Occupy San Diego activists provided some excitement for shoppers at two San Diego Walmarts on Friday. Local coverage was remarkably neutral, at least from the NBC affiliate. The flash mob left dozens of full baskets of merchandise for Walmart's overworked and underpaid employees to restock after their demonstration. Is this the sort of educational process that is going to win the hearts and minds of the great mass of Americans who don't understand what the Occupy movement is all about?
I understand all the reasons to go after Walmart, but is Walmart the best target to address the 1%? Not a lot of Walmart shoppers in the 1% and I suspect none of the WalMart workers in this San Diego store fall into that category. Why wasn't this event targeted at one of San Diego's upscale malls - Fashion Valley for example. Going to Walmart where neither the shoppers nor the workers have much choice due to their limited budgets and incomes seems like a cheap shot compared to a demonstration outside of Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus.
Here is the OSD video of one of their two flash mob events. Think many of these shoppers are going to go home and try and figure out how to "buy American" or decide to fabricate home made Christmas presents for their children? I'll leave it to you to decide if any of the Walmart shoppers are responding to the message.