When I said to celebrate Thanksgiving as the triumph of capitalism over collectivism by shopping victoriously, I must confess this isn't what I had in mind.

A Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him, police said.

The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde.

When the madness ended, 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was dead and four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured. -- H/T: Michelle Malkin

Everyone's heard the story. But I'm commenting because of what I said in the aforelinked post.

I shouldn't have been surprised by this, I suppose. People who aren't capitalists at heart, but, rather, something like civilized barbarians, can't be expected to behave like civilized people.

Roughly 2,000 people gathered outside the Wal-Mart's doors in the predawn darkness.

Chanting "push the doors in," the crowd pressed against the glass as the clock ticked down to the 5 a.m. opening.

Sensing catastrophe, nervous employees formed a human chain inside the entrance to slow down the mass of shoppers.

It didn't work.

The mob barreled in and overwhelmed workers.

Note how the story reports the behavior of the crowd -- the crowd. It kind of makes you think maybe the crowd were responsible for Damour's death. But no, a commentator on the story, one "Lucy Ricardo" explains it:

Hard to believe that people going shopping can behave in such an inhuman way. To do what, save a few dollars? I blame the stores that open their doors at these ungodly hours enticing all the shoppers to get there early so they can get the bargains. Like this is the "only" day a person can shop. It's disgraceful what businesses will do to make money. Once again we see greed at its finest. Shame on Walmart and all the other stores that do this, and shame on all those people who could not control themselves.

It's the stores, those darn greedy stores. It's not the darn greedy, truculent, barbarian shoppers. Sure, they're inhuman. But that inhumanity is the stores' fault. Marxist to the bone; and she probably doesn't know it.

And then there's this guy, "funksoul6":

This whole mess would never had started if it wernt for BUSH.

True dat, bro.

Yeah. Right.

Of course, blame President Dunsel. These people wouldn't be acting like savages if the economy weren't so bad. And who's responsible for the economy (well, when it's bad, anyway)?

This country exudes brilliance.

Reminds me of something Trotsky wrote, at the end of Literature and Revolution:

Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler; his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise. -- (Here.)

Yes, that was sarcasm.