Posted on 08/25/2006 4:33:57 AM PDT by Molly Pitcher
Ned Lamont's primary victory against Joe Lieberman in Connecticut supposedly represented the triumph of the antiwar, anti-Bush "net roots" within the Democratic Party. Alas, our troop presence in Iraq is increasing; it appears Lieberman, running as an independent, will trounce Lamont; and President Bush is having his best week in the polls in six months (which is not quite the same thing as saying he's doing well in the polls).
So, have the Lamonters and other victims of so-called BDS - Bush derangement syndrome - been routed? Not quite. Because BDS sufferers have a related secondary affliction: WMDS. This refers not to the unfound weapons of mass destruction but to Wal-Mart derangement syndrome. And the Democratic Party is ministering to these patients with reckless abandon.
The New York Times reported recently that the Democrats have, en masse, declared their party to be the enemy of the mega-box store. Sen. Joe Biden Jr., D-Del., recently delivered what the Times called a "blistering attack" on the company at an anti-Wal-Mart rally in Iowa, and other Democrats have appeared at similar events. Indeed, one of the few times Lieberman and Lamont appeared at the same event during their primary contest was at an anti-Wal-Mart clambake in the Nutmeg State.
This bonfire of buffoonery is helping me learn to love Wal-Mart. First, let's talk politics. More people shop at Wal-Mart every week (127 million) than voted in the 2004 presidential election, according to a company Web site. They are disproportionately low-income folks who, by some estimates, are collectively saving hundreds of billions of dollars by shopping there.
Compounding the electoral asininity is the glorious hypocrisy of it all. Hillary Rodham Clinton - who returned a donation from the devilish retailer - was on Wal-Mart's board of directors from the mid-1980s until the 1992 presidential campaign. If the store's policies are so un-Progressive, how come it never occurred to her to do anything about it until now? Similarly, former would-be first lady Teresa Heinz attacked the store in 2004, saying it "destroys communities" - which apparently never stopped her from hawking her ketchup there or owning $1 million in Wal-Mart stock. Even Lamont, the golden boy of the new yuppie populism, owns a few thousand bucks of Wal-Mart stock.
The most delicious moment in the WMDS hysteria came last week, when civil rights icon Andrew Young had what some are calling his Mel Gibson moment. Hired as a flack for Wal-Mart, Young gave an interview to the black-owned Los Angeles Sentinel in which he celebrated Wal-Mart's role as a destroyer of small, locally owned stores. Wal-Mart, he explained, "ran the mom-and-pop stores out of my neighborhood. But you see, these are the people who have been overcharging us - selling us stale bread, and bad meat and wilted vegetables. And they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans, and now it's Arabs; very few black people own these stores."
His remarks about Asians, Arabs and Jews sounded bigoted, particularly coming from a civil rights crusader and former U.N. ambassador. Although it's hard to tell if his liberal confreres are more offended by his denunciation of supposedly predatory ethnic groups or his defense of the company Democrats are demonizing.
Regardless, the delicious part is that Young was basically right on both counts. It costs a lot of money to be poor. Go into a small grocery store - whether owned by blacks, Jews, Arabs or Koreans - in a poor neighborhood and you'll be stunned at how expensive basic foodstuffs are. Poor people can't afford to drive to the suburbs to shop at mega-stores. And small-business people - often "middleman minorities" such as Koreans or West Indians - can't afford the cheap prices and updated inventory that come with the economies of scale that the big chains enjoy. These ethnic entrepreneurs aren't ripping off the poor. They are providing a service that big corporations won't, often at considerable risk.
Now, Wal-Mart wants to provide the inner-city poor the same billions in savings it has delivered to suburban and rural areas, creating more jobs for the inner-city poor than it supposedly destroys in the process. But the Democrats are standing in the way because labor unions hate Wal-Mart's policies and because Wal-Mart bashing has a placebo effect on Bush-bashing addicts.
It's horrific politics and silly public policy - but a joy to watch.
I'm trying to remember what the outcome was in Chicago when Walmart proposed a store on the s.w. side of the city....sometime in the past year...?
I remember that...
As I recall Walmart still built the store, just outside the city limits. So the people still got the jobs, but the sales taxes and property taxes all went to the neighboring city.
( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
IMHO, WM "deprives" the Dems of potential constituencies....and introduces them to the benefits of capitalism.....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1565376/posts
Eighteen months after the Chicago City Council torpedoed a South Side Wal-Mart, 24,500 Chicagoans applied for 325 jobs at a Wal-Mart opening Friday in south suburban Evergreen Park, one block outside the city limits.
That's it! Thanks. Good for Walmart. That was a solution!
Thanks!
Excellent point.
How long before Walmart goes over to the Democrat side? How long before they do the Dixie Chicks' shuffle and bow down to the all powerful liberal press and politicians?
LOL-indeed. I recently encountered someone so afflicted - a tech/assistant-type at a physical therapy clinic. She, like, just graduated from high school? and, like, doesn't know what she wants to study in college? She's thinking about history or poli-sci? because, like, she was sooooo inspired by her high school history teacher. Her high school history teacher filled her head with "issues" and "causes" to stand up for. Top of the list? Why, Walmart, of course!
This young lady let loose with a tirade one day, and the whole clinic basically came to a standstill to listen to her. Walmart is soooo evil. Walmart uses sweat shop labor while the fat cats drive Ferraris. Walmart won't pay their employees but the 'heirs' get the fortune without having to work for it. Boycott evil Walmart!! Blah blah blah, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
When it became clear that the clinic management thought this kind of nonsense *wasn't* inappropriate, the patients formed a conspiracy of their own and started asking a few questions of the young rocket scientist...
If target is a better place to shop and work, what's stopping an unhappy Walmart employee from working there? (her answer was that mostly 'old' people work at Walmart and wouldn't be interested in Target which is where young people work. One guy asked her what she had against old people? Shouldn't they have jobs so they can buy their perscriptions? LOL) Why is it better to buy sweatshop products at Target than at Walmart? Is it better to have a job in a sweatshop or to have no job at all? If a father has a sweatshop job to put food on the table for his kids and buy them a better future/more opportunities, would you rather he go back to the farm or wherever where his kids have no future at all? Are you against children in poor countries?? (heh - this one made her upset) So the fat cats own a lot of stocks and bonds. Your high school was built with bonds, would you rather have the new school building or the old one? Buying a Ferrari means the people who make and ship and sell Ferraris *have* jobs. People who mine the iron ore, who make the steel, who make the parts, who make the cars, the designers, the marketers, the people who make the slick magazine advertisements all have jobs because of people who buy the products. Their kids get to eat, get to buy pencils and lunch boxes for school, get to go to college... And so on.
There were four of us piling on. The poor girl had no chance. Finally she gave up and said, "I don't care! Walmart is still evil. That's why I shop at Target."
Her generation is our future...
Confronting a liberal with reason and logic is truly casting pearls before swine...............
Asking to be specific about their generalizations is good sport. They hate that tactic because it forces them to think.
Wally ping.
Can you explain to us why a company, widely viewed as one of the best if not THE best run Corporation in history, would follow the example of the Dixie Chicks whose actions destroyed their earning potential? Are you not aware their latest tour is an unmitigated disaster?
They whine: "Why is there no inner city development?"
Then they drive off anyone who tries.
True, but it was cheap entertainment, too.
Wal-Mart is going to remain the dominant player for a while, but they aren't going to crush folks like they used to do.
That was to cover the cost of closing their German operation. That had not been succussful.
Outisde that write off, I believe they were up 3% or so.
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