Last year, prompted by the arrival of an unsolicited Swiss Colony catalog on my doorstep, I posted Whitey Christmas on my blog Hick With a Master's Degree. This humorous piece was intended to point out just how ridiculous the Pseudo-Religious American Shopping Season has become.
This year, I'm not laughing. Because we are now at a crossroads, exemplified by one tragic event.
Today, on the east coast, the most eagerly anticipated shopping day of the year began with a mob of people trampling a man who had the unfortunate duty of opening the front door to a Wal-Mart store. Following the event, while the man's fellow employees tried to clear the store, many of the people who had stood in line for hours refused to leave.
For the rest of their lives this man's friends and family will have an annual reminder of his death. From now on they will know that in this fat-assed, unsatisfiable, bargain-lusting nation a human life is worth less than a post-Thanksgiving sale on Holiday Barbie, Fisher-Price Disco Dancin Wubbzy, and a Stanley 201-piece Mechanics Tool Set.
This is really not just a news item. It isn't a freakish holiday story to be forgotten in the blur of our usual Christmas stupor. This is what is known as a wake-up call.
In the same year when we have elected a president who represents our best hopes for a better world, one with real moral values and compassion for all human life, it is WE, the people of this nation and this society, who need to CHANGE. We can't just vote and then turn it all over to Barack Obama and tell him to let us know when America is fixed.
As an American, and especially as a person proud to identify as a hick, I would like every person who reads this story to simply put the credit card back in the wallet, get back into the RV, go home, and think about what really matters in this world. And let's try to refrain from the insanity of shopping to fill the void in our sorry lives. Because we all know, deep down, that this is what we are doing. Without shopping centers and specially named sale days and the more, more, more rush of buying crap and hauling it home, who and what would we be?
I think it's time to find out.