Wal-Mart is reaching out to gays, and some conservative groups are mad as hell. But then, too, so are some gay "progressives" such as Pride at Work, which puts big labor's agenda (and the Democratic Party's talking points) first in promoting unwarranted attacks on the giant retailer that brings low-priced goods to working Americans.
Scapegoating Wal-Mart.
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39 Comments for “Scapegoating Wal-Mart.”
posted by John Reg on
Are the labor groups really “scapegoating” Walmart when Walmart still does not offer gay employees helath benefits for their registered domestic partners? Most other Fortune 500 companies have already taken this common sense step, but WalMart refuses to treat its gay employees fairly. Labor unions should be applauded for standing up to Walmart for its discriminatory policies. The Pride at Work labor group in particular is doing the right thing by pushing WalMart to add domestic partnership benefits. It’s quite sad that you find such efforts on behalf of equal rights for LGBT Americans to be “unwarranted attacks.” It almost gives the impression that you’re a knee-jerk conservative who will be anti-union even when unions stand up for our community.
posted by J.P. on
Pride at Work would still oppose Wal-Mart because of wage and general benefit issues regardless of DP benefits. Just take a look at their website.
Wal-Mart is reaching out to gays, and if gays respond in good faith it seems likely that progress could be made.
posted by John Reg on
The first comment does not argue against having the gay Chamber of Commerce group take money from, and associate with, WalMart, and maybe J.P. is right that this one labor group would still oppose WalMart on other grounds even if they one day start offering health benefits to the domestic partners of gay employees. BUT that’s besides the point. The first comment intended to call out Mr. Miller for implicitly labeling it an “unwarranted attack” on WalMart when an LGBT labor group very rightfully criticizes a large company for not offering DP health benefits to gay employees. Most troubeling, Mr. Miller did not even bother to mention WalMart’s discriminatory policy, even though it is mentioned in his own link to Pride at Work’s position. Mr. Miller was so eager to slam anything related to a union, that he failed to acknowledge some of the good that unions do. Indeed, the AFL-CIO has strongly supported the Employment NonDiscrimination Act in the U.S. Congress.
posted by dalea on
What should also come up here is the practices Walmart uses to shift employee costs onto the state. The company has been caught in several states consuling employees to work limited hours so as to be eligible for state funded healthcare, food stamps, WIC, housing assistance. There are documented cases of new employees being given applications at orientation and helped to fill them out to get state welfare. Walmart is not a pretty picture from a free market viewpoint. It tends to privitze benefits while socializing costs: ie state capitalism.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
For another example of Pride at Work making gay concerns subordinate to their labor ideology, check out this GLAA letter from six years ago:
http://www.glaa.org/archive/2000/doyle0317.shtml
Their unscrupulousness and dishonesty were astonishing. That year, GLAA at our anniversary reception (our main annual fundraiser, and we are not a rich group) was honoring Frank Kameny’s 75th birthday, and Pride at Work and their allies picketed our event as if we were in bed with the enemy, when in fact the hotel had model pro-gay policies. PaW couldn’t admit this, so they engaged in gross distortion and played on the pro-labor sentiments of D.C. elected officials in an effort to harm GLAA and sabotage our event. Utterly disgraceful.
posted by J.P. on
More on disingenuous Wal-Mart bashing, at: http://www.reason.com/0603/cr.js.the.shtml.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
The most telling quote is the "gay rights liasion" at the AFL-CIO ticking off his long list of demands to the Advocate for "living wage, health care, etc." and then almost as an afterthought saying that gay issues might be important to focus on after all these other things are "taken care of." Hmmmm.
posted by kittynboi on
Well, it is possible to commend Wal-Mart for reaching out to gays while at the same time criticizing them for other areas in which they ae at fault.
Its not an either or situation.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
I agree, kittyn, I simply think that such criticism shouldn’t be done within the purview of “gay rights,” any more than trade union concerns for “equal job for equal pay” should be hijacked to support gay marriage equality.
