Evil Empire: move over, Mel Gibson
Wal-Mart's critics, opening a new front in their war on the retail goliath, are borrowing from actor-director Mel Gibson's promotional playbook.
Let's give some serious props to the religious right (center, up, down, and left!) for standing up for the unambiguous but oft-ignored moral issues of equality, poverty, and exploitation!
Producers of a new documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, will show it at about 1,000 churches, synagogues and religious sites nationwide on Nov. 13 in a bid to force changes in Wal-Mart's employment and other practices.
The film, by the director of Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, comes as Wal-Mart mounts a new effort to polish its battered image. The movie is part of a broader campaign by a disparate group of critics who now include ministers asserting Wal-Mart's tactics are a moral as well as economic issue.
My favorite line from the article:Wal-Mart has not seen the film, says spokeswoman Christi Gallagher. But, she said, "His video is simply unabashed propaganda."
Similarly, I don't have a degree in economics, but I sure can say that Wal-mart is simply unabashed bullshit.
4 comments:
It is the wave of the future. Not only do large business like Wal-Mart run efficiently and turn a major profit, they also increase the GDP and overall wealth of a nation, and that is all we really care about these days, isn't it? Aren't we the wealthiest nation on Earth? How do other nations compare.
Sure the small businesses employ more people, thus reducing unemployment, but they are ineffiecient and do not increase the status of a group (such as a nation, or a state, or whatever regional designation).
We are the biggest, badest, richest country in the world. Happiest? our people are happy, they can buy that new television or new automobile.
I had ore to say, but I just guzzled an ale81 and I feel really lightheaded right now.
Sir Ralph and the Fighting Hares!
dude, it's not about being a big business, or efficiency, or anything like that. i don't care that wal-mart is good at what they do. i care that walmart does some fucking evil things that other competing companies, which are just as big and efficient, don't do. meijer doesn't have zillions of cases against it involving exploitation of woman and immigrant employees. meijer hasn't been sued for screwing people out of their health care or overtime. costco does what sams club does better than sams club does it, and manages to pay its employees much better.
the problem is not the large-corporate model. the problem is a particular corporation which has become uber-wreckless in the past decade in its competitive practices.
and, like walmart, your comment minimizing the effects of reducing unemployment does not take into account the high cost of government subsidy for the unemployed.
the savings that consumers receive from walmart are projected into an increase in public need. either way, we're ALL paying for walmart's profit margin, but in the form of higher taxes.
I was trying to be sarcastic throughout the entire post. It looks as if I failed.
ah come on kev, i can remember at least a few good knockdown dragouts we've had back in the day :0)
bring it on!!!
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