Posted on 11/28/2008 7:01:14 PM PST by traumer
Hundreds of shoppers smashed through windows at a Long Island Wal-Mart early Friday morning, killing one store employee in the stampede. News' reader Nakea Augustine caught the chaotic scene on her cell phone, check out the photos.
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/galleries/walmart_stampede_captured_in_pictures/walmart_stampede_captured_in_pictures.html
Any store. Their union status is a non-issue.
Who said anything about government control? Wal-Mart and other stores can do just as they please, but if they create a dangerous mob scene and don’t take steps to control the crowd, they need to be accountable for it.
I remember Mervyn’s used to have Christmas sale commercials with crowds outside beating on the doors chanting “open open open”
Mattress factory commercials had the sales reps strap mattresses on their bodies before they opened the doors and the crowd trampled them.
Robert Comstock used to have his annual seconds sale here in Boise Idaho on the day after Thanksgiving. It was the only sale he did all year long. Huge discounts on designer leather. Opening of the doors was called “Running of the Bulls” and they would play “Ride of the Valkyries” over the loudspeakers as it was going on. We used to camp out in front all night long.
It’s not just Wal-Mart that have these huge sales and hype them up. Do you think all store should be sued that do the same thing, or do you just have Wal-Mart Derangement Syndrome like so many other people?
Didn’t I post “any store” just above? If you think uncontrolled mobs at stores or anywhere else are just so fun and festive, you are welcome to them, and good luck to you.
Amazing how people who have no argument resort to name calling to "win" their point.
And how often the exact language you used (liberal/marxist/racist) - and you used the three big ones - is used by those with no real constructive argument. Notice how you just stated your brief opinion, and called me a name. No evidence, no reasoning, and no logic.
Lets see - WalMart chooses and plans for their security. They choose how many security guards, how they will set up the traffic, and then set up (fully knowing the "clientele" they are dealing with - and then make their business decisions as they see fit.
They saw fit, despite a growing mob, to not take any further action - they didn't call the police, they didn't plan for this day as they should have. This young man who was trampled was the victim of not only a mob of animals, but also of poor business choices (particularly related to store security even after the mob of thousands began to crowd in).
This security guy was killed "in the line of duty". In most professions, if killed at your job, guess who is responsible - the employer or their insurance. Period.
Again, come back when you have a thought out argument, not name calling.
I like my chances under a Mighty Mak better. I saw the last Inauguration- I couldn't believe that the Metro cars could handle that much weight. If somebody had passed out, they couldn't have hit the floor. And that was a Republican Inauguration. I couldn't imagine being crowded in with that many Moonbats.
I had to commute through downtown DC to get to work at the time.
If you're going to get in line all night for a sale, why all pick that store?
Sounds like you belong to the blame America crowd.
No comparison what so ever! The school did not encourage the students to break in. Wal-Mart did encourage the atmosphere which brought the stampede.
My real point: there are thousands of Wal-marts around the nation. One of these had a "bad thing happen". You are suggesting that if ONE wal-mart has such a bad event, then ALL Wal-marts must be sue-able too, for offering sales.
This is how liberalism always begins: catering to ONE at the expense of the many. Wrong, IMHO. Very wrong. Prosecute those who were pushing in the back of the crowd. Find out who took the doors off the hinges and why.
Wal-Mart encouraged a stampede by neanderthals through advertising "sales"? Sure. And the World Trade Center was emblematic of evil America, so it had to be taken out.
A small minority of people in the San Francisco Bay Area suffering asthma, and now the freedoms of hundreds of thousands of people are curtailed in that they can only light fires in their fireplaces on governmental "approved" days. The expense of the majority in favor of coddling the minority.
This is ridiculous, and you and I will have to disagree on this. Feel free to have the last word.
Junior_G wrote: “ Sounds like you’re doing mental gymnastics to try to rationalize away your politically incorrect common sense... For instance, hip-hop fashion trends have taken millions of black youth and made them almost indistinguishable from rodeo clowns. But to helpfully point that out will result in instant accusations of racism from liberals as well as weak-minded, posturing conservatives.”
Junior_G,
rwfromkansas rightly stated “People of every race would act the same way with similar cultural values”, and you describe that as mental gymnastics. Well, now that’s insightful.
At the risk of being labled a weak-minded, posturing conservative; your post, sir, was racist.
Mine along with rwfromkansas’ point was that it is essential to separate race from culture in order to confront bad behavior. The mob scene at the Walmart on Long Island had nothing to do with genetics, and everything to do with sociology.
And why is that you may ask? Because policies such as the “War on Poverty” (BTW, poverty won), The Great Society, affirmative action, etc., have pigeonholed a segment of our society into a generational welfare state. The fact that a disproportional number of these folks are black, again, has nothing to do with genetics, but is testament to why these policies are so wrong.
Things are getting tense in this country, and the only solution is to try to confront this tension in an honest manner. Your dismissal of rwfromkansas’ post as “mental gymnastics” not only undermines this effort, but also illustrates how your rationalizations are just the sort of thing which make this effort so difficult.
Agreed, we’ll have to disagree. The atmosphere created at these “events” is prime for this type thing to happen IMO. I don’t care if it had been Best Buy, Kohls, or JC Penney instead of Wal-Mart, they try to create a mob atmosphere. This one ended tragically and it should have been expected to happen at some point.
There is a reason you don’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater.
A couple of yrs back someone blew themselves up outside a football game. The original reports were he tried to get in, these were later discounted, but they caused me to think the next time I was there. What would happen? I realized that tons of people would have died in a stampede from the panic the small explosive caused.
At what point did I blame Ameica? I said WalMart made a series of very bad decisions that led to this man’s death. Was there no management on-site to see the danger brewing? Are there no policies in place for handling mobs of animal-like thugs ganged up in front of the store?
But at least you didn;t call me the names you used before... now I’m just one of the “blame America crowd”...
How are people supposed to stay worked up about racism when people like you throw the term around so loosely? Your anticipated assessment rings true.
Things are getting tense in this country, and the only solution is to try to confront this tension in an honest manner.
Agreed. And you believe this is what you're doing? Please.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.