People who have an interest in the various areas can contribute to the causes directly. The lines shouldn’t be blurred or bent, as that ultimately undermines the cause of gay equality under the law.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
What should also come up here is the practices Walmart uses to shift employee costs onto the state. The company has been caught in several states consuling employees to work limited hours so as to be eligible for state funded healthcare, food stamps, WIC, housing assistance.
Perhaps you would prefer these employees not work at all and be completely dependent on the state. Or perhaps you’d like to retaliate by making the means tests for these programs require that you not have a job. If another company were helping its poor employees maximize their available incomes and protections, dalea, I have a feeling you’d be applauding them. But when it’s Wal-mart, the little blind hatred button in your brain goes off and common sense goes out the window.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Oh, and if you want to see how Democratic and liberal gays will put labor first in everything, here’s a prime example.
However, this should surprise no one…..as I’ve pointed out before, these groups are nothing but union puppets anyway.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Perhaps you would prefer these employees not work at all and be completely dependent on the state.
I’d rather the state have no role either way. . . too bad you guys don’t see it that way.
posted by kittynboi on
Republicans love the state, and by that I don’t mean they’re fans of the 1990’s MTV skit comedy show of thaty name.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Yep, but point out that the “dichotomy” between the two is big government versus even bigger government, and you’re shortly in a world of hurt as both “sides” rush at you to bash you with their handbags. 😉
Needless to say, it’s not a gay debate in the first place, and the fact that it constantly is thrown up as one shows the profound lack of respect that liberals and conservative both have for gays overall. Our liberty is only of peripheral interest to them, and only for as long as they have priorities which they can hitch onto the liberty rhetorical bandwagon to leverage gay political action and turn it into benefits for themselves.
posted by dalea on
Actually, I would like to see companies realize that paying a living wage is the correct path. Henry Ford did so; he payed his workers so they could buy the products he had them make. Made a lot of money that way.
My point was that Walmart consciously uses state subsidies to keep its prices low. It is a prime example of state capitalism. And we should realize this in looking at the firm. This is corporate welfare in full flower.
posted by Bobby on
Kittynboi, republicans love law and order, democrats love the welfare state. Republicans don’t mind spending money in war. Democrats don’t mind sending it to poor countries in Africa and complaining that $30,000,000 for tsunami relief was too little. Republicans don’t mind spending money protecting the border. Democrats want African-Americans to get reparations and state-funded abortions for poor pregnant women.
It’s a question of values. You pick the government you want.
So Northeast is right, we both have our forms of big government, it’s only a question of how you want your money spent. I’ll tell you this, I don’t want world government, higher taxes, welfare, affirmative action, political correctness, hate speech, gun control, so I’m gonna keep voting republican.
IF you disagree, vote democratic. God help us all.
posted by Dr. Ying on
It’s always amusing to see self-professed libertarians defending Wal-Mart, one of the greatest proponents of government subsidized poverty and corporate and agricultural welfare in the business world. Nobody benefits more from government handouts to the poor than the company that appeals to the most low income consumers, which explains why Wal Mart loves and supports the branches of both parties that are willing to steal on behalf of the poor. And lets not forget that Wal Mart is reported to have received over one billion dollars of YOUR money in the form of state and local subsidies in the last 20+ years.
Many of you ‘libertarians’ get so worked up about the regional-government liberals who don’t want Wal Mart in their communities that you find yourself batting for the very forces of big government that you claim to oppose.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
I’m not “defending WalMart” by dissecting and dispatching with leftist big-government gobbledygook which cynically manipulates the legitimate gay rights struggle in order to implement a socialist agenda.
I’m opposed to the programs which WalMart uses to avoid paying people — things like Medicare and welfare without end. Leftists like yourself (and quite a few conservatives) support those programs, which are what allow WalMart to abuse them. Who is “in favor of WalMart” now?
