[spinestein]

[First, by the appearance of the store. It looked dirty. The floors appeared unwashed. Second: Those hokey signs with happy faces turned me off totally. The high prices on those signs really freaked me out. I kept asking myself, "Why do people shop here? Prices are lower at Target." Third:People are opposing new WM stores in Oregon. This is grass roots movement.]


Understand that I'm not accusing you or your motives and I take your criticism of WalMart at face value as your honest belief, but the above statements don't make sense to me. I've never been in (nor heard of) a WalMart with dirty floors or higher prices than the competition, but perhaps the one store you're familiar with in Oregon is the exception. But the idea that the opposition to WalMart is a "grass roots movement" is completely implausible. I did check out the link you provided and it went to a website that was an activist anti-WalMart site and the story it showed was of 50 people in Portland protesting a proposed new store and it looked exactly like every other contrived union protest I've ever seen. It was obviously a preplanned, organized union event with almost as many speakers as "protesters". It certainly was not a spontaneous event precipitated by people angry over anything WalMart had done to them.

There is a lot of wealth and power available to those willing to exploit feelings of class envy and engage in anti-capitalist rhetoric, and as long as enough compassionate people are gullible enough to believe in it and donate money to their causes and vote for their candidates then they'll continue to do so.

[ex-Texan]

There are hundreds of thousands of news reports on Oregon's Wal-Mart battles. Some communities have welcomed WM. Others do not want the company in their area. Some communities learned the hard way that WM destroys local businesses. Blanket allegations about unions stirring up trouble for WM miss the point: Local folks are angry today and fighting back. WM is a giant corporation with millions to burn. They have won some battles, but the war is still going on in Oregon.