by Shawn Grundy

Created on: January 23, 2009

The whole Wal-Mart "thing" is such a dual-edged sword. On one hand, they wipe out every Mom & Pop business within 20 square miles of any of their stores and on the other they provide products that we need and buy every day far cheaper than anyone else could ever think of.

It's such an intersting dilemma. We all love the accessibility and affordability that Wal-Mart provides, yet we claim to hate them for the way they achieve these attractive virtues. We love the low prices but hate hearing stories that all of their products come from China. We love the low prices but hate hearing stories about how they man-handled the vendor to get them so low. We love how accessible they are yet we hate them for destroying a friend's mom & pop business. We love them for being accessible yet we complain that they are the only store around. Crazy, isn't it.

For those of you who have ever watched South Park may have seen the famous Wal-Mart episode that shows a Wal-Mart come into the small town of South Park and drive all of the other busiesses out. The people become satirically addicted to shopping there at all hours of the night almost in a trance at times because of the low low prices. The store itself is alive and in the end the town had to defeat the store to overcome its "powers". Sure, it's a cartoon but the reality is that we are drawn to Wal-Mart even though we disagree with some of things that they do. They know this but their business plan almost seems to embrace it. Now with the addition of the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Stores they have successfully monopolized all things retail. They know that we will never approve of the way they treat their employees or the way they purchase their goods or how they ruin small businesses by the truckload, but they know more than just this. They know that they can always count on the one thing that trumps all of these terrible things. Self preservation. When people are faced with challenges and things are tight, they will survive. People survive by doing things they may not necessarily be fond of and that includes advocating these methods indirectly by shopping at Wal-Mart because they are saving a lot of money doing it.

This does not make these people bad. This makes them human. We've all pushed our virtues and beliefs to the side once or twice to obtain something of more perceived value than if we were to "toe the straight and narrow". I don't know many people who are so entrenched in their beliefs that they would spend 10 - 20% more on everyday products to prove a point.

Let me paint the picture of what it would be like to be the person to boycott Wal-Mart. Picture a company of 10,000,000 employees all on strike. If all 10,000,000 are on the street picketing and not at work, it would probably make a substantial impact, right? Now picture 9,999,990 workers cross the picket line and 10 remained on strike. Those ten people are the ones boycotting Wal-Mart. How much of an impact do you think they have now?

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