Many of you ‘libertarians’ get so worked up about the regional-government liberals who don’t want Wal Mart in their communities
Regional-government busybodies who abuse their positions to ban the presence of “undesirables” — be they blacks, or Jews, or gays, or single mothers, or WalMart stores — are always unAmerican and should be opposed out of general principle, no matter how compelling their condemnations of those whose rights they seek to violate.
Violating basic freedom to conduct commerce or reside in a particular area isn’t “liberal” in the slightest.
posted by kittynboi on
Once again, Bobby, you show yourself to be the stupidest person here.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Actually, I would like to see companies realize that paying a living wage is the correct path. Henry Ford did so; he payed his workers so they could buy the products he had them make. Made a lot of money that way.
Or he could have lowered the price of his products, which would have benefited everyone, not just his workers.
That’s what Wal-Mart is actually doing.
Consider it this way, Dalea; if you cut off Wal-Mart, you force them to employ less people and raise their prices — which means you will have to provide more welfare to individuals to help cover unemployment and increased cost of goods.
Or you can continue to subsidize a company that provides jobs and training to more people and results in lower prices of goods for everyone.
In short, it’s whether you want to write people a check because they’re not working or support a company that is putting them to work.
posted by etjb on
It is a good think if a large company such as Walmart is serious about gay outreach, but let us not give Walmart a pass to do whatever they may want to do…
posted by Tim Hulsey on
Well, obviously Wal-Mart isn’t going to get any love from Gay people over its new policies. No wonder, since movement Gays and Lesbians usually live in urban areas, where Wal-Mart stores cannot be found. And hey, GLBT people should know better than anyone that it’s easy to demonize what you can’t see!
BTW, that bit about how Wal-Mart encourages all its workers to go on welfare? It’s an urban legend, as most of you might already have guessed … if we weren’t talking about Wal-Mart! (Still, I know this guy who knows this girl whose boyfriend told her ….)
Robert Greenwald promoted this and many other fallacies in his anti Wal-Mart documentary The High Cost of Low Prices. He should have kept making Olivia Newton-John musicals instead.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Suppose WalMart really *does* do mean things to employees from time to time, such as overworking them and underpaying them.
Howard Dean fired the head of the gay outreach office at the DNC because his partner wrote a letter to a small cadre of gay activists expressing concern over the DNC’s anti-gay direction. Would DNC activists accept an argument that under no circumstances should gays ever ally themselves with the DNC or provide it with endorsements?
Of course they wouldn’t — they’ll fly off the handle instead about “realism” and other cliches.
If it’s OK for liberal gay people to affiliate with a homophobic organization like the Democratic Party — without accepting any criticism at all — then it should be more than acceptable for gay organizations like the NGLCC to affiliate with WalMart, which is rather convincingly more pro-gay than the DNC.
It’s sorta ironic to watch shrieking socialists descend on “the gays” and demand we come to heel when their principal political organization has reaped so much political benefit from anti-gay laws and campaigns. I, for one, am sick of the hypocrisy. Physician, heal thyself.
posted by Randy R. on
I don’t have any comment about Walmart and their gay policies, but I am really struck dumb at how people think Walmart is some perfect entity that is above criticism. Sure, they lower prices, but at what cost? Because of their relentless pressure to reduce costs, many companies have been forced to eliminate jobs in the US and shift them overseas. Example: Etch-a-sketch was made in a small Ohio since the 1950s when it was invented. Because Walmart insisted that the toy will not be sold for more than $19.99, meaning that they would buy it at about half that price, the company could no longer afford to pay its employees a decent wage and so on. So they closed the factory and outsourced the job to China.
Nothing really wrong about that, but the unemployed in Ohio, the loss of tax revenue from these workers and the loss of their spending is a direct hit on the Ohion economy.
More, Walmart has forced thousands of small businesses out of business. In doing so, Walmart wiped out billions of dollars in equity build by theses mom and pop stores over decades. Whenever economists praise the value that Walmart has added to the US economy, they NEVER include the loss of this capital. Why not?
