Desperation

[Vinca]

I had to go to the Walmart pharmacy today. I hate the place, but the presciption I need is a third of what it is at any of the other pharmacies and I don't have insurance to cover the stuff. This was my second trip for the meds and, like the first time I was there, I spent some time watching the people shopping. I looked at their faces, their eyes, their gait, the stuff in their carts and whether they smiled. They didn't. The one thing they seemed to have in common - young and old alike - was a look of total despair on their faces. It made me sad. We're all rats trapped in a maze of corporate greed that takes away our earning power and forces us into a sorry search for dirt cheap anything to survive. That's not how it's supposed to be in this country.

[OhioChick]

1. Welcome to the new Amerika n/t

[Kennah]

2. I see the desperation lots of places

On the commuter train, on the bus, in stores, and in my coworkers.

Homeless people are about the only ones who haven't changed their outlook.

[RKP5637]

6. Beaten. The system has beaten them and they aren't part of it now or ever. n/t

[RKP5637]

3. Yep, I see it too. Shopping at Walmart is like shopping at the company store. The people

have the depression era look on their faces.

[Raven]

4. I could have written this. I have the same thoughts when I am at

WallMart. And, I am always prepared to be stopped and frisked at the door and then led to the back room. It is the only store I shop at (infrequently) where I clutch my receipt in my hand as I am leaving.

[RKP5637]

7. I do the same. I clutch the receipt at the top of the bag, also having felt like

I was micro-watched the whole time in the place.

[MedleyMisty]

5. Hmm

Print out stuff about the revolutions going on and leave them around Wal-Mart?

Gotta get the monkeys without internet access into the whole revolt mood.

And no, I am not using the phrase in a derogatory manner - someone brought up the idea of the 100th monkey in a thread last night and said that unified protest was an idea that had gone global.

So we need to spread it to the people without Twitter and YouTube and FaceBook.

My mother and my brother don't have internet access but absolutely loved the protests in Egypt and cheered them on and were really impressed with them. They both said "People get tired of being poor."

So - that's a meme that may work for those without internet access but who've seen stuff about the protests on TV.

[Paper Roses]

8. I have noticed the same thing in many places.

I'm not a big shopper but the few places I visit, I see the same downtrodden expression.

I was at a dollar store a few days ago, People buying stuff there that we all used to get from our local grocer. Precious few of us can do anything about it. We're cut to the bone.

[snappyturtle]

9. I have just been saying the same thing to friends. People look sad,

less groomed even. Too many shuttered up businesses and awful roads that are rearing their ugly heads after winter time. Just plain sad and forsaken.

[SoCalDem]

10. Americans like "cheap"..even wealthy people shop for bargains

somewhere along the line we quit caring about quality and workmanship, and focused on cheap...

coffeemakers are a prime example.
how many people would balk at paying a couple of hundred dollars on a commercial Bunn coffee maker, and then end up buying and replacing a half dozen $70 coffeemakers in a few years?

Unfortunately I am in that group, but because I liked the LOOK of the coffeemakers I have bought.. I now have a Cuisinart Coffee maker that looks great, but it;s not gonna last much longer.. the clock quit working, the reservoir started leaking and the damned things turns itself off before the brew cycle is done.

When this one gives up the ghost I will buy a commercial coffee system, and will learn to love the look of it:)

[coti]

11. Yup. People have got to shake that off.

I've learned over these past years that you have to be good to and enjoy the company of those people closest to you. Have fun doing both the big and little things with them and appreciate them. Let go of the things that don't matter enough to be a little silly.

But keep fighting, too, above all.

[Sonoman]

12. I made my first (and, hopefully, my last) trip to a WalMart in January.

We were driving from Montgomery, AL, to Atlanta, right after the ice storm. We needed some big bags of cat litter in case we got stopped on ice (traction).

The only more desperate places I have ever entered are jail and prison.

I saw just what you saw.

There was a really down-and-out guy who was panhandling on the sidewalk when we left. I gave him some money.

Sonoman