Ask ABC to Drop Walmart as sponsor of "Only in America"

[sarahlee]

Please join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) in asking ABC News President David Westin to drop Wal-Mart immediately as a sponsor of Good Morning America's "Only in America" series.

This series purports to cover people who have contributed to the welfare of this country.

Wal-Mart, in glaring contrast, is responsible for sending more jobs overseas than any other American corporation. Wal-Mart systematically drives down wages in our economy, exploits the work of immigrants, discriminates against women, violates child labor laws, breaks up small businesses and their communities, and denies workers their legal right to organize.

Wal-Mart's practices and the policies it supports divide the world's workers against each other and drive working conditions down in wealthier countries rather than lifting them up in poorer ones. While workers are exploited, heirs to the mushrooming Wal-Mart fortune pour their money into manufacturing a "movement" against public education and for vouchers. Wal-Mart gives the phrase "only in America" a bad name.

Please take 60 seconds to do something about it.

Tell ABC News what you think:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/abcnews

Read the UFCW's press release:
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=44719

[pstans]

1. Done

Thanks, I haven't shopped at Wal Mart for 6 months and I don't plan on shopping at Wal Mart ever.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

2. what's the 'only in maerica" series about?

just wondering

[sarahlee]

4. Actually. . .

I am not sure... am seldom up early enough to watch a morning show, and when I am, I am generally turned in to CSpan or Air America radio...

Here is the website link:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnlyinAmerica/

Wonkette wrote a brief mention on the 23rd:
http://www.wonkette.com/index.php?page=2 (URL may change tomorrow... you just have to find her stuff for March 23)

Only In China?

The United Food and Commercial Workers have launched a campaign to get ABC's "Good Morning America" to dump Wal-Mart as a sponsor of the show's "Only in America" segment, on the grounds that, well, Wal-Mart specializes in selling underpriced Chinese crap to the people who used to work in factories until their jobs got sent overseas. The union says:

With this sponsorship, ABC News provides Wal-Mart both a format and visual framing to perpetuate a long-term myth—that Wal-Mart possesses a unique American patriotism manifested in practices that promote American values, respect workers, and privilege American-made products.

Of course, it's debatable how valuable the sponsorship is when the programming is so cheesy it makes you want to gouge your eyes out -- recent segments have included "Orphaned Teen Makes A 'Friend' At Oscars," "Horton Family Gives Thanks For Quadruplets," and "Ethiopian Girl With One Arm And One Leg Swims To Success." (And yes, that last one is real.)

But it just goes to show you there really is something unique about our country: Only in America could malevolent corporate weasels turn a painfully sappy network morning show into effective propaganda for their evil empire of cheap schlock. -- "Joe Klein"

Take Action: Call For ABC News To Drop Wal-Mart As "Only In America"

[mcscajun]

3. Done

We have to nail these bastards at Every Opportunity.