No, this is really neither good nor bad for the US economy (unless, of course, you used to work for Etch-a-Sketch, or you used to own a hardware store in a small town) , but it is a change in America.
posted by Tim Hulsey on
Actually, Robert, all the things you’ve described are good for the US economy in the long run, if we allow the market to adapt to these changing conditions.
First of all, you seem to think that unemployed factory workers stay unemployed forever. That’s not the case, even in Ohio. When workers lose their old jobs, they find new ones. And the closure of old factories creates a potential space for new industries (including smaller, high-growth industries) to move in. Some years back, John Stossel documented how this process worked in Zanesville.
And those mom-and-pop businesses? Well, Wal-Mart didn’t wipe out their equity. The business owners sold their stuff and called it quits. Thus the capital changed form, from goods to money — and in many cases changed form once again, becoming a cushy Florida condo.
Wal-Mart has wrought a real change on America: It is now possible for the rural poor to buy non-essential goods and services. Others benefit as well, because Wal-Mart saves the average household $2300 per year. In addition, a job at Wal-Mart offers opportunities for advancement, which the old mom-and-pop stores didn’t offer (Sam Walton started Wal-Mart because he couldn’t advance in the ranks at a mom-and-pop business where leadership was inherited). And in many small Southern towns, Wal-Mart is just about the only place where White and Black people come together. These are good things, so let’s hope those anti Wal-Mart reactionaries don’t turn back the clock.
posted by Tim Hulsey on
Apologies for getting your name wrong, Randy.
posted by kittynboi on
Why has no one mentioned that aside from video games, the content and popularity of which wal mart has no control over, they only sell crap?
posted by J.P. on
kittnboi demonstrates why there is still hope for the GOP — the Demonrats hatred of average Americans. Wal-Mart sells basic goods at great prices for middle and working class Americans, which clearly deepliy offends kittynboi’s delicate and refined sensibilities.
posted by Randy R. on
Tim, thanks for the comments. However, the balance between Walmart and independants isn’t as even as you suggest. If unemployment remains high, those people either won’t find jobs, or will find jobs at lower wages. It’s simple supply and demand — too many out of work workers means low wages. Spread that accross the nation, and that’s why you have recent reports showing that wages for Americans have remained stagnant during the last decade, while corporate profits and income for the wealthy have sky-rockted.
Moreover, when you go out of business, you file for bankrupsty, and your equity is wiped out. Gone. Vanished.
For instance, a hardware store in a small town might be worth, based on it’s record of profitability, the lease or real estate it owns, and the ‘goodwill’ that accountants value, a store might be worth $1 million dollars. So if the owner wished to sell at this time, he would turn over everthing and get $1 million in cash.
Enter Walmart, and they drive the hardware store out of business. That store becomes empty and boarded up, and therefore worth nothing. Goodwill simply vanishes, and there are no profits. That $1 million dollars in total value is gone. Then, the taxes that he paid are no longer being paid, and so the town loses that as well.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
the unemployed in Ohio, the loss of tax revenue from these workers and the loss of their spending is a direct hit on the Ohion economy.
And Ohio’s response to this? Passing anti-gay laws to ensure that the new businesses which would provide employment growth never settle there to begin with.
Not much sympathy here, sorry.
posted by kittynboi on
“”Wal-Mart sells basic goods at great prices for middle and working class Americans, which clearly deepliy offends kittynboi’s delicate and refined sensibilities.
“”
Well I was certainly offended by the futon I bought from there that broke within a week of buying it.
also, using the word demon is iffy since it implies you might believe in a god.
