I'm not looking to...............

[Bennojd]

push any political agendas.

That's not what this forum is about.
That's not what I'm about.

However, when I saw a post in the "All Sports Discussion" forum that someone just bought their new "Madden 2005" at Wal-Mart; I had to respond.

Shop where you want; it's a free country.
But please know that there are reasons why Wal-Mart can sell products so cheaply and isn't that why most people shop there?

The reasons aren't all good when it comes down to the way Wal-Mart treats its workers, neighborhoods, competitors, and suppliers.

Decide for yourself:
When you click on the link below: it will obviously take you to another website. When at this website, I recommend that you scroll from top to bottom; there's a wealth of information about Wal-Mart contained within!
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/11...39_comment.php
Sorry guys (and gals) but the link above has changed and it is no longer the web page that I intended for you to see.

Sincerely,
Bennojd

[FastBreak]

Bennojd...

Ben,

Thanks for the information.
i cannot believe people actually shop there.
Seems to be the same people who
go to dog tracks.

FB:tongue:

[MemphisMafia]

<> <>

Careful , your class is showing again !

G.L.

[bgh2003]

Thanks for the link, Benno. I enjoyed the read.

Madden 2005 is 45.96 at my local Wal-Mart, which is 4 bucks cheaper than I can get it for at the local Electronics Boutique. I'd rather spend my money elsewhere, if only to avoid making those Walton brats any richer than they already are.

[RJeremy]

Hey,

not sticking up for Wal-Mart at all here, but those people that are "treated so badly" chose to work there. There's hundreds of other jobs out there that will pay you minimum wage.

[SweetLou]

But most of them are mindless drones that dont know anybetter, if they only knew how to put together a nice 4 team parlay.... wal-mart is EVIL

[Bennojd]

Current events:

Giant Slayer
Albert Norman has made a minicareer out of blocking Wal-Mart.

By Elizabeth MacDonald (Forbes.com)
It's like a tent revival meeting. As mosquitoes buzz by in the summer heat, 120 townspeople nod "Yeses" and "Amens" from their beach chairs amid the peas and string beans at Hudak Farm in Swanton, Vt."The Raging Grannies," a troupe of older women wearing crocheted shawls, takes to the microphone to belt out anti-Wal-Mart ditties, one to the tune of "Clementine."

Found our Main Street,
Found our Main Street,
Boarded up and gone to hell,
All the townsfolk shop at Wal-Mart,
Now we've got no local stores.

Then Albert Norman, a 57-year-old visitor from Massachusetts, seizes the microphone and exhorts the attendees to either stop the megachain's plans to build a store of 147,500 square feet right next door in St. Albans Town, twice the retail space of its entire downtown, or get Wal-Mart to cut the building down to size. The new store would sit a half-mile from the farm, across the street from a rusty drive-in movie theater in a bucolic state where not even the capital city has a McDonald's or a Starbucks.

"Don't make St. Albans look like the New Jersey Turnpike," Norman rants as three red roosters stroll by. "Don't turn the Green Mountain State into the Black Asphalt State."

After noting that another Wal-Mart sits 20 miles away (it's actually 35 miles), Norman pressures the attendees to write letters to the editors of newspapers, start petitions and make appeals to their zoning board. "Wal-Mart is the end of competition in St. Albans. When you wind up with a Microsoft or Enron, you end up with no free market," he raves. "You have the power to cut Wal-Mart down to size."

This business of fighting businesses is more than a grassroots movement. For Norman, whose day job is running Mass Home Care, a nonprofit network in Burlington, Mass. that helps senior citizens remain in their homes, the anti-Wal-Mart crusade is a business. He gets up to $3,000 for his speeches, which he delivers 36 times a year, money paid by merchants, concerned townspeople and unions. He has plenty of allies, including the United Food & Commercial Workers union, frightened competitors from small retailers to big chains and environmental groups. Norman gets results. He says in the last decade he has helped towns from Charlevoix, Mich. to Hood River, Ore. to Eureka, Calif. beat back 180 Wal-Marts (and 70 other big-box stores).

Now Norman is taking his consulting work abroad. He has so far confronted Wal-Mart in Ireland and Barbados.

In Swanton, the Bentonville, Ark. megachain has a serious battle on its hands. In an unusual move, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has included the entire state of Vermont on its 2004 annual list of America's most endangered historic places. Paul Bruhn, executive director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont, says while he supports smaller Wal-Mart stores, the four existing Wal-Marts in the state were enough to threaten Vermont's picturesque villages and bucolic way of life.

Wal-Mart, Norman says, encourages sprawl, drives neighborhood stores into bankruptcy and "blands down" America by morphing towns once known for their regional élan into miles of windowless, concrete walls and parking lots. He quails: "America has been invaded by Wal-Martians, they have successfully colonized the United States and planted their flag in ten other nations."

The bigger the target, the more the lawsuits. No surprise that Wal-Mart has 5,000 lawsuits of one sort or another pending against it, many of which are in-store accident claims. Another could be the largest class action in history, filed on behalf of six women workers, in a class that could grow to 1.6 million women employees. The suit charges the chain with sexual discrimination. Wal-Mart says the suit is without merit and that it does not represent the experience most women have when they work there.

[BettorsChat]

Wal-Mart is extremely nasty when it comes to its lawsuits too. I've been saying it for a long time around here that Wal-Mart will run out all of the grocery stores then there is no competition against them so they can do what they want.

[james1961]

Nobody puts a gun to your head to shop there you know.

[BettorsChat]

Originally posted by james1961
Nobody puts a gun to your head to shop there you know.

Yeah, I know but there prices are so much better its hard not too.