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Fwd: Wal-Mart and the Strip-Mining of America, Corporate Watch
>From the Corporate Focus Mailing List:
>>Walk into any Wal-Mart and marvel. One near us is open 24 hours. Never
>>closes. Consumer goods as far as the eye can see. Quality product at a
low
>>price. Friendly workers greeting eager consumers at the door.
>>
>>In 1997, Wal-Mart had sales of $118 billion and is on course to
>>become, within 10 years or so, the world's largest corporation.
>>
>>Wal-Mart is three times bigger than Sears, its nearest competitor,
>>and larger than all three of its main rivals (Sears, Target, and
Kmart)
>>combined.
>>
>>Wal-Mart now has 3,400 stores on four continents. "Our priorities
>>are that we want to dominate North America first, then South America,
and
>>then Asia and then Europe," Wal-Mart's President and CEO David Glass
told
>>USA Today business reporter Lorrie Grant recently.
>>
>>And given the history of steady rise of the Bentonville, Arkansas
>>retailer, who would doubt it?
>>
>>Certainly not USA Today, which last week ran Grant's glowing
>>review of Wal-Mart's worldwide operation under the headline: "An
>>Unstoppable Marketing Force: Wal-Mart Aims for Domination of the
Retail
>>Industry -- Worldwide."
>>
>>But Bob Ortega, a Wall Street Journal reporter, reveals a
>>different side of the Wal-Mart phenomenon in his recently released
book,
>>In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is
>>Devouring America, (Times Business, 1998).
>>
>>Ortega documents how Sam Walton -- perhaps the most driven
>>corporate executive ever to walk the face of the planet -- built his
>>empire. Wal-Mart has used Asian child labor to make blouses for sale
under
>>"Made in America" signs in his stores. When he began his operation in
>>Bentonville, Arkansas, Sam Walton hired a union-busting attorney to
quash
>>worker organizing. Outer city Wal-Marts have steamrolled inner city
>>shopkeepers.
>>
>>Ortega speaks to Kathleen Baker of Hastings, Minnesota, who was
>>fired after talking with other workers about asking for a pay raise.
>>
>>He speaks to Mike and Paula Ianuzzo, of Cottage Grove, Oregon, who
>>blamed Wal-Mart for wiping out their photo-shop business.
>>
>>In Guatemala, he interviewed Flor de Maria Salguedo, a union
>>organizer who arranged for Ortega to talk with workers making clothes
for
>>Wal-Mart and other giant retailers.
>>
>>Salguedo, whose husband was murdered during an organizing drive in
>>Guatemala City, was herself kidnapped, beaten and raped shortly after
>>Ortega left Guatemala City. After the attack, one of her attackers
told
>>her, "This is what you get for messing about with foreigners."
>>
>>Ortega documents how communities around the country have revolted
>>against Wal-Mart's plans to plunk down giant superstores in their
>>communities, ripping apart the fabric of small town life.
>>
>>In Oklahoma, the owner of a television and record store adversely
>>affected and eventually closed down after a Wal-Mart moved into the
area,
>>told reporters, "Wal-Mart really craters a little town's downtown."
>>
>>Shelby Robinson, a self-employed clothing designer from Fort
>>Collins tells Ortega that she "really hates Wal-Mart." Why?
>>
>>"Everything's starting to look the same, everybody buys all the
>>same things -- a lot of small-town character is being lost," Robinson
>>says. "They dislocate communities, they hurt small businesses, they
add to
>>our sprawl and pollution because everybody drives farther, they don't
pay
>>a living wage, and visually, they're atrocious."
>>
>>James Howard Kunstler, an ardent Wal-Mart foe from upstate New
>>York, talks about what he calls the $7 hair dryer fallacy.
>>
>>Kunstler argues to Ortega that "people who shop at a giant
>>discounter to save $7 on a hair dryer don't realize that they pay a
hidden
>>price by taking that business from local merchants, because those
>>merchants are the people who sit on school boards, sponsor little
league
>>teams and support the civic institutions that create a community."
>>
>>Kunstler calls Wal-Mart "the exemplar of a form of corporate
>>colonialism, which is to say, organizations from one place going into
>>distant places and strip-mining them culturally and economically."
>>
>>Ortega documents how communities around the country are rising up
>>to slap down Wal-Mart's plans at expansion.
>>
>>But Ortega questions whether, given the amazing popularity of
>>Wal-Mart among consumers worldwide, anything will stop this
juggernaut.
>>
>>As Ortega points out, consumerism has not always held sway on this
>>soil. Back 200 years ago, in the United States, "one did not shop for
>>pleasure."
>>
>>"The very idea of coveting goods ran counter to a broad
>>Puritanical streak in American society, and to its proclaimed values
of
>>living simply, working hard (the famous 'work ethic'), being thrifty,
and
>>seeking salvation through faith," Ortega writes.
>>
>>Ortega closes the book with a story of how Tibetans believe,
>>depending on their past actions, people can come back to other realms
>>besides this one.
>>
>>"Among the worst of the realms is the realm of the hungry ghosts
>>-- a place reminiscent of certain neighborhoods of Dante's Inferno,"
he
>>writes. "The hungry ghosts are the reincarnations of people who were
>>covetous or greedy in this life. In the realm of the hungry ghosts,
they
>>are constantly ravenous but can never be satisfied. They despoil and
>>devour everything around them. They consume endlessly and insatiably.
It
>>struck me immediately as a metaphor for our own mass culture."
>>
>>On April 6, 1992, Sam Walton died one of the wealthiest men in
>>America. Ortega says that he cannot presume to know where Walton went
>>after he passed on. "But I can't help but think, at times, that his
hungry
>>ghost is still with us, in the form of Wal-Mart itself."
>>
>>Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate
Crime
>>Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
>>Multinational Monitor.
>>
>>(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
>>
>>Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell
Mokhiber
>>and Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends
or
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on
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contact us
>>(russell@essential.org or rob@essential.org).
>>
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>>
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>>web site <www.essential.org/monitor>.
>>
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>>comment on the columns, send a message to russell@essential.org or
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>>
>>
>>
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>=====================================================
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>Tim Hermach
>Native Forest Council
>PO Box 2190
>Eugene, OR 97402
>541.688.2600; fax 689.9835 or 461.2156
>
>web page: http://www.forestcouncil.org
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