No Black Friday--Well, For Me, Anyway

So, there is movement based out of social justice on behalf of Mike Brown and his slaying in Ferguson, which encourages people not to shop today of all days--of consumerism, the most high holy.
We all shouldn't shop today, anyway, though. I don't just say this because I'm going to be at work tomorrow at 8:30 sharpish. We shouldn't do this because people have been told they will work Thanksgiving or be fired.  We can do this in honor of striking Walmart workers.  We can jointly acknowledge that Black Friday isn't even the best day, necessarily to shop. 

I know, for me, I hate crowds and noise and bullshit. On any given Friday, I would just like to go to work. My actual shopping is a long, slow, loving hunter-gatherer experience that has a lot to do with looking at circulars and hitting the mall when it is not crowded with other bodies and touching merchandise and making thoughtful choices and not going -"Shit! Now! Buy this shit now! More shit now! ARGGGHHHH!".

The idea of standing in line in the cold outdoors in expectation of some kind of crazy sale is--so not gonna be me. So I feel like a right smug tart telling anyone this should not be you, either. But really--let this not be you. Maybe, even if consumerism has its place, making a holiday of consumerism is totally out of place, and we should really make a place for enjoying a post-Thanksgiving high that does not involve swiping a card and trying to buy love from our fam by getting them discounted consumer goods.

And yeah--consumerism sucks in general and I don't know how it relates to Ferguson, specifically. I don't care. Black Friday is tacky and sometimes even violent (anarchists targeted the Macy Parade this year)*.  I have no sympathy for it. I'm just saying, shopping does not deserve a holiday. People do.

*Nota bene: by anarchists, the newspaper article means "anarchists" and I mean "people who don't understand why a movement that signifies by pissing people off, will only serve to piss people off."

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.)

President Obama Takes Care of Business, and Labor, and Consumers

President Obama took advantage of a Congressional recess to appoint Robert Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as making three other appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. Although there has been some squawking from the usual suspects, I wonder how big a fuss they mean to make over it--after all "We obstructed filling these positions fair and square!" and "Who cares about protecting consumers or labor relations, anyway?" probably aren't the strongest arguments to be heard right about now.  It's not like recess appointments aren't ever made, and Obama actually has made comparatively few. The claim that Congress wasn't really in recess as a result of a little legislative trick isn't going to help them when the point was being obstructionist in the first place; it makes the GOP leadership look like they started it--because they did!

Good for President Obama. When bipartisanship has broken down, you still have to get things done.