Old 06-15-06, 04:10 PM
  #28  
Coyote2
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I've seen the movie. Please don't confuse it with balanced documentary reporting, as the film is a one-sided polemic. It presents many facts, but without context and without even paying lip service to any counter-arguments. As such, it is not to be taken seriously.

Your list includes some items which are just plain incorrect/inaccurate. (e.g., firing a worker for attempting to organize a union is a clear and unequivocal violation of the National Labor Relations Act which is enforced by the NLRB. Even Wal-mart cannot get away with that sort of violation.) Many of these claims are mere complaints about perfectly common and legal practices which are used by many other firms, both large and small -- such as importing goods produced in other countries, such as paying workers so little that they cannot afford health insurance and health care, such as strongly resisting unionization, etc. Hell, look at your bike -- I''ll bet some of its components, and perhaps even its frame, were made in Asia and even specifically in China.

I mean, really, consider the idiocy of some of the complaints raised in the movie: Wal-mart doesn't police it's parking lots? Neither does my locally-owned grocery store, nor does my locally-owned drug store, etc. These transgressions that you ascribe to Wal-mart are also the transgressions of many, many firms in our country. Wal-mart is simply an easy target for lazy minds.

Again, I am no fan of Wal-mart. But the problem is not Wal-mart. The problem is a society -- and a government -- that refuses to exert legal control over business by setting reasonable minimum wages, by providing nationalized health insurance (which all of us -- including the Walton family and Wal-mart shoppers -- would pay for), etc. And the problem is also that many people simply cannot accept that globalization -- which means that stores in the US will sell stuff made in other nations -- is here and is not going away.
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