Walmart sells substandard trash, most of which breaks the moment you use it. The cost of low prices is more than apparent when even the simplest things purchased there can’t be used more than a few times without falling apart.
posted by dalea on
Went looking and found that there are lots of academic studies on WalMart’s effects. Most tend toward finding negative results outweighing the positive. Most are econometric studies.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11782.html
We estimate the effects of Wal-Mart stores on county-level employment and earnings, accounting for endogeneity of the location and timing of Wal-Mart openings that most likely biases the evidence against finding adverse effects of Wal-Mart stores. We address the endogeneity problem using a natural instrumental variable that arises from the geographic and time pattern of the opening of Wal-Mart stores, which slowly spread out from the first stores in Arkansas. In the retail sector, on average, Wal-Mart stores reduce employment by two to four percent. There is some evidence that payrolls per worker also decline, by about 3.5 percent, but this conclusion is less robust. Either way, though, retail earnings fall. Overall, there is some evidence that Wal-Mart stores increase total employment on the order of two percent, although not all of the evidence supports this conclusion. There is stronger evidence that total payrolls per person decline, by about five percent in the aggregate, implying that residents of local labor markets earn less following the opening of Wal-Mart stores. And in the South, where Wal-Mart stores are most prevalent and have been open the longest, the evidence indicates that Wal-Mart reduces retail employment, total employment, and total payrolls per person.
http://cecd.aers.psu.edu/pubs/PovertyResearchWM.pdf#search=%22walmart%20economic%20effects%22
The researchers find that WalMart results usually in an increase in poverty, a decline in economic prospects as well as a destruction of local entrepreneur activity.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/ib223
Dube (2005) and Neumark (2005), in papers reviewed in Wrestling With Wal-Mart, present strong evidence that Wal-Mart’s expansion has driven down earnings for workers not just in competing retailers, but across stores throughout the region of Wal-Mart expansion.
There is another point to be raised here about the implicit horse-race between prices and wages that underlines the Wal-Mart debate. Essentially, the defenders of Wal-Mart argue that the price-depressing effects of Wal-Mart outrun the wage-depressing effect, leading to rising purchasing power for American workers. However, the prices that are reduced through Wal-Mart’s expansion constitute an ever-shrinking share of American families’ expenditures.
Wal-Mart essentially gives people the ability to buy food, apparel, household goods, and furniture at reduced prices. As seen in Figure A, the share of expenditure in each of these categories has shrunk over time. By contrast, the expenditure shares on health care, housing, and transportation for families have gone up over time. These cannot be bought at Wal-Mart, yet they constitute an ever-growing share of American household expenditures. In short, the benefits from the same price effect in Wal-Mart’s product areas are shrinking over time. The real pressures on family income are coming from items that can’t be bought at Wal-Mart. These products and services can, however, be bought with higher wages.,
http://www.newrules.org/retail/walmartstudies.html
WAL-MART AND BIG BOX RETAIL ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDIES
Download a PDF version of this page
Below are summaries and links to key studies that examine the impact of Wal-Mart and other large retail chains and, in some cases, the benefits of locally owned businesses. For ease of use, we’ve organized these studies into the following categories (though they do not all fit neatly into one category):
* Economic Impact of Local Businesses vs. Chains
Studies have found that locally owned stores generate much greater benefits for the local economy than national chains.
* Retail Employment
These studies examine whether the arrival of a superstore increases or decreases the number of retail jobs in the region.
* Wages & Benefits
Studies have found that big-box retailers, particularly Wal-Mart, are depressing wages and benefits for retail employees.
* Existing Businesses
These studies look at how the arrival of a big-box retailer displaces sales at existing businesses, which must then downsize or close. This results in job losses and declining tax revenue, which some of these studies quantify.
* Poverty Rates
Counties that have gained Wal-Mart stores have fared worse in terms of family poverty rates, according to this study.
* City Costs
These studies compare the municipal tax benefits of big-box development with the cost of providing these stores with city services, such as road maintenance, police and fire?finding that cities do not always come out ahead.
* State Costs
Because many of their employees do not earn enough to make ends meet, states are reporting high costs associated with providing healthcare (Medicaid) and other public assistance to big-box employees.
* Subsidies
This study documents more than $1 billion in local and state development subsidies that have flowed to Wal-Mart.
* Consumers & Prices
Are chains better for consumers?
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Walmart sells substandard trash, most of which breaks the moment you use it. The cost of low prices is more than apparent when even the simplest things purchased there can’t be used more than a few times without falling apart.
