In Spain they have an annual running of the bulls, often dangerous, sometimes deadly.

In America, we have our own version. It’s called Black Friday, a day when seemingly calm humans are transformed into animals. They’re predators that will stop at nothing to catch their prey – TV’s, video game systems, clothes, jewelry, and anything that’s on sale and not nailed down.

At times, it’s as dangerous as the yearly San Fermin festival.

Videos of this year’s Black Friday sales follow.

The 2010 Target Stampede:

Circuit City:

Black Friday Shoppers Brave the Elements:

Target staff gets ready:

Target shoppers hoard TV’s:

In this video several women hoard four TV’s even though they claim that they only need two of them. One of the women asks “who else do we want to be nice to” in regards to giving away the two extra TV’s that are in their possession. At 0:40 a man attempts to pick up one of the boxes only to be told that the TV’s are taken. At 1:39 another man is deemed deserving of a TV and is given one of the four.

Best Buy opens its doors after a four hour wait:

Do it for the children – lines outside of Toys R Us:

Lines stacked up outside Best Buy:

Running of the Bulls:

As the world sits on the brink of possible war in Asia and/or the Middle East, an economic collapse in Europe and the United States, and continued erosion of individual rights in America, consumers aren’t dismayed. Hundreds of thousands stood in lines across the country, lured by what the mainstream media has referred to as “the deepest discounts” ever offered on the day after Thanksgiving.

Unemployment rages on, millions are losing emergency benefits, wages continue to decline, and some 40 millions Americans require food stamps to survive. Many of those hitting the sales this year will likely be using what little credit they have left to max out their spending limits this Holiday season. In the 20th century layaway made it possible to buy products before you had the money to pay in full, though before you could take possession, you had to pay off your entire balance. In the 2000’s we don’t worry about coming up with the money now – we just pull forward our yet-to-be-earned wages to acquire as many Chinese made products as we can fit in our cars.

Black Friday is a microcosmic glimpse into the behavioral programming to which we’ve all been subjected.