[at-l] Musings on Walmartians and such

[icw at esisnet.com (Clark Wright)]

Gosh, all these walmart posts got my poor head to thinking - a dangerous 
thing! :)  As is often the case, I have mixed feelings, but here goes 
with random thoughts:

1)  Let he/she amoung us who has never been in one cast the first stone 
. . .

2)  Change is inevitable; some good, some bad, some just is . . . I 
think I can still smile, love and live life large here in little ole New 
Bern, even though the local walmart has come to town and had an impact 
on certain people, businesses, etc.

3)  Large size presents opportunity and challenges - it is interesting 
how the larger retailers sometimes end up doing a lot of good when 
consumers make their collective voices know - like changes at McDonalds 
with packaging, animal humanity, new focus on some version of nutrition 
concern, etc.  Ditto for walmart . . . 

4)  Large size brings with it a natural tendency to collectively lay all 
good and bad under one name; there are lots of good people who work at 
walmart, and at the smaller stores, too.

5)  To me, in the long run, the biggest problem with large size is on 
the supply chain side, not the retail establishment side.  What do I 
mean by that?  I mean that Walmart would much rather buy 300,000,000 
tons/year of bacon from one meatpacker, than deal with 50,000 small 
farmers; ditto for the clothes, etc.  The pendulum will swing up and 
down, and technology gives the little guys some interesting new 
opportunities (Alvin Toffler's musings on that topic still strike me as 
relevant), and nobody ever promised us a rose garden . . .

6)  I personally am not sure our current prez knows much about 
capitalism, or that there is much distinction between classic dems and 
repubs these days when it comes right down to it - it is awfully hard 
for any elected political figure to truly cut back on government - 
he/she seems compelled to justify existence thru passing SOME new law, 
or another (pro or con on walmart, for example).  I think I lean towards 
libertarianism, but the odds of such a view gaining mainstream support 
are slim.  In the meantime, each of us can practice some "free thinking" 
by trying to figure out ways to make a difference without needing a new 
law, or even a zoning battle . . . just vote with yer feet, yer dollars, 
and yer mind . . . and temper it all with the awesome thought that those 
little self-decisions matter more to the Creator, to yourself, and to 
our ultimate fate than do all the laws, governments and such that we 
have managed to create over the thin slice of history we presume to know 
about . . .

After all this thinking, I need to do some heavy duty walking! :)

thru-thinker