J. Marquis made some good comments about Wal-Mart over on his blog "Are You There Yet". I ranted a bit there and will repeat most of that rant here:
Wal-Mart is maybe my least favorite store on the face of the planet. I'm a "liberal elitist", so the store in our town seems to me like little more than a big Hillbilly Mall. You can find very few things in the store that are made in America, but because the store portrays itself as patriotic and all-American (they sell flags, they sell lots of patriotic music, and they have a huge book section devoted to Bibles and to the "Left Behind" series, after all), people don't seem to question the lack of American-made goods.
When their favorite little downtown clothing store closes, or a local electronics shop has to close its doors, people around here seem to shake their heads and say "What a shame they couldn't make it"... and then they go ahead and shop at Mall-Wart, seeming not to care. The little guy who is struggling to make it in the local business workd gets squeezed. Small business is crushed once more by the corporate giant...
And yes, I admit it, I shop at Lord WaldeMart* now and then. Many of us are being held hostage due to having to operate on tight budgets; the place does have the lowest prices... sigh... it's a case of sheer marketing genius on their part.
I definitely do make an effort to patronize other local businesses... I would much rather keep more of the money here, in the local economy, than see it sent to Arkansas. Sure, the giant hires lots of locals to work in the store, and their wages go back into the local economy in many ways... but they are paid dirt wages and they can't organize or they'll be fired.
I didn't go to Mall Wart's FOX News Emporium and Cheap-Plastic-Crap-Source on Election Day. I didn't think it would be a good place to go, considering I'm one of those Blue State Elitists, after all. It might just have been way too depressing.
* - semi-humorous Harry Potter reference
Wal-Mart is maybe my least favorite store on the face of the planet. I'm a "liberal elitist", so the store in our town seems to me like little more than a big Hillbilly Mall. You can find very few things in the store that are made in America, but because the store portrays itself as patriotic and all-American (they sell flags, they sell lots of patriotic music, and they have a huge book section devoted to Bibles and to the "Left Behind" series, after all), people don't seem to question the lack of American-made goods.
When their favorite little downtown clothing store closes, or a local electronics shop has to close its doors, people around here seem to shake their heads and say "What a shame they couldn't make it"... and then they go ahead and shop at Mall-Wart, seeming not to care. The little guy who is struggling to make it in the local business workd gets squeezed. Small business is crushed once more by the corporate giant...
And yes, I admit it, I shop at Lord WaldeMart* now and then. Many of us are being held hostage due to having to operate on tight budgets; the place does have the lowest prices... sigh... it's a case of sheer marketing genius on their part.
I definitely do make an effort to patronize other local businesses... I would much rather keep more of the money here, in the local economy, than see it sent to Arkansas. Sure, the giant hires lots of locals to work in the store, and their wages go back into the local economy in many ways... but they are paid dirt wages and they can't organize or they'll be fired.
I didn't go to Mall Wart's FOX News Emporium and Cheap-Plastic-Crap-Source on Election Day. I didn't think it would be a good place to go, considering I'm one of those Blue State Elitists, after all. It might just have been way too depressing.
* - semi-humorous Harry Potter reference
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