Nikes....riots...police...SWAT helicopters.

Nikes......riots.....100 police in riot gear....SWAT helicopters...

Crap. If these "people" will riot over a pathetic pair of shoes (that they were probably planning to steal anyway, since I doubt they could afford them), what will their reaction be when the fuel supplies and food run out in this country? When the government goes bankrupt?

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/south/view/20120224riot_cops_break_up_nike_shoe_crowd_at_orlando_mall/srvc=home&position=recent

Yes, it's frightening. Were another Great Depression to strike this country it would be a bloodbath from sea to shining sea. America in 2012 is a different animal from America in 1932.

It's not confined to the USA. I've been doing a fair amount of travelling in the UK recently and it’s clear that many people no longer have faith in government's ability, or worse, willingness, to protect them.

That's a new development in Britain, where working people are generally law abiding even when they think the law's an ass. However, it's not so surprising: we all saw the pictures of policemen standing by while rioters destroyed whole areas of London. That, and the EU's complete inability to get to grips with the Euro's inherent instability, is genuinely unsettling people.

Upshot is that ordinary people are stocking up on tinned foods and bottled water, armour-plating their houses, and withdrawing large amounts of money from the banks, where interest rates are singularly failing to keep pace with inflation. I haven't seen this level of paranoia since I was a kid in the 1970s and a neighbours started to build a nuclear bunker in his back garden.

I wish I could say they were wrong.

Ambleringetorix,

As bad as things are in the US, I fear the situation in Britian is considerably more dire. If I were living over there and had the ability to get out, I would. That said, if it were within my capacity to up sticks and move to Switzerland, I'd probably do that too. I no longer have faith in my country.

I don't get the need for $100-$200 shoes, any shoes, dress or athletic.

I bought a $20 pair of no name tennis/walking/athletic shoes or whatever you call them now a couple of years ago and they lasted me 2 years before they started coming apart.

I wore them almost every day too.

I have a pair of dress shoes I got from Super Target for $30 and they have that natural finish: always look like you just shined them.

They are not made in Italy or anything but I had them for 3 years now and they still look new.

Everytime I wear them, people look at them and say things like: your shoes are really shiny or are those Gucci?

j7wild wrote:

I don't get the need for $100-$200 shoes, any shoes, dress or athletic.

Not to mention that anybody caught wearing these shoes automatically becomes a target for armed robbery and/or murder. The shoes actually look quite good.

This is just so predictable. And while it's tempting to blame Nike for the mass chaos and violence that surrounds the release of every "limited" shoe brand they put out, no one says you have to act like an animal and riot when they go on sale.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Upshot is that ordinary people are stocking up on tinned foods and bottled water, armour-plating their houses, and withdrawing large amounts of money from the banks, where interest rates are singularly failing to keep pace with inflation.

Really? I live in Britain and don't know anyone who's doing those things (although I don't dispute your point about interest rates).

Consumerism (rabble rabble).

j7wild wrote:

I don't get the need for $100-$200 shoes, any shoes, dress or athletic.

Well, you seem to like simple, modest things as far as shoes are concerned. Many of mine go into the higher bracket. And then I have something simple like a £27.99 pair of platform shoes with open toe cleavage. Then again, just walking around barefeet makes Mr. Dog hard so go figure....

As far as people rioting for shoes go, just tear-gas these bastards to hell, they are nothing but fucking baboons in society. I'd be enraged if a I owned a NIKE store and it became a target for these opportunistic morons.

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

j7wild wrote:

I don't get the need for $100-$200 shoes, any shoes, dress or athletic.

Well, you seem to like simple, modest things as far as shoes are concerned.

I, too, like simple, modest things, as far as your ass is concerned.

This kind of mad consumerism isn't terribly new.

When I'm being knifed or robbed I hope my reaction isn't 'This kind of mad consumerism isn't terribly new.'

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Ambleringetorix,

As bad as things are in the US, I fear the situation in Britian is considerably more dire. If I were living over there and had the ability to get out, I would. That said, if it were within my capacity to up sticks and move to Switzerland, I'd probably do that too. I no longer have faith in my country.

Switzerland? :shock:

I'm more worried about the European political caste's desire to destroy the middle class than about any riots.

Erica Ambler wrote:

When I'm being knifed or robbed I hope my reaction isn't 'This kind of mad consumerism isn't terribly new.'

Just attempting to deflate the overly rosy-eyed view of the past expressed in this thread.

Consumerism isn't new, and in and of itself, it isn't harmful. People going apey over a bloody pair of Nikes is. There's nothing roseate about that.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Consumerism isn't new, and in and of itself, it isn't harmful.

It depends what you mean by consumerism. Consumerism understood as a basic interest in purchasing market goods isn't a bad thing. But the consumerism that has increasingly defined the modern world, consumerism as a worldview, that kind of consumerism is a corrosive, devastating force. It has laid waste to the intellectual culture and social structure. The roots of that kind of consumerism go way back. It may be argued that it's worse now than ever before, but if we simply try to deal with today by saying, "Ah, it was better back in the day," we fail to reckon with the truth that the past has given birth to the present, that we and our ancestors are actually complicit in these incidents.

