I'm extremely lucky and I know it (raised up poor but OK financially now) and can pretty much choose to buy my fabrics and supplies at a LQS or at JoAnn or Hancock. However, I do quilts for a charity that continues to ask for more and more blankets, and it's hard to afford to buy all the fabric and batting and other supplies to produce the most quilts possible and needed. So I do tend to shop at JoAnn or Hancock to get the very most for my money so I can help out with making as many quilts as I possibly can for kids without worrying too much about the outlay (and I do shop with coupons!)
I also might add that a good friend of mine, a fabulously talented quilter, stopped shopping at our most prominent local quilt shop because of their incredibly unwelcoming attitude and indifference to their customers generally, and which is well known to locals as unpleasant place to shop because of these things. And if this particular shop goes out of business, then good riddance. She now shops pretty much exclusively at JoAnn and Hancock both of which have great service and sales in our city. So I don't think that every LQS ipso facto deserves loyalty or extra support just because they exist.
Also, is it JJ's post that is supposedly political? I went back and looked at it and couldn't see much that could be called political. ???
Dana