We’re suckers for NewsNet5’s video archives. Glimpses of Cleveland from decades ago simply tickle us in the right spot on a Monday morning after a long holiday weekend. This time they’ve posted clips from Black Friday in Cleveland in 1959 — yeah, it may be more crazy now, but it’s certainly not a new phenomenon — and video from the Christmas parade. Enjoy.
This article appears in Nov 23-29, 2011.
Hmmm, first there was black history month. Ok, normally it has only 28 days, thats fine. Then comes black friday. Ok, its just another day out of the year. Now I’m hearing about it stretching out to a whole week by come companies. Gee, in the not-to-far distant every day will be black.
Let’s just wipe the word ‘black’ out of the English language, Kenrmer…problem solved!
It is too bad that the retail industry has to cash in on anything black. They are so desperate for sales that they want to make everyone feel sorry for them and buy a bunch of their worthless junk. Even at sale prices it has no real meaning other than to make the bean-counters, lawyers and MBAs feel like smart marketting guys.
While manufacturing jobs get sent elsewhere, they want us to buy the products which we invented and started manufacturing from, guess who? Wall-mart. The same mentality which forced our manufacturing jobs overseas so that they could give their customers the best price, and their shareholders the biggest return on their investment, now rallies us to their giant retail establishments which ruined America and small business and every town and city in the USA..now they continue their milking of the people all the way through the year.
We are so stupid. How much of your shopping have you gotten done? As though that is the purpose of Christmas. Oh yea. And then there is the tea party saying that MLK is what they are all about. The tea party and the whole republican mess couldn’t make a patch on a civil-rights protester’s ass. But back in 1959 there were a lot of peaceful demonstrations starting by peaceful black folks in the deep south. The Freedom Bus was gettin ready and the segregation would soon not have absolute control of our states and their governments often in kahoots with the KKK. The hatred for MLK was shameless and the attacks on the peaceful demonstrators was as ugly as America has ever gotten.
The OWS movement has those brave civil rights protestors to thank for not being shot, but pepper sprayed, and not much either. Every time anyone wants to say anything resentful of MLK and Black history month or civil rights, just read up on the movement and RFK and the attacks on freedom which our people had dished out to them every day. Believe me. There are those who call those days the good old days, or the days of innocent America. Well that’s because they were not paying the price–it was the poor white trash and the blacks who got set against each other so that the more well-to-do could toast their wealth and power. The same creeps would do it again today if we let them. The same creeps who would push us back to a hatred of all but the 1% puppeteers. Greedy pricks…gotta go now, but I ain’t done and hope I never will be until corporate America starts treating people right.
If you don’t see how the retail giants destroyed the American business environment, you have not watched and have turned a blind eye to it as we do all things which plan to take over our lives and ecconomies. Just think of a world without total dominance of one group of retail giants. Sears was the most powerful, I think, back in 1959 as a result of the somewhat new power of catalog sales, but this time of the year was owned by the local downtown businesses. Shopping was done in the stores which had names of people from the town you lived in, and they valued your business and created a festive holiday season. Although department stores and early discount stores did, even back then get, the lion’s share of the holiday business, there were still many small businesses which people shopped at in the downtowns all over America. The Red Kettles and The Salvation Army rang their bells and people put dimes and quarters into the kettles. Some rich folks would put dollar bills in, but that was rare. Santa Claus would be bellyed-up at the bars downtown doing ho-ho-hos to the clink of beer glasses. Red and giant nosed men laughed and danced around singing old songs–even sometimes in harmony. Kids and women ate sweets and greeted people they had only seen yesterday with joyfull welcome. Even people who did not care for each other layed down their swords during the holidays.