Which means, if consistent, they’ll be out of business. Companies which sell nothing but “substandard trash” go broke — see General Motors.
the expenditure shares on health care, housing, and transportation for families have gone up over time. These cannot be bought at Wal-Mart, yet they constitute an ever-growing share of American household expenditures
What a funny clip from a long and confused post. So WalMart is supposed to take responsibility for the fact that politicians are taxing the piss out of fuels (sending the prices up), cars (sending the prices up), hiking public transit fares (sending the fares up), raising property taxes (sending housing costs up), and making housing far more expensive by imposing all sorts of zoning laws and occupancy laws?
It’s so typical for the left to make life more expensive and then attack WalMart for making life cheaper in only one area — and demand that it make life cheaper in the areas where leftist policies have sent prices soaring the last 50 years!
posted by dalea on
Proof of this assertion: ‘It’s so typical for the left to make life more expensive and then attack WalMart for making life cheaper in only one area — and demand that it make life cheaper in the areas where leftist policies have sent prices soaring the last 50 years!’? As far as I can tell, the government provides enormous subsidies for fuels, for cars, for property taxes (deductibility for homeowners), and so forth. On zoning and occupancy, my understanding is that this is a negligiable effect.
These are academic studies conducted by economists and marketers. They use standard economic models, which are very much like the ones libertarians use, to reach their conclusions. And they conclude that by and large WalMart is not an unalloyed benefit. That WalMart is the recipient of endless taxpayer funded subsidies. That WalMart results in fewer jobs and lower wages for most people. In other words, WalMart is an agency of impovritization in human events. Not an agent of improving life circumstances. Plus note, the idea that WalMart consistently and in the long run offers lower prices can not be proven.
So why and how are the researchers that did these studies automatically part of the ‘left’? Or is that simply something you throw out at anyone who disagrees with your narrow recitation of what you call a libertarian catechism?
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
These are academic studies conducted by economists and marketers.
The appeal to authority fallacy is a well-employed one in the annals of political debate, but remains an a logical fallacy.
As far as I can tell, the government provides enormous subsidies for fuels, for cars, for property taxes (deductibility for homeowners), and so forth.
You obviously haven’t looked too deeply into the situation then.
First of all, the “government” subsidizes nothing. You and I, through paying taxes, subsidize things. Do we subsidize ourselves? Hardly.
Secondly, when the government taxes us to then “subsidize” us, they take a major portion of the money taxed to pay for new bureaucrats and new buildings. So we’re already getting pennies on the dollar for our involuntary “investment.”
Thirdly, you surely jest when you insist “government subsidizes cars.” Not only does it not do so, but the various levels of government tax cars repeatedly (increasing their end price by about 33% on average) and they also tax fuel. You pay taxes to allow your car to be legally operated.
Cars, of course, aren’t the only form of transportation. The government operates public transit networks which are also seeing their costs go up — often dramatically — every year, thanks to government decisions to hike fares to pay for administration and other bloated bureaucracy. That comes out of both fare-payers (whose transport costs go up) and also taxpayers who pay subsidies for the transit lines.
And all of this is somehow something which Wal-Mart (or anybody else) should be responsible for? Seems rather laughable to me.
WalMart is the recipient of endless taxpayer funded subsidies.
Oh, virtually every major corporation in this country today receives large subsidies from the federal teat. We Libertarians call it “corporate welfare,” and we’ve been trying to end it for years and years while Republicrat “economists and marketers” are shelling it out to Boeing, Airbus, Chrysler, Halliburton, Wal-Mart, etc. to “create jobs.”
Wal-Mart receiving subsidies is not unique, and again, who is ultimately responsible for the programs which allow them to receive those payouts, along with the vast majority of the Fortune 1,000? Government.
WalMart results in fewer jobs and lower wages for most people
A couple of liberal Democrats initiating “studies” which prove their foregone conclusions is not evidence of much of anything. Every non-partisan study I’ve seen on the subject indicates that Wal-Mart’s average hourly wage is within the median of what’s paid in mass-market retail — and is often higher than what is paid at some of their competitors.
