Are you happy now?

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. What were you thankful for? What are you thankful for?

I find Thanksgiving to be a particularly ironic holiday, because it comes right before Black Friday, the complete opposite of what Thanksgiving (ostensibly) represents--contentment, happiness, and thankfulness for what we have. Instead, we are distracted by the "deals" offered to us by companies and corporations that could care less about you and your families. Indeed, why would the stores want to open up at midnight the night of Thanksgiving? Do they really not want us to spend Thanksgiving evening at home? Do they really want us to start waiting in line at ten pm outside the "local" Macy's?

Well, they succeed, every single time. They get what they want, and we get what we "need."

I find striking parallels between us "consumers" and those that are in abusive relationships for extended periods of time. Even though we, the "99%," are fighting against the injustices presented by capitalism and corporatism and materialism, we go back--crawling, waiting in line, pepper-spraying others, trampling, grabbing, ripping, tearing, breaking--to those that abuse us. We go back to the abuser, because either we know nothing else, or because we are not willing to change ourselves, and rather point the finger at "them," those that comprise "the system."

This year, I heard that there were going to be 153 million shoppers on Black Friday. To put that into perspective, the population of the United States of America is 312 million. So basically, one in two people decided to spend their time buying stuff on a weekend when many travel large distances to go home.

We continue to satisfy our ephemeral urges of materialism, like hard drug addicts taking one last hit.

So, did we get our last hit?