Picking Sides

[demwing]

The other day I did my shopping, and yeah, I went to WalMart.

I know it's a shit place for Americans to shop, but it's the best place for a poor dad like me to buy groceries in my town.

I weighed the effect on the economy, and I weighed the effect on my family,

Then I picked a side.

So I was outside the devil's own store, waiting for a ride home from a friend, my cart full of groceries, when a man came ripping out the front door, a WalMart employee literally riding his back. They struggled right in front of me, and as the WalMart employee lost his grip, his captive made a break for it...

I knew he was a shoplifter. i also knew that if I pushed my cart a little to the right, I'd be in front of him. He'd go down, and the WalMart mountie would get his man.

So I picked a side.

I did nothing and the man escaped. I justified it to myself by telling myself that WalMart could easily absorb the cost, and that I really didn't give a damn if the Walton's lost out.

I have a feeling that as times get tougher, so will our choices. We will all eventually have to pick a side--corporatist or populist--and maybe sacrifice our short term interests (like my food budget) for our long term survival.

We will also have to ask if stealing from the Walton's is just petty theft, or if it can possibly be a measure of populist revolt? Consider the Boston Tea Party. All that tea in Boston harbor belonged to someone, and the only reason we remember the conspirators as patriots instead of as thieves is because we eventually won that war, and wrote that history.

How do we convey that message to a country, without looking like we are just empowering criminals?

How do we pick a side, and have America side with us?

[whereisjustice]

1. wow - excellent post!

[tech3149]

3. Agreed!

As things get tougher we will all be making tough choices. The hardest ones will be not demonizing someone with as little or not much more than you if the try to get a little more or are cruel, in your eyes, for not considering the other person.
This is the point where we have to choose community and cooperation or survival whatever the cost.

[yallerdawg]

2. Just be on the winning side!

We write the history!

[msongs]

4. so walmart employess should be willing to die to protect a cheap item? that's the risk of chasing a

shoplifter out the door and across the parking lot

[F4lconF16]

5. K&R for an excellent post...

There may (probably will) come a day in the not-too-far future where we have to sacrifice...our food, our homes, our well-being, our lives... But we will do what we have to. They cannot win forever.

How do we convey that message to a country, without looking like we are just empowering criminals?

When the people have nothing, we will all have to become "criminals" to survive. I think we do as you did: we pick a side, explain our choice as best we can, and hope that others make the decision to come with us.

Also, no need to justify yourself. You should not have placed yourself at risk, and someone stealing from Walmart probably needed whatever it was they had. If not, then so be it. Consider it part of Walmart's payment for all that they owe society.

[Fairgo]

6. A world of hard choices

Absolutely understand the personal discomfort. This moral tension is reproduced everywhere in our personal trade in the marketplace. We all navigate our daily lives over a sea of injustice, balancing our aspirational ethos against family survival in a broken predatory system. The dilemma of modern life, as with all dilemmas, tells us that there is no resolving answer at the level of the parking lot. it suggests that perhaps it is the system, maybe even humans, that need to under a fundamental change.

[840high]

7. WalMart will absord by

charging us more.

[packman]

8. The hell of it is-

If the Wal-mart guy trying to stop the apparent shoplifter was an ordinary employee , he could expect to be fired. I had a neighbor whose son had a job at Wall-mart and did exactly that and got a broken nose for his effort. On return , they fired him telling him he should have called and let store security handle it.

[nikto]

9. Fine post

I don't advocate shoplifting (and I don't know the circumstances of the person involved),
but something is slipping away, disturbingly quickly, in America.

We must remember...

[SheilaT]

10. Most companies, maybe all of them, tell employees

not to confront or chase shoplifters. It can be grounds for firing, I'm almost certain, at many places.

[douggg]

11. Also to be considered is the liability factor.

Would Walmart support any damages done to you or by you if the shoplifter harms you or you damage his car or himself?

[Phlem]

12. Excellent post!

I picked a side. The side that gives my daughter the best hope she has for a good future. Something I'm certain the Third Way and corporatism can't give her.

I'll be standing next to you my friend.

[aspirant]

13. It's a shame

when you have "2 Americas". This is what happens when you cut social benefits, maybe SNAP in this case.

Could this man have been taking milk formula for a thirsty baby?

[demwing]

15. I don't know. I had to wonder

and then wonder again if it would have changed my choice if I knew he had stolen something like a hat or a phone. Would it even have mattered?

I had more than one choice I had to confront that day.

[sabrina 1]

14. Great post! I think you made the right choice.

Walmart costs the tax payers over $6 Billion a year by refusing to pay their employees enough to live on.

You are a tax payer. As such you had the right to decide to take back a little of what they are taking from you and spend it how YOU saw fit.

Consequences! Those are the kind of consequences Corporations like Walmart should expect. People deciding 'Walmart or the petty thief'?

Reminds me of Les Miserables!

I would have done the same thing.

But if it were Costgo?

Let me think about that ...