Where are the studies screaming at Crate and Barrell, or World Market?
WalMart is an agency of impovritization in human events. Not an agent of improving life circumstances.
Wal-Mart is an agent of profit for its shareholders (and generation of cash to pay its creditors). Its job is not to enrich your or my life. However, it is successful because it enriches the lives of many people by providing a range of things, from computers to food to televisions, which were once inaccessible to the working class.
Leftists have a bizarre expectation that an accusation that “this firm isn’t enriching my life and the lives of my constituents in the way we demand” isn’t exactly a compelling argument. Nobody owes anybody anything — Wal-Mart doesn’t owe you a job paying $100,000 a year stacking boxes. If you don’t like it, start a competing business offering all the unsustainable wages and benefits which you demand that Wal-Mart (but not its competitors) offer to part-time employees who are, for the most part, staying in their jobs rather than seeking “better” ones in one of the hottest job markets in years.
why and how are the researchers that did these studies automatically part of the ‘left’?
It’s obvious to those of us who aren’t on the left. The expectation that businesses exist to “enrich the life of the community” is a classic leftist communitarian fallacy.
The way Wal-Mart, or any other business, enriches my life is either by providing me a superior experience as a customer, or keeping prices low, or inducing competition in the marketplace. By earning a profit, they enrich my life by ensuring reinvestment and opportunities for small businesses (including many gay owned small businesses helped by the NGLCC initiative) to sell their products to a national audience.
If you don’t like Wal-Mart, don’t shop there. Criticize them. Convince me and others that they’re not worthy of our patronage. But don’t try to use government coercion to force Wal-Mart to heel with a bunch of your phpney “studies.” That’s just plain not American.
posted by kittynboi on
“”””If you don’t like Wal-Mart, don’t shop there””””
I don’t.
posted by etjb on
“Gays and Lesbians usually live in urban areas, where Wal-Mart stores cannot be found.”
No, gay and lesbians live in urban, rural and suburbian areas. Yes, some gays may be more ‘out’ in certain urban settings.
Also, their are certain Wal Marts in urban cities.
It is funny to see gay conservatives rush to defend Wal Mart against ‘demonization’ while at the same time rushing to demonize anyone that does not wear a button on their t-shirt that says, “I take it up the ass for Wall Mart.”
I see this again and again on this message board; worship the president or you hate America. Worship big business or you hate America and are a Communist.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Actually, it’s the left who are abusing the gay rights cause to push socialism. People on the right, in the center, and in the upper quadrant are all pointing out that our gay movement shouldn’t be dressed up in a red beret and combat fatigues.
Criticize Wal-Mart all you want, but don’t dare demand (as you do) that those of us who disagree should shut up. And especially don’t dare to hijack the gay movement to push your self-serving brand of paternalistic politics, and then pathetically whine about it when called out on such a dishonest tactic.
posted by Bobby on
“Once again, Bobby, you show yourself to be the stupidest person here.”
—What’s the matter, kittynboi? You couldn’t find something more intelligent to say? You can’t even debate my points? Can’t prove me wrong?
So I guess you had a bad experience with a futon and now you hate Wallmart. Gee, I bought a tiny digital camera at Target that didn’t work with my apple computer, maybe I should hate Target. Fortunately, I like to use my sense of logic, you should try it.
It’s all supply and demand, you hateful thing. When I go to Banana Republic, a nice jacket can cost $150 to $300. When I go to Wall-Mart or Target, I can get the same for less than $100.
The whole point of shopping is to help yourself, not the community. If you want to shop at Burdines and pay outrageous prices for pretty clothes, fine, go ahead and maxed out your credit cards. The rest of us will shop smarter, at Target, Wall-Mart, local cheap stores, AJ-Wright, etc.
Northeast is completely right, we don’t need your paternalism! And by the way, the only thing that keeps me from shopping at Wall-Mart is the long lines. That’s something small stores rarely have to deal with. So we don’t need the government to regulate what the market takes care of naturally.