Tell Me, Why Do Liberals Hate Wal-Mart?
Written by Jim Sparkman
Monday, May 29, 2006
What if you had to name the liberalÂ’s Number One cause, their defining issue? WouldnÂ’t you guess it would be concern for those who struggle to survive on a very low wage.
Generally, liberals are like wild animals in making remarkably consistent noises. What is difficult, however, is to understand the reasoning and the logic behind those noises. Take, for example, the current liberal attack on Wal-Mart.
If “the poor” among us are the main focus of liberal policies one would assume that any group producing low priced goods targeted to the poorer segment would be a liberal hero. The lower income group of our society shop at Wal-Mart for just that reason. But, if you get your information from the liberal media, you would believe the reverse. You would see Wal-Mart as a giant evil preying on the poor.
A recent Sunday Book Review in the San Francisco Chronicle covers an anti-Wal-Mart book by Charles Fishman which draws the headline, “The store that ate the world,” and these comments from the Chron reviewer:
Â…Â…Â….the key factors in a new kind, and extent, of destruction.
These factors cause the various manifestations of the Wal-Mart effect, which is the subject of Fishman's book. The first factor is the company's single operating principle, administered absolutely, without exception: always low prices. It is not only Wal-Mart's slogan but also its one commandment, its ultimate morality, trumping all other considerations.
The second factor is Wal-Mart's unprecedented size. "For most of this decade, Wal-Mart has been both the largest company in the world, and the largest company in the history of the world," Fishman writes. Wal-Mart is America's largest private employer -- as well as the world's. And its stated goal is to be twice its current size by 2010.
But what of the future? Fishman defines a few of Wal-Mart's vulnerabilities: It can't compete on quality or service, or on presentation and the shopping experience (even Target beats it there), or on employee retention and long-term community relations (Costco is far superior on those). Essentially, when it's not competing on price, it can't compete. Still, impoverishing Americans isn't exactly a blueprint for a thriving consumer economy. Perhaps that's why Wal-Mart is increasingly looking to markets overseas.
Mr. Fishman is either a socialist of the highest order, or he has less business knowledge than the ChronÂ’s David Lazarus. LetÂ’s examine the crimes that Mr. FishmanÂ’s blames on Wal-Mart: (a) always striving for low prices to the consumer, and (b) of being too successful in their business. Yes, Mr. Fishman wants us to be indignant at Wal-Mart over the crime of being successful?
Surely there must be a smidgeon of logic somewhere behind all this liberal bluster. The first place to look is at the liberalÂ’s dominance by their union base. Unable to convince the employees of Wal-Mart that they need to unionize, union leaders have turned to their political slaves on the left for help. The result is that the liberals, and the liberal media, dutifully attack the poor manÂ’s shopping friend, Wal-Mart. The unions cannot defeat Wal-Mart within the NLRB rules, so they call in their political cards and send their liberal lackeys out to attack the company.
Secondly, a big part of the liberal base hates corporate America. So, they attack Wal-Mart because they are such a successful American corporation. The libs see Wal-Mart as spreading its business tentacles around the world buying products and selling goods. To the leftist liberals, this is just more American imperialism done in the name of business.
Inspired by the union attack, we read that Wal-Mart pays such low wages that society has to make up the gap by providing basic services at tax-payer expense.
Who is the ultimate judge of the adequacy of the Wal-Mart package? WouldnÂ’t it be the employees themselves? If the existing employees were unhappy wouldnÂ’t they quickly join a union? Apparently that group is happy with the Wal-mart package. As for new employees, more than 11,000 people applied for the 400 positions available at the new Wal-Mart store in Oakland. Presumably, this massive number of applications means that these jobs would represent an improvement over what they now enjoy. These people want these jobs because they see it as a chance to better themselves. Switching to employment by Wal-Mart would obviously reduce any need they have for additional help from the taxpayer, not increase it as the liberals charge.
Now do you see what I mean by “fuzzy liberal logic”? They care about “poor people,” but do not want them to be able to work at Wal-Mart for better wages than they now enjoy, not do they want them to be able to buy low priced goods at the stores.
The development of liberal logic does not include the use of the human thought process. For proof of that, just check out what the San Francisco ChronÂ’s Mark Morford concludes about Wal-Mart in his closing paragraph:
I do not shop at Wal-Mart. I may never, ever shop at Wal-Mart, given their notoriously horrible labor practices and their brutal business tactics and their effortless murder of all love and hope and joy from the retail experience. They are the George Bushes of the retail world -- drunk with power, cheaply made and full of crap. Not to mention that vaguely nauseating feeling, when you walk through their (or almost any) big-box store, that your soul is being slowly coated in rat saliva.
Morford is Chron journalism at its best of the very worst. Or, is it the worst of the worst. Whichever, he is so typical of the vacuity of the liberal thought process.
If one does not like the policies of Wal-Mart, he is perfectly free not to work there, not to shop there, or not to sell them goods for resale. If Wal-Mart is so bad, stay away! Who wants to feel like they are being covered in rat saliva? Besides, one real advantage of shopping at Wal-Mart is that you wonÂ’t run into Mark Morford.
Like I said the noises made by liberals are remarkably consistent. ItÂ’s the lack of logic behind those noises that makes it all so hard to figure.
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=21465&catcode=13
