Hey, there's nothing wrong with shopping at Walmart!

While I realize that being an ethical consumer nowadays it's such an uphill struggle, it's so time consuming, and requries infinite and continual information regarding labor rights, environmental impact, consumer safety and so on - that even the most extreme of us out there don't execute this task without contradiction or exception, to me - Walmart is a symbol of all that is wrong with this nation.

Their labor abuses both in this country and outside of this country are well documented.

The fact that they single-handedly ruined small town after small town - destroying local businesses that paid their owners and workers well, and replaced those jobs with $8/hr jobs, most of which aren't full time and where Walmart pimps out welfare paperwork as their benefits packages to many.

Those two facts are enough for me to not shop there.

People say "oh but the goods are so cheap!" but the amount we have collectively saved as a society, has not balanced out what was lost in income from the jobs it has destroyed. The never ending chase for increasingly cheaper goods by playing international whack-a-mole with countries and their various labor, environmental, and consumer rights laws has done nothing but drive the wages and buying power of Americans into the fucking ground.

This nation already gave up the majority of it's manufacturing base. Walmart, almost by itself (ok Amazon, Target and a few others helped) came in like a thirsty vampire for what was left of the retail and service sector.

If you live in a small town and you can't get to any other place reasonably, i don't judge you for shopping there. If you're truly uneducated about their practices...i want to judge you for not getting it, but i'll pass.

But if you understand....and you still shop there? Piss on you.