Bob Cuddy: Opposition to Wal-Mart is a wasted effort

By Bob Cuddy

ATribune headline on Sunday was gripping and alarming, and so was the story: A mother and her children “one stumble from despair.”

And yet by the end of the story, I felt that the strong woman profiled living in a motel room would make a life for her children—through perseverance and gutsiness.

It was a human story about something real that touches all Americans: sacrificing for our kids and the generations to come.

Then I glanced at the headline next to it: “Wal-Mart, trimmed in size, back for a vote.”

“Gol-durn!” I cussed to myself. “Can’t these people find something important to worry about?”

For two years, the folks in Atascadero have been seething, planning, nitpicking, caviling and turning the town upside-down.

And over what? A store. Yeah, I know, it’s a “big-box”

store. It’s the totalitarian store brand, designed to squeeze out individuality. Uncle Lou and Aunt Nellie’s Corner Candy Emporium, it ain’t.

But, dang, it’s still a store — one that will bring jobs and tax dollars and less expensive goods to a city that needs all of the above.

It’s simply not worth getting that excited about.

But for two years, the people in Atascadero have treated the approach of Wal-Mart as though it were red-hot lava flowing from a North County volcano.

The city has been consumed by the vilified merchant, almost to the exclusion of everything else.

Wal-Mart has scaled back its design. But it’s barely closer to opening its doors and hiring senior citizens to smile and say, “Toaster sale on aisle 3.”

(And, no, I’m not angling for a job as a Wal-Mart greeter by writing this column.)

Three days after the story ran, the city moved the project forward ever so slightly, without actually approving it. Wal-Mart still faces more delays, and those who oppose it continue to mutter ominously about shutting it down.

I believe some people are sincere in their fear of the big store. But I think far more oppose it because to them “Wal-Mart” has taken on the same sinister meaning that “liberal” has taken on among the Rush Limbaugh crowd.

That’s a shame because fighting the store squanders enormous amounts of energy.

There are real problems in this county, and people who need help.

For openers, there are folks living here homeless. How about shooting some effort their way? There are victims of crime and kids struggling to get by, in and out of schools. There are frail elderly and hurting ex-servicemen. How about giving them a helping hand?

I realize how we choose to direct our efforts is highly personal, and the choices we make are in most cases shaped by the forces that molded us.

But for heaven’s sake, what sort of mold would lead us to go through all this toil and struggle simply to keep a store from coming to town when real people need help? It’s just plain fatuous.