Wal-Mart death

I cannot believe that yesterday an employee at a Wal-mart store in Long Island was trampled to death while trying to open the doors to the store. I just came across an article titled, "Wal-Mart death preventable, union says." Here is the link:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/29/black.friday.death/

The basic point of the article is that Wal-Mart could have had better security measures in place to prevent this incident from occurring. The president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 said, "This is not just tragic, it rises to a blatant level of irresponsibility by Wal-Mart."

While I am no fan of Wal-Mart, I think the article fails to mention the responsibility of the over consuming American public. Do people really need to get in fights and trample over each other simply to get into a giant mega-store because prices are discounted even further from the already fairly cheap sweatshop labor products? Get a grip America. And all this the day after Thanksgiving, a day that is supposed to be about giving thanks for all that we have. Regardless of economic status, we as Americans have a lot to be fortunate for. Most of us have hot water and food on the table, things we take for granted everyday. Yet, this isn't enough. We have to go out and spend hours upon hours waiting in line for a chain store to open so that we can get our boom boxes, c.d.s, Sony Playstations, and other luxury items at a discounted price.

I think that American consumerism is out of control and that not only is Wal-Mart at fault, but so are all the American people who buy into this agenda of greed who waited in similar lines across the country for hours upon hours. Whether or not they actually trampled someone all I have to say is, "Find something better to do with your time and your money." If we Americans devoted as much energy to bettering our local communities and the world as we did to shopping, think of the difference we could make.