”
There is an appointed time for everything … A time for war,
and a time for peace.
”
The Bible, Book of Ecclesiastes 3:1a
&
amp; 8b.
I realize I’m stretching it to analogize the Super Wal-Mart
issue to matters of war and peace, but using journalistic license,
I will anyway.
“There is an appointed time for everything … A time for war, and a time for peace.” The Bible, Book of Ecclesiastes 3:1a & 8b.
I realize I’m stretching it to analogize the Super Wal-Mart issue to matters of war and peace, but using journalistic license, I will anyway.
The “Battle of Super Wal-Mart” fought over months in our community now appears to be over, with last week’s City Council 5-2 vote to approve the store in Gilroy. Now the question is, will there be a time of local “peace” on this issue?
While Gilroy was fortunate that there were apparently no violent physical clashes between the anti-Super Wal-Mart forces and the pro-Super Wal-Mart people, tensions did run high last year when Roger Rivera and his “union raiders” bussed in hundreds of union pickets from San Jose with loudspeakers and “Wal-Mart Sucks” signs, and in the process, took over the entrance of Gilroy’s Wal-Mart for a short period of time.
Now with the Council’s approval of Super Wal-Mart, will the losers of this local “war” disperse to their homes (for the non-Gilroy resident-losers, please leave quickly …) and will the Gilroy resident-losers become sore losers refusing to pursue community peace? I can only hope that our local losers will move on to more productive issues, like saving mountain lions or working to fix Gilroy’s downtown dilapidation dilemma.
So in the defeat of battle, to the local “soldiers” of the “I hate Super Wal-Mart” campaign, I offer my insincere condolences and the following thoughts:
• For Councilman Paul Correa: it’s time to again examine your calling to be a park ranger instead of a city councilman (Dispatch article Feb. 27). You say “prostitute the community” to Wal-Mart? Honestly Paul, why do you want to keep setting yourself up to get beat-on in The Dispatch by conservative letter writers and funny right-wing columnists like myself? You just make it more fun for us with silly comments like that.
• For Councilman Charlie Morales: as a champion of poor- and low-income families here in Gilroy, I would have thought Charlie, that you would have been for a Super Wal-Mart all along, so that these poor- and low-income families (the consumers) could benefit from the vast array of low prices a Super Wal-Mart offers. But no, your vote again shows that you really don’t want to help the thousands of poor and low-income families in the area. You’d rather submit to the interests of a few hundred union members and their leadership. That’s political hypocrisy at its worst.
• For Dennis Taylor, our local liberal columnist who gets his associations mixed up: (e.g. “Wal-Mart, known to me as the store where the bullets that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold used to massacre 14 kids and a teacher at Columbine High School were purchased” column 9/24) maybe Taylor will finally get his facts straight and realize that it was K-Mart and not Wal-Mart where that bullet buying activity took place. And by the way Dennis, thanks for being the award-winning journalistic giant that you are by never writing a correction to your above quoted error blaming Wal-Mart. But just to make sure he doesn’t get confused again, I suggest Wal-Mart post pictures of Taylor in their lobby, and if he enters the store, then a greeter can sound an alarm blaring “keep out Dennis, keep out …”
• For Connie Rogers, grand-dame of Gilroy’s Democrat liberals, and who acts like she should still be on the Council: go take your assemblage of left-wing disciples like Chris Coté, Natasha Wist, Rose Barry, Guadalupe Arellano and her brother Peter, and go on a cruise for a few months. The fresh sea air will do you all good. And as a bonus, you’ll have added opportunity to picket all the Wal-Marts at each port of call. While you’re at it, take Paul Correa and Charlie Morales with you. Actually, make that cruise a few years long.
• For Pam Robasciotti the local “poor me, I’m a Wal-Mart victim”: life goes on Pam, so now go write the memoirs of your six woeful years as a Wal-Mart employee, and let everybody elsewhere read about your gripes and complaints of unfair treatment, late hours, cleaning up water leaks, etc. ad nausea. But I’ll tell you right now, you can write what you will, but it still won’t make any bestseller book list, especially on Wal-Mart’s shelves.
• For Roger Rivera, union boss: hopefully Roger, this vote will give you a reason to stop wasting your time in Gilroy, so take your union raiders and go bother some other northern California communities.
• For Bruce Morasca: it’s now time Bruce to go and sign-up for a college course in practical prognostication and statistical guessing, since as the spokesman for the anti-Wal-Mart group, you missed the boat by a mile with your “We’re going to get 1,000 signatures, but I think we can do that real easily,” and “”I think 2,300 signatures is a possibility …” (Dispatch article Mar. 2). Me thinks your days as spokesman are over.
James Fennell was in corporate management for over 25 years, and now is a local realtor. He and his wife have lived in Gilroy for three years. He can be reached at je*******@*****ch.com. His column is published each Tuesday.
