Okay, I'm going to be as calm as I can about this, but I'm really distressed about it. I've been reading comments on another diary about how Wal-Mart is evil (and I agree), and hence nobody should shop at Wal-Mart. Go to Costco instead of Sam's. Go to a co-op.
These are good ideas. We must vote with our dollars; it's imperative. Long term, mutual self-help groups are a hugely useful idea. What is distressing me is the lack of comprehension as to why a huge part of the country shops at Wal-Mart. There's an airy, let-them-eat-cake vibe about the lofty recommendations to swear off WallyWorld. While I don't want to make this a red state-blue state issue, I see a clear ignorance about how people outside big cities live, and why.
I go to Wal-Mart because I
have to. I go to Wal-Mart because they came into the town where I live and crushed out any spark of competition. When I need something I can get from another store, I damn well go there, feeling lucky that another store still exists in my town. But there ain't a Costco, ain't a natural-foods store, ain't a grocery store with all amenities open when I need it to be. Driving two hours to get to one is an impossibility most days, and would use up a lot of gas.
Sure, I stock up on weekends in the city, fill my freezer and cabinets with all I can. But when I'm out of tomatoes, when my cat gets sick and I suddenly need something for him at midnight, I have to steel myself and go to Wal-Mart, and please don't intimate that I'm contributing to the Dark Side by doing so. Just going in there is punishment enough. Just as it is for the shoppers trying to stretch the last pre-layoff paycheck, for farmers getting a worse and worse price for their crops.
Of course, I used to wrinkle my nose at the thought of going into Wal-Mart myself, when I was living in San Francisco and had other choices. Now I live in the middle of nowhere in Texas, and frankly, I love it. (Yeah, it is possible to live a happy and productive life among republicans.) But Wal-Mart comes with the package, as it does for a huge proportion of the country.
Warren Buffet may see a sharecropper society ahead, but I see a Wal-Martized one. We're all huddling fearfully in the back of that vast Wal-Mart parking lot, trying to get the self-control to make ourselves go in and buy the crappy stuff they have because there AIN'T no other place to buy ANY stuff. The floors will be sticky, the carts won't work, the freezers just defrost and refreeze all day, and the employees have gone all dead inside because of the abuse they get from management. Next to us is the guy who used to own the grocery store that closed down when Wal-Mart moved in, so we're a little sad and angry already. We're taking deep breaths, those of us who already know Wal-Mart, hoping we don't explode at the fellow inmate--er, shopper--as they inevitably hit us in the ass with their cart during the interminable wait in line.
Do not ask for whom the inventory control tag tolls--if Warren Buffet is right, it tolls for thee.