Deliver Us from Wal-Mart?

[The Straight Story]

Deliver Us from Wal-Mart?
Christians are among those sounding the alarm about the ethics of this retail giant. Are the worries justified?
by Jeff M. Sellers | posted 04/22/2005 09:30 a.m.

The cavernous hallway outside Chicago City Council chambers is echoing with the sound of 150 people chanting, "We're fed up, we won't take it no mo'!"

The lady with the megaphone is leading a mix of union workers and community reform activists shouting slogans against the world's largest retailer. One of the protesters, Ella Hereth of the advocacy group Jobs with Justice, tells CT that Wal-Mart is the "poster boy for corporate exploitation."

She ticks off the complaints: low pay, scant benefits, race and sex discrimination, and profiting from mistreated workers in foreign "sweatshops." Before the Chicago City Council votes to block one store but allow another, aldermen label Wal-Mart "the worst company in America" and an "evildoer."

As it has grown into a powerhouse with sales of $256.3 billion—more than the sales of Microsoft and retail competitors Home Depot, Kroger, Target, and Costco combined—Wal-Mart has become a lightning rod nationwide in local tempests of moral outrage. Church leaders (primarily mainline, liberal, and Roman Catholic) have joined grassroots activists fearful that mindless global market factors will steamroll human dignity.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/005/17.40.html

[lakeguy]

1. man i HATE walmart...

going to send some of my relatives who shop there a book all about the sins of walmart this week!

[NMMNG]

2. I've had it with Wallymart

They treat their employees like dung
They won't sell the morning after pill because it "kills" (and individual pharmacists can refuse to dispense birth control pills) but guns and bullets are a-ok
They censor the music and videos they sell, as if their customers are too stupid to be able to make informed decisions as to what they want to buy


They don't get my business.

[beam me up scottie]

3. You nailed it when you said

"their customers are too stupid to be able to make informed decisions as to what they want to buy"

Stoopid customers are why walmart is so successful.

[universalcitizen]

5. yes, just like stupid citizens get stupid presidents. Men like their

cheap trinkets that come at the expense of their slaves or their cheap resources that come from their imperialistic rape of other countries, so their willing agents, the Walmarts and Bushes, that provide for them. Be not deceived, a man reaps what he sows.

[beam me up scottie]

6. I agree.

I have been unable to find a coop where I live but I do buy my produce from the Amish.

[T_i_B]

4. There are a LOT of Churches promoting fair trade at the moment.

My own church included.