#308 Wasted

Sometimes reality is only a secondary issue in perception. Positioning is the key. If your first experience with Wal-Mart was when you were in college and it was the only place you could afford to get essential stuff, you’ll probably hold a fondness for Wal-Mart for the rest of your life. Even if the Wal-Mart you went to was new and the only reason its prices were so low was because it was actively engaged in killing the mom and pop down the street in its first wave of wipe-out-the-competition-first-then-raise-prices, overall strategy. There’s a great bumper sticker: “Wal-Mart killed my Mom and Pop.” It’s what I call the Ted Bundy effect. Neighbors and friends of Ted Bundy thought he was a nice guy. Only his victims felt negatively. His friends, well, “Yeah I liked Ted, I mean, he never killed me...”
It’s all about marketing. The monstrosity which is the way we tell people what we have to unload. It has grown steadily since the first caveman had too much meat and needed to fob some off on his neighbors before it spoiled. Here Ugg, try some almost-rancid rat meat. It’s, um, new and, arghh, improved.
Claiming a name first can make the difference. On the face of it, you would think a good name for an environmentalist would be “conservative.” I mean, they’re all about conserving things—especially nature. There are those to whom the idea of pristine unspoiled nature is hateful. The last thing in the world they want is to preserve nature in its raw state. They want to pave it and build houses and offices on it and put a Wal-Mart next door. They have laid permanent claim to the name conservative, because they are conserving our values—even though those values appear to be more destructive than conservative. The value of unspoiled nature does not appear to be among them. The value of commerce is paramount.
Somewhere there’s a middle ground. I too, like nice schools for my kids. Nice schools depend on a nice tax base. A nice tax base depends on nice homes in nice neighborhoods, which attract nice stores. One of the jewels in the park system of the city of Lacey is a place called Rainier Vista Park. It has baseball diamonds and soccer fields and big toys and basketball hoops and picnic areas up the yin yang. It also has acres of grass. And across the grass and the rooftops of the surrounding dense developments, you have a view or “vista” of the wild natural beauty of the craggy peaks of Mt Rainier. You didn’t used to be able to stand where the center of the park is and see Mt Rainier. The whole area was cluttered with a bunch of view-spoiling hundred foot trees. Arguably, its hard to play soccer in a forest. And with the new park you can still see one on the flanks of Mt Rainier. And it’s only 40 miles away...
America, ya gotta love it.