As we approach the closing days of 2003, one topic this past
year that has been at the top of the discussion list among The
Dispatch columnists and letter writers has been Wal-Mart and its
planned expansion in Gilroy into a super size store.
As we approach the closing days of 2003, one topic this past year that has been at the top of the discussion list among The Dispatch columnists and letter writers has been Wal-Mart and its planned expansion in Gilroy into a super size store. With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to analyze some of the more “off the cuff” comments made over the past months about Wal-Mart – comments that show just how emotional this whole thing has become, and in the process, have lost a degree of rationality.
For example:
• “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 …” – Dennis Taylor, column 9/24. Well Dennis, using your kind of reasoning, did it ever cross your mind that the cops who rushed to the scene to defend the Columbine students might have bought their bullets there, too? Why I can even imagine that some products purchased at Sears or SportsMart have been used by some people to kill other people as well. So what’s your point?
• “Let Wal-Mart build its cavernous flea market, suck the life out of home-grown retailers, and ship the profits back to Arkansas and the New York investment banks …” – Dennis Taylor, column 11/5. So, Dennis, why doesn’t the logic of your statement apply to Safeway or Nob Hill as well? After all, couldn’t these two stores be “sucking” the life out of smaller neighboring places like Kachy Produce and the Grocery Outlet, since they [Safeway/Nob Hill] also ship their profits back to their investment banks? If the shoe fits Wal-Mart, why not the others?
• “What Wal-Mart should do is provide good jobs with living wages and affordable health benefits, so we the taxpayers don’t have the burden of paying for their medical and living expenses through state and county assistance programs.” – Ernie Gonzalez, letter 2/14. Ernie, are you saying that Wal-Mart only employs people that otherwise would need taxpayer support? Isn’t that a rather degrading assumption on your part?
• “Wal-Mart’s low prices (and great profits) are based on their mistreatment of people just like me. Wal-Mart is a bottom feeder.” – Pam Robasciotti, letter 10/30. Well Pam, if Wal-Mart is in fact a “bottom feeder”, then does that make everybody who shops there on the same level as a sucker fish, or does it mean that you would consider Wal-Mart’s employees no better than sucker fish? By-the-way, who forced you to be employed there?
• “I also highly recommend not letting this monster into our community … it may cause mass destruction. … in reality Wal-Mart is a master of evil … Help save our beautiful town.” – Carol Mancera, letter 2/25. Carol, if an absence of Wal-Mart the “monster” will save our “beautiful town,” why not include Costco, Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Target as “monsters” that our town needs saving from as well? Aren’t these corporate monsters just as “evil?”
• “I have challenged Wal-Mart to let its employees vote on union representation without the kind of pressure and intimidation that has made it the most sued company in American history.” – Roger Rivera, letter 11/3. Speaking of “pressure and intimidation” Roger, isn’t it true that last spring, your organization 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? Do you deny that your group harassed and intimidated shoppers and Wal-Mart employees alike? So who’s calling the kettle black?
• “Did everyone get their Wal-Mart mailer? I fully expect that unions will mail out campaign literature supporting certain causes and candidates. But retail stores?” – Denise Apuzzo, column 10/30. Well Denise, why not retail stores? After all, doesn’t a corporation have the same legal rights of freedom of speech as any individual has, since a corporation is recognized as a legal person? Aren’t you discriminating against their constitutional rights?
• “There just doesn’t seem to be any need at all for a Super Wal-Mart whose part-time, non-benefited employees we will need to subsidize with low-income housing, food stamps, Medi-Cal and more.” – Connie Rogers, letter 10/31. In other words Connie, if there’s no Super Wal-Mart, then there won’t be any jobs for these part-time, non-benefited employees, who have chosen to work there on their own free will, and were under no pressure from Wal-Mart to enter the store, fill-out an employment application, and then not say “no” when they were offered those miserable jobs. Therefore, paying 100 percent subsidies for no Wal-Mart employees will be better for the taxpayers than paying10 percent subsidies for some employees? That just doesn’t seem to compute.
In conclusion, “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” So said William James many years ago.
But maybe that’s what “opinion” is all about – rearranged prejudice.
