Mumbai Terrorists May Teach Us Nothing, But Can a Wal-Mart Stampede?

The hottest new name in terror, the Deccan Mujahideen, have reminded us this Thanksgiving to be thankful for at least one thing – that the FBI sucks at making predictions. It seems that New Yorkers were more in danger of getting trampled by overeager shoppers than getting blown to bits by suicide bombers…

A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York was trampled to death by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a Hobbesian frenzy.
People did not stop to help the employee as he lay on the ground, and they pushed against other Wal-Mart workers who were trying to aid Mr. Damour. The crowd kept running into the store even after the police arrived, jostling and pushing officers who were trying to perform CPR, the police said.

It just goes to show you where America’s priorities lie. Granted, we should never, ever give into the fear-mongering of the United States government and just stay indoors all our lives, but I guarantee that not one of those shoppers even knows that Mumbai is a fucking city, yet they could name every product on sale at every retailer in the area. It’s interesting that all the mainstream media can talk about is how businesses are collapsing and people are cutting their spending, yet we still haven’t learned a damn thing about what’s really valuable in life. In the end, the holidays just bring out the worst in our people, exemplifying the greed of our consumer culture that only contributes to our worldwide image as…well…a bunch of a greedy consumers. When September 11th happened, we expected the entire world to stop and mourn with us. Then we expected them all to unconditionally support our plans for revenge, despite the fact that most of those plans didn’t even involve punishing those responsible. Now Mumbai, a crowded metropolis that serves as India’s financial capital and one of the world’s top ten commercial centers, is suffering heavy losses from a terrorist attack, and even though the parallels between Mumbai and NYC are strikingly similar, it seems the world hasn’t stopped for those people either.

We cling so hard to tradition in this country that we refuse to see how much these consumers truly hinder our progress. Our ancestors were insatiable conquerors who ignored the common good of humanity for personal and financial gain. They stole the land and used slaves to cultivate it, and when they weren’t killing each other for gold and oil, they were standing complacent as bankers and industrialists bought up this nation and divided it amongst themselves. Then they raised these new gods up on a pedestal, toiling endlessly every day at menial jobs in hopes of someday ascending to the upper class and achieving their American dream. We’ve become so competitive and so obsessed with gaining a bigger piece of that pie that we don’t even notice when we push our own to the ground and trample them in the process, and in this case, I mean that quite literally. Even scarier is the fact that some of these people really knew that he was down there, that with every step they took towards discounted toys and cheap undergarments, they were actually stomping the life out of another human being, another guy who was just going to work that day. They filled shopping carts and complained of long lines as police and paramedics pushed through the unforgiving throng in hopes of saving his life. And instead of the manager of that Wal-Mart shutting that store down right then and there, telling these depraved shoppers that the life of this man is just a tad more important than Christmas gifts for their ungrateful, snot-nosed little brats, he just worked a register or pointed customers toward the shoe department. Maybe he knew that this probably would have started a riot, that even as a man fought for his life just a few feet away, more violence would be worth the cost of a sale-priced iPod to these people. Maybe he knew that Wal-Mart would have fired him for cutting into their profits by shutting down this Mecca of commerce immediately. (They did, eventually, close, but not before finishing up a good portion of their transactions.) But I can tell you for sure that no matter what he was thinking, he will go home to his family this Christmas. Jdimypai Damour, 34, an everyday Joe who was working for Wal-Mart through a temp agency, maybe to make some extra money or maybe because he was just desperate for work like some many other Americans, will not. My condolences go out to a family who will never look at Black Friday the same way again.

The rest of my thoughts are with the citizens and visitors of Mumbai. It’s sad that because the small-minded people of this modern age refuse to evolve past destructive religious ideologies like Islam that you’ll have to suffer as we did, and it’s even sadder that these victims will be just as easily forgotten. What remains in our minds instead are the temporary joys of ripping open colorful paper wrapping to find store-bought gifts that will be omitted from memory by the following year. Sure, my friends and family will receive Christmas presents from me this year as they do every year, but I’m proud to say that I didn’t buy anything today. It’s not much of a protest really, but it shows a bit more maturity than I’ve had in the past. I hope that America can someday wake up and age as gracefully.