You know, Wall-Mart represents a bunch of evil bastards. No, not the poor employees who are stuck working there and who make eight hours worth of payment for twelve hours of work, but the evil corporate assholes who run the place from their golden tower in Jamaica or wherever. Sure, sure, it's becoming cliche to bitch about corporate executives, and I'm sure sooner or later somebody's going to run a campaign until it turns up on Oprah conditioning everybody to believe it is evil to dare to "stereotype" or "generalize" about the vileness of corporations, but none of that makes it any less true.

About a year ago I watched an interesting documentary called "Wall-Mart, the High Cost of Low Prices." This documentary revealed Wall-Mart's tried and true strategy of moving in on a town of about 10,000 people or more and systematically sucking it dry until there was nothing left but a rotting husk. Sound improbable? Well, I'll give you a quick rundown of how it happens.

Most towns are functional little units. Families have lived their for a couple generations and everybody has a roll to play, a source of income, and a personal identity. You've got a guy who runs the clothes shop, a guy who runs the paint shop, a guy who has the record store, etc., etc., etc.,. Now, because all these people are small-business owners, they are individually stimulated and satisfied people. Furthermore, because the owner is right there on the premises, customers are able to have a more direct interaction with the hope of positive feedback. Also, when things are scaled down like this, employees become integrated parts of the business and not just random numbers on a distant chart.

In short, it's a more respectful situation where a larger percentage of the population is given important jobs and everybody is more likely to achieve personal happiness.

Well, then Wall-Mart moves into town and because they're a corporate juggernaut they don't have the personal interaction with the people, and the employees are given cookie-cutter jobs that have been designed to be mastered by the lowest common-denominator, and there is no room for advancement, poor pay, and a general state of dissatisfaction.

So how are they competitive? That's right, they can afford to place massive orders and get massive discounts on product, so they're able to undercut all the smaller businesses in the area. And because the consumer doesn't know any better, they always are seduced by the lower costs and the businesses that had been family owned and operated for years quickly go bankrupt.

You see this shit happen all over America. Just get in your car and take a drive, find some town with a Wall-Mart out on the city limits (they build out there if the township votes against having them, Wall-Mart just ignores the clear "Not Welcome" message and enforces itself upon the community). Now, go past the Wall-Mart and try and find the old Main Street. Chances are you're going to encounter a ghost town with a bunch of boarded up windows and thick grass growing through the cracks of the sidewalk. What was once valuable real estate has been eaten up by the overwhelming force of the mammoth Wall-Mart.

This is one of the later stages of the Wall-Mart strategic plan. Eventually, what was once a bustling community with its own individual flavor and style, will have been converted into another Wall-Mart centralized town. Everybody will work at Wall-Mart in order to earn the money to buy Wall-Mart goods. This will go on until the point where all sources of income external to Wall-Mart in the town are extinguished. When that happens, Wall-Mart will simply abandon its building and move on, leaving only a dirty mine-shaft behind to mark the strip-mined, raped, ex-pastoral community.

So just that aspect of the whole Wall-Mart philosophy pisses me off, but as if that's not enough, Wall-Mart does its best to dehumanize and exploit its employees. Go into a Wall-Mart sometime and ask a employee there if they have a union. Watch the blood drain out of their face as a result of countless hours of enforced indoctrinization against unions that they have been forced to watch, and the threat of punishment that they have been terrorized with at the suggestion of forming a union.

It's bullshit.

Not to mention the fact that Wall-Mart spends countless hours figuring out how to screw its lower employees out of a few extra dimes. For example they've got pages and pages of documents in their manager programs about how to get their employees to work three or four hours extra for no extra pay.

How do they get away with it?

Why don't the employees go work somewhere else?

Well, by then, all the other stores have been put out of business. Stores that offered fair wages and perhaps even part ownership and benefits as a reward for greater responsibilities and the chance to master a truly difficult trade.

You see, that's where the extra fifty cents or dollar goes to when you shop at some mom and pop store. You really don't save any money, this is shit you're going to have to pay for one way or another. So you might as well pay for it in a mom and pop store and get a nice community as well as your product, instead of pay less for your product at Wall-Mart and then have to make up the cost through taxes that go to subsidize Wall-Marts unscrupulous business philosophy that destroys your town.

I remember reading not to long ago about some American President of some renown who was deeply concerned about the idea of a corporation (Sorry, I can't remember which one it was, if anybody knows, please write and tell me). He thought corporations were contrary to the American ideal. The argument makes sense too. What's the point of founding a nation like America, a nation based on the promise that all people are equal and have a chance to achieve their dreams, and then subsequently enslaving them to a bunch of assholes who just happened to be the first to figure out how to get around the rules of fair play? I mean, why should we be slaves to corporate monarchs? We declared revolution on the King of England, why not declare revolution on the King of discount shopping.

They're a bunch of cheaters and they're making their ill-gotten gains by going outside the ideals that we hold to be most sacred. These people must be stopped, this is war, and like all wars, all tactics are fair in how we must bring them down.

Now, normally I wouldn't condone the idea of theft, but there is no point in holding yourself to a level of civilization that no other people are matching. In this world, the first rule of morality is that you can't be expected to uphold a standard that lessens your chances of survival. Just as killing isn't murder in a time of war and you shouldn't consider yourself as less for defending yourself in that type of situation, so too must you get your hands dirty in the battle against Wall-Mart.

Let me just remind you that I am offering this thought as a philosophical argument. Remember that if you do decide that Wall-Mart must be made to pay for what they have done, and you take matters into your own hands and are subsequently caught, you will be forced to face the consequences. My words are more important for how they reach your intellect and the ethereal, intellectual paths they might lead to. This is THEORY more than it is a cry for Awakening. I'm just putting this out there and whatever impact it has on your life will be YOUR responsibility.

Ultimate disclaimer, stealing is wrong and if you steal you are likely to be punished severely. Don't do it. There, now that I've covered my ass legally, let me tell you about a way that I've heard of to steal from Wall-Mart, or any other big company like that for that matter, with very little chance of being caught:

Go into store. Buy a copy of something that you can easily move on e-bay (a DVD of Star Wars or something). Take it to the counter. Now, here's the tricky part...PAY FOR IT! Pay in Cash, that makes things easier. Now, take the item to your car, drop it off but put the bag and receipt back in your pocket. Now, return to the store, go back to the DVD section, put the same DVD into the bag. Walk out.

Even if they try and stop you, you'll have a receipt for the item. You can even return one of the copies the next day so that you got one entirely for free. If you want to further cover up your escape, buy a snickers bar or something on the way out so that you'll have an excuse for having come back into the store after already having made your purchase.

Now, obviously this is not something you can do at the same store all the time, but if you're just passing through a town, heck...

Actually, the best way to rip these places off is to get a job at Wall-Mart and do shit from the inside, but that could get really ugly.

Actually, the best solution would be if the people who are supposedly in charge of guarding the moral sanctity of our country would stop worrying about bullshit like gay marriage and start actually engaging an issue that had some pertinence.

But I guess Wall-Mart isn't sexy enough to get them the headlines they really crave, so it's up to us powerless in the trenches to do whatever we can.

Hoist the Jolly Rodger, there be lootin' to do.

The End