It was difficult to decide which video of those Diane collected I should use for this post, but ultimately this one won. I chose it because it so clearly illustrates the mad frenzy whipped up by our corporate overlords for unbridled greed and consumerism.

What disturbs me most about all of these WalMart frenzies are how children stand at the front of them. Look at those kids lunging for that videogame they simply must have either because it's five bucks less on this day than it is any other. And their parents, setting such a terrific example. As Susie said in her earlier post, industries create a culture of want, and one specifically aimed at young people.

These stores run these Black Friday promos at a loss in order to lure customers into shopping for other, regular retail items. They crank up the public relations machine and start priming the pump really early. I've been seeing Black Friday ads since mid-October, and those are for online and storefront retailers.

Understand something: It's not the product as much as it is the deal. It is the enslavement of consumer to product, or product vendor. It is a way of inducing a purchase that in less fevered circumstances, would likely not be made.

Efforts to help turn the focus away from this kind of feeding frenzy like the Small Business Day promotion this year seem anemic in comparison to the monolithic push to appeal to people's worst instincts. Tell them they're going to save twenty bucks on a cellphone package that isn't discounted on any other day of the year, and they're waiting in line for 24 hours or more. How is this good for anyone?

We already know it's terrible for the workers. Spending 24 hours in line for a deal that amounts to less than $100 doesn't seem like a particularly effective use of anyone's time, especially when that 24-hour period is Thanksgiving Day. It would be so very simple for retailers to offer deals like this throughout the year, but no. They make this one day, this one Friday, the high holy day of consumer greed and deals in order to foster the ensuing belief and desire of those people that they absolutely must have that shiny thing in order to be happy.

Part of this is my own internal bias. There is absolutely nothing that could induce me to get within five miles of any retail store on the day after Thanksgiving. Nothing. But also, I truly dislike "events" that encourage people to behave like a pack of dogs, ripping apart everything and everyone standing in between them and their "deal."

It seems to me we could and should counter this with some public relations efforts of our own. Suggest gifts, for example, that aren't always that "new shiny thing." Perhaps spend the day after Thanksgiving working on community projects to make old bicycles new, or spruce up the neighborhood park, or make a skate ramp for kids, or something that produces, rather than consumes.

Kids survive when they don't get their shiny thing. They might not have much to look forward to if we keep believing the myth of the deal and the lie that we must buy, and especially, we must buy on "Black Friday."

As consumers, we have the control to boycott Black Friday past, present and future. We should do it. The economy will survive if we don't gorge ourselves on "deals."

"The goal for the corporations is to maximize profit and market share. And they also have a goal for their target, namely the population. They have to be turned into completely mindless consumers of goods that they do not want. You have to develop what are called 'Created Wants'. So you have to create wants. You have to impose on people what's called a Philosophy of Futility. You have to focus them on the insignificant things of life, like fashionable consumption. I'm just basically quoting business literature. And it makes perfect sense. The ideal is to have individuals who are totally disassociated from one another. Whose conception of themselves, the sense of value is just, 'how many created wants can I satisfy?' We have huge industries, public relations industry, monstrous industry, advertising and so on, which are designed from infancy to mold people into this desired pattern."

-- Noam Chomsky

I stopped by Lowe's yesterday to pick up some mouse traps and got into a conversation with another customer when I stopped to admire the miniature Christmas village display. He was a middle-aged man who told me he had four grandsons with expensive tastes. "I can hardly take care of myself, let alone buy this stuff they want," he said, shaking his head.

"You're the grandfather, that's the parents' problem," I said.

No, he said, his son and daughter were drowning in credit card debt and he worried about them. "My son already filed for bankruptcy once and I think he's going to have to do it again," he said. "Look, I live a simple life. I have a prepaid Tracphone in my pocket, I use dial-up internet. When I retire, I'd like to move to North Carolina because it's a lot cheaper to live, but it's too long a drive and I know my kids wouldn't come see me."

He told me the grandkids wanted things like iPods and video games for Christmas. "The oldest one is eight," he said. "I just don't understand why you have to give kids that young whatever they want."

He said it was nice talking to me, and walked away.

FDR with his famous black arm band.

Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping protesting at the NYC Disney Store in August of this year.

I spent my Thanksgiving holidays in New York City this year. Our Thanksgiving dinner was not our traditional turkey gluttony because we were visiting my cousin and her newborn baby and a huge feast was just not logistically possible in her tiny kitchen and with the demands of a baby. Still, we were together (MaxMarginal's mom recommended a great little bistro that even pleased my finicky aunt), we enjoyed ourselves immensely and that's what the holidays are about, right?

But it was another kind of the deadly sins that caught my family's attention after Thanksgiving: the avarice of Black Friday. Walking back to our hotel from the Upper West Side, my children noticed that there were far more people camping out at the Best Buy and Macy's than were there for the Thanksgiving Day parade. Walmart proudly announced in TV ads that they would open at 4 am (!!!) for shoppers. Ads for JCPenneys/Kohls/Kmart/Sears were similarly emblazoned with promises of great deals for those willing to forfeit sleep for shopping.

Now I know that we need to spend to stimulate the economy, but this adulation to conspicuous consumption even made my "gimme gimme" youngsters a little sick. I'm not as far over as to subscribe to the BuyNothingChristmas; my kids will have a few presents to open under the tree. But nothing that would require me to brave the malls in the wee hours of the morning, nor enable virtual slave labor in third world countries for the sake of our vanity. However, one of the things I insist my kids do every year is make gifts for family. One year we made hundreds of truffles and packaged them prettily. Another year, we made personalized ornaments. Another year were decorated coupons for chores and good deeds. The point is that they have to do something, not purchase something, which is the way I prefer to focus my attention on Black Friday.

What do you for the holidays to get yourselves in the spirit?

And on a semi-related note, Huffington Post has put together a list of 15 toys that you should never, and I do mean never, consider purchasing for your child. Like the Death Wish Elmo:

Yeah, that gets me in the holiday mood, how about you? For more, see Mike Mozart's FAILToys YouTube Channel.

There's probably no more dangerous place on the planet than being positioned between marauding shoppers and their objects of desire on the morning of Black Friday -- as one unfortunate man discovered today:

A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.

The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."

Maybe it's time for people to start getting some perspective on "holiday bargains." Because this is just sick.

Of course, we are supporters of avoiding this madness altogether by supporting Buy Nothing Day.

Download | play Download | play

I was watching MSNBC this morning and during a segment on the Black Friday shopping frenzy and the throngs of people waiting in line to get into a New Jersey mall, when something caught my eye. I rewound the video and sure enough, the first two people through the door were wearing protest shirts -- "Impeach Bush" and "Out Of Iraq".

I don't know who these brave souls are, but I thought I'd thank them for waiting in line to get the chance to make their statement and give them props for getting the holidays off to a great start and trying to spread some good will. We can only hope security didn't tackle, tase or beat them...

*Update: They made it on CNN later in the morning!

Happy Black Friday ....