anarchism in spirit

i just saw a wal-mart commercial wherein a couple shops for a television and asks the salesman point blank why the price is so much higher than the same tv at Wal-Mart. The advertisement ends with the couple realizing they are too smart to ever consider buying their television anywhere but Wal-Mart because no other tv seller can beat or match Wal-Mart's price.
anarchy. question everything. everything you know is wrong.
any regular joe who watches this commercial and knows the truth, (wal-mart truly will have the best price,) rests comfortably in the knowledge he or she knows best, recognizes truth when it is seen, can add two plus two.

still, if one is to adjust one's thinking and become an anarchist in spirit, can the question of wal-mart be so simple?

walmart recently introduced a sick day policy wherein an ill employee must call a corporate number to get a sick day referral number which they must pass on to their store in call #2. apparently the corporate office can review attendance data at any store in the country and pronounce the day fit for an employee to be so ill they may use a sick day to abstain from working for the day. or they may pronounce the day unfit and tell the employee to come to work regardless of their infirmity.

can walmart do that? what if an employee happens to be the type who understates things? what if that employee calls the corporate sick line and professes to be, "a bit feverish," suffering from, "something of a headache?" then he gets in his car, despite that feeling worsening as he checked his neck tie and splashed cool water on his face, and rolls out into traffic where he faints and crashes and dies? what then? what if his work ethic was so profoundly strong and american that he had been ignoring the tell-tale signs of circulatory issues? what if the first thing the doctor had written on his chart at the hospital had been "m.i.?"

(sir, you can't be ill today. your store already has the maximum allowable persons off today. plus, you work for walmart so you do not have the insight nor intestinal fortitude to stand up for your right to dictate your every day life even to the point of deciding which days will be your sick days. thank you for not dictating so much of your life as to even own your own business, such as a television store, where you could have dictated your entire investment in the business to include which days you would mind the store, instead of selling tv's for a corporation that thinks of you and treats you as a warm body. thank you for being happy with 48k per year to prepare reports of data covering your area of the business for the people above you, for treating everyone with dignity day in and out, for caring about this menial job that takes way more from you than the substantial amount you give it, including a disproportionate amount of profit considering the time investment of all parties, and for the investment you made in walmart considering the life we afford you is neither financially, spiritually, intellectually nor emotionally rewarding. thank you for being walmart's bitch. please report to work.)

how big is that lawsuit? what's more profane than that is the question of whether walmart even flinches at a settlement of that magnitude. the risk may seem conservative in the face of the increased efficiencies and profits walmart can realize if the employee remains sedate.
walmart is able to offer goods at better prices than its competitors by using its size and purchasing power to leverage the sellers of the goods they buy to rock bottom prices. the number of small businessmen walmart can bankrupt in any community is substantial and so, a measure of wealth is stripped from these would be shopowners. they are reduced to employees of the corporation which pays less money than owning a business that compares to any department within walmart, such as tv's. this happens to would be tv store owners all over america and one family in arkansas grows a more massive wealth than had already been obtained.
every day. more. more. more.
how does one fight against what walmart brings? one does not shop at walmart. one gets stronger about working to convince people they know not to shop at walmart. not all peer pressure is bad. one fights walmart and all mega corporations everywhere, all the time, because one understands these corporations are inherently bad, an illness for a society or a community.

walmart is good for it's owners and stockholders only. walmart is not good for it's stakeholders.

the problem with the couple in the commercial is they do not realize, (nor want to admit,) the insidious nature of the corporation, of walmart, which is content to bind them into a lower quality lifestyle in the name of improving thelifestyles of the few who gain the disproportionate wealth. indeed it is easier to only consider the first option, about how it is less expensive to run and clothe a family by shopping there, even if at the same time they limit themselves and relinquish a measure of control over their own lives.
it's not like you can know everything, but it is noble to push upwards.
they need anarchy of spirit. they need to learn to question even the most basic and seemingly inocuous aspects of their lives and environments, if they want more control which amounts to more balance and happiness and health.

[click on header for link to yahoo walmart attendance policy news story.]