Went to the supermarket today to spend what little I have left on my gift card. I am not having much luck getting a response to my mutual aid post this month so I knew people must be hard up. But in the supermarket I’ve found they have now put electronic tags on almost all the food, even really cheap items. I always buy basics, nothing fancy, so none of the items I’ve bought before ever had a tag on them. But today my usual staples did. For the first time I had to call the attendant over to remove the tags and she thoroughly checked my receipt first to make sure I wasn’t stealing anything. I guess many more people are now in food poverty and turning to shoplifting to survive. I also saw a tiny little girl holding up a cheap block of cheese and asking her mum if they could get it and her mum apologetically saying no, they couldn’t afford it.
There have been reports in the news that food banks are running out of food due to more people needing to use them, combined with fewer donations as fewer people have spare money now. And my local food bank was already awful, giving mainly drinks and such tiny amounts you go hungry a lot if you have to rely solely on them. Now it’s going to be even worse. How much longer can this go on? How many more people are going to starve? Meanwhile a news report from yesterday says Jeff Bezos’ wealth has increased by another £24 billion this Friday!
This fucker is worth $260 billion while a mother can’t afford a piece of cheese for her child. Clown world.
It was really jarring when they started locking up the razors and requiring an employee unlock the case. The idea of placing the antitheft tags on like a bag of cheetos is so dystopian but at this point I’m not surprised. It’s going to get worse and we will see them expand their control over us with this shit. I don’t know how much further this can get but I also don’t believe in the American people to do anything meaningful to resist this for a while.
Well, this was in the UK. It’s happening everywhere.
Yeah, shit’s fucked. The UK and EU aren’t as far into the neoliberal rot so it surprises me that I’m hearing about it happening outside of the US before hearing about it happening in the US. Anyway, stay strong.
There’s a store I goto sometimes that has the laundry detergent behind glass and people have to call an employee over to get it out that makes me think we’re definitely living in a great society.
Hey cool, this is exactly what happened in the years leading up to the French Revolution of 1789. When people were starving, they ended up attacking grain/food shipments and just stealing them. This resulted in repression from the King, which escalated the tension, in a positive feedback loop which ended up collapsing French social organization.
Unfortunately in the UK we aren’t as revolutionary as the French. We’ll probably just lick out oppressor’s boots.
Unless it’s a store with a membership like Costco, you have no obligation to stop for receipt checks. Just walk right past them and tell them no thank you when they ask to see your receipt.
this is US-centric advice which isn’t even a great idea in the US and misunderstands the OP
The mega-Walmart has cops (as in, real man employed by state with gun and license to kill, cops) posted by the entrance. That advice is a great way to have a real bad day lol
Then they won’t take the electronic tag off.
tagging and putting shit behind locked windows is the literal worst thing a store can do. they must all be destroyed
Though not as extreme as in the US I’ve seen the same tendency in Denmark where I live as well. Lidl has put tags on coffee, chocolate, meat and lots of processed food, like small chicken sausages, the kind of slop you would feed to children. In the supermarket where I do most of my shopping the more expensive cuts of beef has been locked inside a metal cage.
Some foodstuffs have doubled in price over the last few years with salaries lacking behind and benefits and pensions lacking even more behind the salaries.
They even have the tags on £3 blocks of cheese, the cheapest cuts of meat, the really cheap butter and even £1 bars of chocolate.
