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Gather 'round, boys and girls. It's storybook time.
Yes, Sally?... No, we will not be eating anything for lunch that violates the rights of our non-speaking animal cousins... Yes, Sally. We have plenty of soy milk for everyone... No, we are not exploiting the oppressed workers of the Third World... Sit down, Sally, and nibble on your fat-free granola bar.
Sam! Quit poking Sally or I'll have to call the principal... I don't care. Behave yourself or the nice police officers will come to charge you with sexual harassment and assault... No, you do not want that on your permanent academic record.
Yes, George?... No, we're not reading My Two Daddies today. We read that last week... The Founding Slavers? Well, bring it in. I'll see if we want to include it in our reading list.
Okay, class! Settle down. Be quiet. Monitor your neighbors. Remember, you're responsible for what your buddies do wrong and will be punished for their misdeeds.
Where was I? Ah, yes... Here we are. Wally's World...
Once upon a time, in a land of plenty, the merchants of the small towns of America provided essential goods for their friends and neighbors. If someone needed a FDA approved medicine, he or she could go into the local pharmacy. There, the state-licensed pharmacist would check the prescription provided by your state-licensed physician. The pharmacist would check the pills once and then again as he or she filled your prescription to ensure your safety. After all, we lay-people can hardly be trusted to decide for ourselves which medicines we want or how to take them.
Ha-ha-ha! Yes, it is funny, isn't it, class, to think that anyone would believe differently.
After all, the whole process is simply too complex for us to understand. The team that is our physician and pharmacist creates a partnership that protects us from our mistakes. We gladly pay more for that convenience and their attention to details. If we can't afford to pay, then, of course, the state will extend its compassion to us and subsidize or pay for our medical necessities.
That is wonderful, isn't it, Tiffany?
In these towns that formed the heart of our nation, whenever you wanted to buy anything that you needed, the same kind of things went on. If you needed tools, you went to the neighborhood hardware store. If you wanted a book or a magazine, you visited the local newsstand. If your family needed food, you went to the mom-and-pop grocery store for that personal touch that means so much in creating a sense of community, a sense of connectedness. In the days before unsightly urban sprawl, citizens could walk wherever they had to go.
Little did the blissfully happy inhabitants of small-town America know what evil lurked in the countryside, slinking darkly towards them and their perfect lives.
Town by town, a two-faced evil sought to subvert all that we had struggled so hard to achieve.
First, this evil apparition purchased land on the edge of town. Next, the evil entity constructed its imposing lair on the town's margin. Then, the evil creature filled its sterile abode with tempting goodies designed to entice innocent citizens into its enfolding clutches.
Oh, yes. Hold each other tightly, children. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
With its trap ready to be sprung, the evil beast provided menial jobs at substandard wages to the most desperate workers of the town. These forlorn souls were sucked into the maw of the monster to conduct its foul business. Deprived of health care coverage, life insurance, and many of the other rightful entitlements the minions deserved for their degrading toils, the workers were forced to smile through their pain and greet their fellow citizens pleasantly as the curious townspeople explored the cavernous expanses of the evil one's domain.
The evil one even boldly and shamelessly placed a sign announcing its presence in a prominent position above its terrain for everyone to view.
For this story, boys and girls, we'll call this tainted place, Wally's World. To pronounce its True Name is to flirt with the devil.
The unsuspecting men and women and children flocked to the brightly lit spaces and the shelves packed with goodies that lured them into abandoning their good judgments and their sense of community. The merchants in town who depended upon the patronage of their neighbors, their friends, were abandoned without regard or pity. The local pharmacist and hardware store owner and mom and pop dispensing groceries could not compete with the behemoth's buying power and its ability to undercut them or even sell at a loss.
One by one, the stores closed. One by one, the proud merchants humbly and sadly had to crawl to Wally's World and beg for jobs to keep bread on their tables and roofs over their heads. One by one, this plague spread to town after town.
A few valiant heroes and heroines rallied to fight the all-consuming brute. The Labor Leader stood proud and tall to denounce the slave-wages and demeaning conditions of the workers inhabiting Wally's World. Even though the town's other grocery stores charged from 27% to 39% more for groceries than Wally's World,, for example, the Labor Leader just knew that his fellow citizens would not countenance such manipulations of the workers. Surely, they would realize that it was their duty to pay more for their bread and their cereal and their meat so the Wally's World workers could enjoy the same benefits as the union-organized stores.
But, alas, the hopes of the Labor Leader were crushed! The misguided citizens still spent their coins at Wally's World, exchanging the purity of their hearts for the glittering and useless trinkets of modern post-capitalist society.
The few stores able to compete against Wally's World that were not put out of business by the intruder were forced to lower their prices by almost 13%. Thus, those business owners had their lifestyles lowered because of the dark presence of the Other. In addition, the center of towns grew empty and unvisited. Trash blew forlornly along the deserted sidewalks.
In addition to the Labor Leader, many City Councils and groups of citizens not yet brainwashed by Wally's World's propaganda defied the usurper. These stalwarts refused to give Wally's World permission to build in their beloved towns. Others took Wally's World to court to restrict the size of the "box stores" Wally wanted to impose upon their naive domains. Some battles they won. Some battles they lost.
That, however, is the nature of war, children. The struggle against the exploiters, the greedy, the uncaring never ends. Our neighbors must be protected from themselves and their shortsighted fixation on such ephemera as "lower prices" and "convenience" and "selection." After all, money is the root of all evil, and we must defeat evil whatever the cost.
Remember, children, that this disease continues to spread. The evil one works day and night to win over the ignorant and the selfish. After all, if we are not diligent and merciless in our opposition, one day "Wally's World" may literally be true...
Okay, okay, children. Dry your tears. We'll have our low-fat cookies now. Just keep reminding yourself that it's only a story. Only a story.
But be sure you go home tonight and badger your parents unmercifully until they give in to your whining and never visit Wally's World again.
