The fall of the supermarket

The supermarket is empire glorified, offering the spoils of world dominion at subsidized costs and ignoring the consequences of dietary indulgences, of eating too much booty. The cornucopia of gourmet, exotic foods and the gluttony it encourages has resulted in a nation populated by the overweight and obese, with the various degenerative health conditions that develop from undisciplined eating habits. What and how much an individual consumes at meals and in between them does matter. The visual proof is everywhere. In this regard, hegemony has its bad karma as can be seen on Main Street and all round. To coin a rather dramatic-sounding cliche, the supermarket is neocolonialism on steroids! As goes the empire, so goes the supermarket. A monument to globalization, the supermarket owes its existence to all that our military protects: "free trade" and the control of the financial markets. (There are more than 700 U.S. military bases around the world!) My local, so-called, community co-op market, Briarpatch, to which I have belonged for thirty years, is now an upscale and glitzy supermarket, but holds on to the co-op mantle for public relation and tax benefits. Brairpatch(Grass Valley, CA) started operations in the mid-1970s in a small warehouse located at an airport some distance out of town. Soon it moved to an old, rather neglected building in a hilly, residential area still quite off the beaten track, yet closer for most would-be shoppers. The venture had become the proverbial "corner grocery store", well, the rural, counterculture version of it. Then, the enterprise moved and for about fourteen years was in a more commercial, centralized location. But, one person with steadfast determination brought into existence a custom-built, supermarket citadel. I disrespectfully labeled it "Fort Briarpatch"(with its dominant, hilltop location.) Unfortunately, Briarpatch is currently $3 million in debt, at the very moment that the national economy is in free fall! Sadly, to help service the debt, the decision was made by Brairpatch management to promote "delicatessenism": ready to eat, rich gourmet foods designed for the affluent, fleet of foot, the trend-setters and the ostentatious movers of a suburban community. Also, it is a commercial response to the regrettable fragmentation of family and culture, the end of the joy of cooking era, with its dining table celebrations. With a rapidly growing population of singles who often eat(and drive) alone, the deli is a cash-cow for today's supermarkets. Briarpatch and other co-ops want a piece of the action. It comes at the cost of several values that brought the co-op movement into existence. For one, the importance of providing healthy food. The deli model has replaced cafeterias and represents an ever-increasing competition to formal restaurant dining and is simply another manifestation of the fast food industry. In looking back on my childhood, I ask, whatever happened to the cafeteria? I have(with few exceptions)fond memories eating in school and commercial cafeterias. The sociability that existed in those settings is sorely missed. And I could not have survived college without the upscale(big city)version, a hangout for an aspiring radical, intelligentsia. It seems to me now that all cafeterias were without the class-consciousness that prevails with restaurant dining. The ambiance is not stiff and pretentious. Of course, kids are more comfortable in casual settings. Ronald McDonald knows this. For me, it was exciting seeing offerings rather than reading, usually, unintelligible menu abstractions about them. Today, the only cafeterias that I am aware of(beside some school holdouts)are located in churches and soup kitchens and are for those who have fallen on hard times. More than 900 million people around the world go to bed hungry every night. Yet, here in Babylon, the homeland of empire, overweight and obese people form a majority, or so it appears--for I never forget the unsightliness of obesity. Twice I submitted a piece entitled, "The Supermarket End is Near" to the local newspaper, for the "Other Voices" column . It never went anywhere with a paper that relies heavily on supermarket advertising! Surprisingly, it was printed in the Briarpatch Newsletter, but not without complaint. With the economic and national security teams just named by Obama, one can predict with some certainty, that the rich will prosper in his administration even more than they did in the Clinton era, and that "change" will be elusive, at best. With so many former functionaries in the new administration, it is shaping up as a third Clinton term, of sorts. My prediction in the 2006 piece mentioned above, was dead-wrong--or so it seems? I stated that in being a debtor nation, federal agencies would not be in a position to bailout corporate America come the next depression. In the last year, eight trillion dollars of public monies have gone to the private sector, primarily, Wall Street. And the big three auto manufacturers are in Congress today asking for their share, $34 billion, for starters! The bailout funds are not simply life-support measures. They further the bloodless, corporate coup d' etat that has been going on for decades, now. Every day the situation with Obama's nominations require me to make draft revisions to what I am currently trying to post. Three or four days ago, I wrote that Obama would have to be a masterful manipulator, such as Lyndon Baines Johnson, to manage the Clinton thoroughbreds he has reunited, that he could quickly become, in the political context,"toast". Today, I realize that his "war cabinet" is actually his "dream team", the best people to implement his conservative, militaristic objectives; I might add, with his own cocktail of steroids. However, the sum total of power now held by the Clinton expatriates, their resumes of experience and all the power at their disposal, they could upstage Obama and dwarf his stature as President. Really now, who would be in charge? What I have felt for a long time, is that Obama's long association with what I surmise as a rather conservative University of Chicago, only adds to my worries. To date, his political temperament seems to be that of a committed conservative, at best a centrist leaning heavily to the right. He is, perhaps, another privatizer, like Geo W.,Clinton, and going back to Reagan, Carter and Nixon. Fortunately for my peace of mind, I never voted for anyone of them! He supports capital punishment(a dead-give away to one's political disposition), the occupation of Palestinian territory and by his silence Israeli atrocities. He will intensify the military assault upon Afghanistan. He continually speaks about improving conditions for the middle class, but is silent on the plight of the poor. He will not, as he previously promised, call upon the rich to pay their fair share of taxes. He voted to fund the continuing occupation of Iraq. Again, many of the Clintonistas he is selecting for key administration positions are the very people who have brought on the crises we are facing today! And his selections exclude liberals and progressives! It is altogether possible that the Right has pulled off one of it swiftest ploys--using an African-American to continue the conservative agenda. Well, I have strayed from the topic of supermarket demise, or have I? I would argue that with Obama in the White House, the supermarket phenomenon will limp on for a time, as will the Empire.