One of the most despicable examples of mindless materialism is the shopping tradition of Black Friday, a day where consumer zombies stampede through stores, killing strangers to buy discounted merchandise.

What’s particularly ironic about a date dedicated to encouraging society to buy shit we don’t need is that it comes on the heels of Thanksgiving, a day that’s supposed to represent gratitude for what we already have. Now, Black Friday has become a global capitalist holiday, infecting countries that don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving.

Despite the holiday buying bonanza, never forget that the true spirit of the season should be one of appreciation for your life and family. If only we took more time to reflect on everything we have instead of succumbing to material obsession over what we lack, the world would be much better off.

Abby

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Black Friday’s Rabid Zombie Shopping Stampede

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BREAKING THE SET – Black Friday is a day reserved for seemingly normal people to become consumer zombies, ready and willing to do what whatever it takes to save a few bucks. Because nothing screams giving thanks more than clubbing a stranger and stomping their face in, as you stampede through a Walmart for that discounted clock radio.

Check out the worst Walmart Thanksgiving fights from this year.

One of the most peculiar aspects of this materialistic tradition is how happy people are to camp outside for days in the freezing cold just to be first in line for discounted junk. With thousands of people camping out and acting like wild animals, where are the riot cops?

Apparently police only pepper spray and shoot rubber bullets at people protesting consumerism, not brainlessly indulging in it. It’s apparently unacceptable for Occupy Activists to camp out on public sidewalks, but it’s perfectly fine as long as it’s done to feed the materialist culture of the Discount Industrial Complex.

The silver lining is the growing discontent from employees of America’s largest and worst paying corporation – Walmart. This year, associates aren’t only holding protests against the company’s sub-standard working conditions, but they’ve planned a massive walk out on the busiest shopping day of the year.

Walmart is so threatened, a former executive has launched a campaign called ‘Black Lieday,’ encouraging people to shop shop shop, and not pay attention to protesters.

So I implore you, boycott these corporate monoliths. Instead, buy local from places like farmers markets, mom and pop stores and online artists (like me at abbymartin.org)! Or, you could take a cue from Walmart execs and shop til’ ya drop – just watch out for the rabid zombie shopping stampede while you’re down on the ground.

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Photo by Flickr user RNialBradshaw

Americans grow up learning history through the lens of a victorious US empire. This notion isn’t just bred through the educational system – every major institution in society maintains the same perspective in order to help unify the people under a national identity.

Although it benefits the whole if there is a sense of unity among the population, the false belief that an arbitrary national border makes one human better than the other is socially destructive. Not only is this isolated worldview of American exceptionalism insulting to non-Americans, it’s a propaganda tool used to manufacture consent for the US government’s disastrous and hypocritical policies.

Throughout the last half century, the United States has acted as military arbitrator of the world, policing other countries in the name of “freedom” while constantly waging war to undermine other nations’ democracies.

This classified history of America is deeply explored in a ten-part documentary Showtime series called The Untold History of the United States, a film adaptation of the joint book authored by Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone and prolific historian Peter Kuznick.

The epic saga looks back with a critical eye at historical events that went under reported at the time, but ended up crucially shaped America over the 20th century. From the dropping of two atomic bombs over Japan to the Cold War and the fall of Communism, this in-depth, provocative documentary series challenges many Americans’ long held political paradigms.

Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick have corrected American history on Breaking the Set before. Recently, they came on again to discuss the truth behind everything from JFK’s legacy to Obama’s expansion of the surveillance state.

Abby

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Abby Martin Breaks the Set with Oliver Stone and Historian Peter Kuznick.

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Earlier this year, Congressman Alan Grayson invited a Pakistani family who witnessed their grandmother getting blown up by a US drone to testify in front of Congress. After jumping through legal hoops for months, the Rehmans finally arrived to DC to testify about how drone warfare has tragically impacted their lives.

However their lawyer, Shazad Akbar, was suspiciously missing. The State Department inexplicably refused to grant him a visa, despite the fact that Akbar had traveled to the US many times before. Ultimately, only five members of Congress took the time to show up and listen to the Rehman family’s message.

I had the great opportunity to provide the Rehman family, including Rafiq, his children Zubair age 13, Nabeela age 9, as well as their lawyer, Jennifer Gibson, a platform on Breaking the Set to tell their somber story.

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The Rehman Family on Breaking the Set 

Many people in this country have accepted the false notion that drone strikes are a necessary evil to fight the ubiquitous threat of terrorism. Yet the government’s logic to either use ground troops or drones to fight ‘terror’ is a false dichotomy that must be countered.

The common argument that drones are the most strategic and effective weapon in modern warfare has been proven categorically false. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as many as 926 civilians have died in Pakistan alone from US drone strikes. Not to mention the fact that the civilian death toll could be as high as 3,595, considering how the simple act of being a military aged male in a strike region deems you a militant worthy of execution in the eyes of the US government.

An in-depth study done by the New America Foundation showed that drones only have a two percent average success rate at killing high level targets on the ground. This means that 98% of the time, innocent people are probably being killed.

Beyond these cold death statistics, it’s crucial to recognize that every casualty from these shadow wars is a human being like you and me. These people have faces, names and families left behind to mourn their loss.

If Islamic extremism is a threat, it needs to be dealt with in other ways. The US government should be working with foreign governments to capture alleged high level terror targets and put them on trial. It shouldn’t be a problem for Obama to release proof of their guilt if these suspects are already considered dangerous enough to outright execute.

Every drone strike that hits these remote villages causes twenty new ‘terrorists’ to form with renewed hatred toward the US government. Not only are drones ineffective, but they arguably cause the proliferation – not reduction – of terrorism.

Despite the inefficient and counter-intuitive nature of drone wars, these flying death traps dominate modern warfare. Their continued use becomes more clear when taking into account how Bush’s drone architect said that the reason Obama has ramped up drones is to avoid the bad press of Guantanamo Bay.

This is the stark reality we’re living in. The President is a constitutional lawyer who opts to assassinate people in order to not deal with the messy consequences of sending them into a Gitmo-style prison abyss.

I urge you to heed the words of the Rehman family. Resistance to unmanned killer drones must be formed in mass in order to end this criminal policy once and for all.

Abby Martin for Media Roots

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Some of you may already be familiar with Zeitgeist, a controversial documentary film trilogy that challenges everything you think you know about the world. If you aren’t, do yourself a favor and get acquainted.

The first movie release, Zeitgeist, analyzes the social constructs that keep humanity’s consciousness stunted; Zeitgeist: Addendum dissects the unsustainability of the current economic system; The epilogue, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, outlines the notion of structural violence, mechanization and the blueprint for a new system – one that can exist harmoniously with nature.

The viral film series has since spawned a global collective called The Zeitgeist Movement or TZM, an international initiative of activism and awareness pushing the notion that the current social and economic structure is inherently flawed, and must be transformed in order to ensure a sustainable future for all.

The Zeitgeist trilogy, as well as its follow-up Culture in Decline series, have challenged many of my preconceived paradigms as well as greatly inspired my activism, so it was awesome to sit down with Peter Joseph, founder of The Zeitgeist Movement Global, for an in-depth interview. Whether or not you agree with his philosophy, it’s undeniably thought-provoking and deserves to be heard.

Abby 

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Peter Joseph Breaks the Set on The Zeitgeist Movement

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