OMG Black Friday 2013

There is a riff I posted on Twitter, accompanied by some of my "Know Your Class War" posts, where the basic gist is: Black Friday is becoming a structured, arranged bum fight, where American consumers are the bums. I can cast shade as much as anyone about people getting into shoving matches over who is laying hands on the bargain consumer goods, or whatever, but it isn't with glee to see people acting like asses or vindication that consumerism brings out the worst in people. It's freaking weird. People are trading elbows for the privilege of handing over their money to corporations who fully expect this day to be very profitable for them. Over consumer goods that people can very often purchase for similar good prices any time of year, with the right research.

It's odd. I described the news coverage of Black Friday sales and the potential for violence therein as being the ultimate advert: "Deals so good, there will be blood!" It's only funny to a point, though. Sometimes people really do get hurt. And retail workers are financially hurt by most of this mishegas all year long--mostly in poor benefits and low wages with flexible, but crappy hours as the general rule.

Know Your Class War: Working for...A Living?

Information via: National Coalition for the Homeless.  Graphic via   OWS Posters.

Just as a continuation on Wednesday's piece, activist/employees continue to fight within their organization for better wages. Those who can may want to use direct action to stand with them. Otherwise, one can consider boycotting Walmart ( as a resident of a densely built-up urban area, I can and have been avoiding Walmart, even though there's one across the street from me, with ease, but I understand for some areas, Walmart has become something like the "only game in town", making avoiding patronizing them challenging). Apparently people boycott McDonald's all the time for all kinds of reasons (I just despise fast food for all the things so, there you go), but may be sensitive to feedback.  These aren't the only two major corps that pay minimal wages and have crappy attitudes regarding their workers--you may have noticed that there is an ongoing "War on Thanksgiving".  You can boycott doing any shopping on Thanksgiving, or for that matter, not participate in the gross consumer frenzy Black Friday has become.

Also we can contact our elected officials to show our support for a living wage (via petitions if you must, because clicktivism is a thing or use this widget to send them a more personalized statement), and make sure we work to elect people who will do just that.

If people are trying to work for a living, and not making it, maybe we can all work for a living wage. (I know that sounds awkward. I am not a great sloganeer.)

Know Your Class War: Walmart & McDonald's Because You KNOW

Two stories from customer-service land have warmed the cockles of my holiday-readying heart, and wonder of wonders! They come from two of the biggest names in American business! The first story come from Walmart, where bins have thoughtfully been set up to let Walmart associates donate to their less-fortunate co-workers.  The second comes from McDonald's, who have some awesome tips for helping their associates weather their meager income situation, through the power of shutting up and scrimping. 

Oh, wait. By "warmed the cockles of", I think I meant "was made sick enough to pour booze over the cockles of". Because that is so very close to an awareness that their workers don't really make enough to live on, and yet such a fail at figuring out the surest remedy of that problem. Big hint: it would be that they get paid more for the whole working thing. Your welcome, major US corporations!

Now, I know that this whole "working to make a living thing" has become a radical idea in a world where there are some people who seriously maintain that there shouldn't even be a minimum wage at all. (Like, what should people even work for? Room and board and go into debt to the boss for sundries? Wow. That almost sounds as bad as rich people paying down the national debt--huh?)

But you know, if you break it down to whether the work of any person should earn them enough to afford a "living"--what are you saying? They shouldn't be able to afford--to live? Because that is the meaning of the word, and people need things like food and water and shelter and clothes and all that.  Those basics make the worker. They make them capable of doing the work. There needs to be a non-negotiable understanding that a worker is a human being and has to be treated like one.

Otherwise, the options left are that Uncle Sam (us) picks up the tab for feeding them and basically subsidizes the profits for those at the top of those respective companies' food chains, or they really decide that associates are disposable, in the literal sense. And I just don't see that as acceptable--do you?