What exactly is so wrong with "Big Box Stores"? I can go to one store and buy most everything I need and granted some things I don't really need but want just the same. I don't have to drive 15 miles to five different locations to buy the things I can buy at one location. It is not just about convenience but about efficiency both in my time as well as resources. Think about the overall resources to get products to five different stores or five products to one store! It is not just about my efficiency but about the efficiency at which we use all resources. My local box store buys 90% of its fresh produce from local suppliers when it is available. So instead of driving 24 miles one way to the farmers market I can go less than 1 mile round trip to buy the very same produce. The local farmers here love Wal-Mart!
Regards, David Chip Mefford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Kirk McLoren wrote: > > > Cute video, 9 min, with some important messages about consumption. > > http://www.alternet.org/blogs/workplace/73239/ > > This film was selected for the 2008 Sonoma Environmental Film Festival. It is a cute video. But I have some issues with it. Is this about big box vs local business? or is it just yet still another slam against WallMart? Near as I can tell, it's just more slamming of WallMart. That's just fine with me on one level. WallMart certainly has it coming. But on many other levels, I think it's mostly a waste of time, and here's some reasons why. The video isn't going to change anyone's point of view, I don't think. Folks who still accept the WallMart model, are under much more pressure from WallMart than they are from local businesses. This pressure is well understood by folks who have built up the consumer mindset over the last 150-200 years quite well. It's subliminal and quite powerful. The wallmart overlords (heh) understand it really well. Hence the push for the green paint, all the hype about skylighting, 'organic' groceries, etc. This (effective) approach at heading off 'doubts' in the mind of the 'consumer' works. Being of a skeptical (and yes, ofttimes cynical) mindset, noise from wallmart about organic sets off alarm bells with me. But not with 'joe public consumer'. Attacking WallMart outright, as this video does, just shuts 'joe public consumer' down, and closes out any discussion. 'Jpc' already has their mind made up, and attacks neatly sidestep the debate. Folks who understand how debates work, know what I mean. IMO, a better approach would have been a stronger 'sales pitch' of the local business, farmers market and a lot less pejorative coverage of the big box. Just from a point of debate, there is a lot of apples vs oranges in that video. I see this more and more in short videos of this sort. In my quite limited experience, there are 'broad scale' farmers who are really good folks, and small scale farmer's market types who are complete jerks. That said, the trend is quite clear. There is optimism, and there is pessimism. There is advocacy and there is criticism. For some reason, there seems to be a lot of focus on criticism before advocacy. I'm not sure that's the best approach, for very many reasons. I could nitpick this video, there are problems with the facts as presented. But so what? I'd rather advocate for small/local businesses and small/local growers/diaries/farms. End of the day, for a legion of reasons, the Big-Box approach is fundamentally broken, it won't work out in the long run and so, I'd say, pay them no more mind (or money :) Focus on what works, will work, and get on with it. The more you live this, the more you'll find friends/co-workers/acquaintances with questions. You can refer them to this list :) -- _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20080111/fd3f8701/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
