Assembly Movements and the Deregulation of the Political

Abstract

I remember the devastating irony of a new york times frontpage photograph on thanksgiving day 2011 depicting a row of people who had pitched tents outside a Best Buy department store in Mesquite, Texas. Alas, the campers were not staging an Occupy Best Buy but positioning themselves at the head of Black Friday's mad rush. At any other time, the photograph would have been unremarkable, perhaps not even newsworthy. This itself shows how extensively consumerist desire is internalized in the American psyche. Black Friday (what a cynical name!) is so ingrained in American life that it occupies its own slot in society's calendar. Some years ago a person died on Black Friday, trampled in the mad storming of a Walmart palace in New Jersey. I argued then that charges should be brought against President George W. Bush for instigating a homicide, since on the day after 9/11 he had commanded the American people to respond to the catastrophe by going shopping.