The story of America, and, more broadly speaking, the West, is a story that is thousands of years old. These symptoms of cultural decay have been around for a while, and have been born out of the past enormous shifts in communal consciousness centuries prior. This isn't an issue of security as much as it is the outgrowth of a progressive demolition of belief structures and ideologies. The very forces that gave birth to the powerful West are now eroding it, and there appears to be little hope for restoration.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

People going apey over a bloody pair of Nikes is. There's nothing roseate about that.

It's not terribly different than the hysteria produced by Chanel's clothing back in the day. It takes very little to ignite a mass of people, even in the best of times. Humanity has often been marked by its profound disquiet.

I agree that liberal democracy combined with the free market contains the seeds for cultural decay if only because it puts political and purchasing power in the hands of the masses. Consequently, we see a rather profound dumbing down (Mozart versus Vanilla Ice). But it is the tincture of post-60s multiculturalism that will make the mixture fatal.

PS--I'm sure people were mad for their Chanel, but I doubt its appearance triggered violent riots.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

PS--I'm sure people were mad for their Chanel, but I doubt its appearance triggered violent riots.

Pretty close, actually.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Nikes......riots.....100 police in riot gear....SWAT helicopters...

Crap. If these "people" will riot over a pathetic pair of shoes (that they were probably planning to steal anyway, since I doubt they could afford them), what will their reaction be when the fuel supplies and food run out in this country? When the government goes bankrupt?

People are strange. When Obama passed the NDAA on December 31 2012 and basically wiped his a$$ with the constitution there was hardly a whimper, however two weeks earlier when Coca Cola changed the color of its cans there were practically demonstrations in the streets.

Regarding the impending and inevitable American riots, this article makes some interesting points:

http://dont-tread-on.me/?p=4874

The bit about the drugs struck me as particularly fascinating and frightening.

Drax wrote:

People are strange. When Obama passed the NDAA on December 31 2012 and basically wiped his a$$ with the constitution there was hardly a whimper, however two weeks earlier when Coca Cola changed the color of its cans there were practically demonstrations in the streets.

that's because people in the USA are sheeps and they are under the impression that the government will take care of them.

remember the 50s? during the height of the Cold War?

those old black and white films about what to do during a nuclear attack?

hide under the table!

it's alright!

you will be safe under there and no one questioned it.

no one said that during a nuclear attack, you will not survive no matter where you hid!

why did no one question it?

because the government said so!

the government said you will be okay as long as you hide under the table!

after all, the government will take care of the Russian Bear.

That's right, j7. The government will turn around and send you right to the FEMA camps.

Drax wrote:

People are strange. When Obama passed the NDAA on December 31 2012 and basically wiped his a$$ with the constitution there was hardly a whimper, however two weeks earlier when Coca Cola changed the color of its cans there were practically demonstrations in the streets.

There was *some* blowback on the NDAA issue, but I think because Obama's a Democrat he essentially got a pass on this issue by the very same people who were screaming bloody murder about The Patriot Act.

Quote :

Regarding the impending and inevitable American riots, this article makes some interesting points:

http://dont-tread-on.me/?p=4874

The bit about the drugs struck me as particularly fascinating and frightening.

Depressing. Really depressing when you think about it, but yes, Southern California is one place to stay far away from when the collapse eventually occurs.

I read this book 2 years ago:




and I found it fascinating, moving, eye-opening, and an all too-real possibility. It's a simple story of a father trying to keep his family together in a small town in North Carolina after an EMP blast cripples America. It lays out a very realistic scenario of what would happen to American society when, in one fell swoop, an entire country was instantly reduced to living in conditions that resembled 1709 and not 2009. His town creates an alliance with a neighboring town to create and patrol a border, ration food, water and medicine....and without any electricity, there are no cars, there is no television, radio, Internet....nothing. They have no idea what has happened to the rest of America until the very last page of the book.

If you haven't read it, don't let the foreword by Newt 'I loved my country so much it caused me to screw other women' Gingrich to scare you. It's a great read.

It wouldn't take an EMP to cause American society to implode. Somthing like the Great Depression would suffice. And if that--or some other economic catastrophe occurs--you better load up on the artillery and head for the hills because the population centers will quickly become cauldrons of savagery.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

the population centers will quickly become cauldrons of savagery.

Sounds like any English city on a Saturday night.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

the population centers will quickly become cauldrons of savagery.

Sounds like any English city on a Saturday night.

Yes, I'm afraid you're ahead of the curve.

My wife recently met a neighbor who is from Nottingham. Mrs. Khan asked her if she missed England and she answered "yes," but also said that the last time she visited her home country it simply was not the same place, and she has no desire whatsoever to return permanently. She didn't have to spell anything out. We saw those riots--if at a remove. We know.