody trampled by the mob, or beaten to death over the last turbo-man doll.

I decided rather than that madness, I'd support the folks striking over at Amazon.

At least 6's prophesied mao-mart mass shooting happened 2 days early. I hope that's all we'll see. :|

Image
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Number6
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

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ProfX wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:29 pm At least 6's prophesied mao-mart mass shooting happened 2 days early. I hope that's all we'll see. :|
To be honest, I didn't prophesied it but I said I was worried it would happen on Black Friday. What I wrote was "What I'm worried about is with Black Friday coming up some nut with an assault rifle will open fire on people inside or waiting to get into a crowded store."

https://www.radiofreeliberal.com/viewto ... 869#p44869

If I had the gift of prophesy and could see mass shootings before they happened I'd be on the telephone to law enforcement most of the day.
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ap215
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by ap215 »

This is a real family who understands & cares for everyone.

Bidens Spend Thanksgiving Calling Military Members to Express Gratitude for Their Service

Just days after Joe Biden celebrated the White House wedding of his granddaughter and his own 80th birthday, the president — alongside First Lady Dr. Jill Biden — ushered in the holiday season by calling military members to thank them for their service.

In the afternoon, the president and first lady called "units from each branch of our military, stationed around the world, to thank them and their families for their service to the country," according to a pool report. The couple spoke to service members stationed at sea, in Europe and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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ZoWie
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

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Typically, on past Black Fridays anyway, the shoppers have shot each other over who gets the last one of last year's TVs at half price. Some forms of American mass insanity don't need whackos with automatic rifles to produce dead bodies.
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Re: Happy Consumer-Culture Thanksgiving

Post by ZoWie »

Congratulations, America, you have saved civilization!

So says C-SPAN's giddy Tech Check. They thank you for spending yourself into hopeless debt over the weekend. To hear them tell it, civilization has been saved. Forget drumpf and Musk, forget Putin, forget supply chains, and riots in China, and tripledemics and alphabet-soup strains, and Russia lobbing obsolete missiles at Ukraine. All is right with the world again because you shopped. Give yourselves a hand.

Praise the Lord and pass the plastic cards!

They remind you that it's the essential Cyber Monday, and the salvation of America and all that is free and equal (unless you are in the ever growing number of excluded groups) is still in progress. Find a card you haven't maxed out and spend our way to the Promised Land. Hundreds of thousands of Amazon wage slaves are depending on you to make Bezos only lay off a few thousand of them.

[Place commercial here]
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
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