OK...Sickofspin! Now you are on my turf! Don't post references to Stoughton, WI unless you really know what's going on there. YOU are no authority on Stoughton. I was there for their screening that night...YOU weren't.

Furthermore: Stop hiding behind "Sickofspin." Post with your real name...it might give you some semblance of credibility. We all know who you are:

According to Sickos own website:

"My name is Mike Thayer, I'm a staunch Conservative with a capital 'C'."
Mike Thayer alias Sickofspin is from Iowa.

Here's what his "friends" on other blogs have to say about him:

"Mike Thayer of Iowa! Welcome to NewsHounds! People don't seem to like you very much on your own blog, but we'll take GOOD care of you here!"
http://www.newshounds.us/2005/11/21/softening_the_blow.php

"Matt Thayer is the most despised human being in a VERY small corner of Iowa."

"(Knocking on Sickofspin's head)
HELLO, McFly! ANYONE HO-O-OME!"

"Sickofspin...you are one deluded f***ing moron!!"

"Sicko/Spin went to the bathroom to 'load up' on some new ammo!"

Tom Boese
Field Producer - Wisconsin
Brave New Films

I want to make an announcement (drum roll. please)..........I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT......This morning I decided to get off my butt, stop monitoring the WakeUpWalMart.com comment board and I call Bentonville and told them I quit! I admit that I did work for the evil Wal Mart, I want to repent and ask for forgiveness. Please accept my apology. I finally realized what the good people of WakeUpWalMart.com have been talking about; I went to the pharmacy to get my "blue pill" rx refilled and the pharmacist told me that I was no longer covered for drug benefits. I need my "blue pill" so I am asking if any of the Halloween candy sale money is still available, so that I can apply for assistance. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for everything you do WakeUpWalMart.com.....I love you!

Why liberals REALLY don't like Wal-Mart
So liberals are supposedly all about helping the poor, the weak, and the downtrodden right? The liberals like to whine and complain about how unfortunate the lower income folks are, about how some don't have enough health care coverage, about how some are homeless.......But what have liberals really done about these social concerns?

Thanks to liberals and their idea of 'helping', we have more government agencies, red tape, and hand outs than you can shake a stick at. The ironic thing is, despite throwing billions and billions of dollars at these liberal issues and doing so FOR DECADES, we still have problems. The success rate of the liberal machine is negligible, nil, nada, zero results.

Enter Wal-Mart, the largest retailer, the largest private employer in the United States. The company employs more than 1.1 million people. Only the government employs more people. Hmmmmm.......

You'd think liberals would LOVE Wal-Mart because the company creates jobs, it provides less-expensive-than-competitor goods and services thus increasing a person's buying power, employees can take advantage of opportunities for advancement, employees can address health care needs, as well as participate in retirement programs. Make no mistake, Wal-Mart is far from being ideal or a cure-all (not to be confused with liberal Utopia) but the company does in fact cover basic elements that can contribute to an improved lifestyle for the 'downtrodden'.

But because Wal-Mart is a free market model - well it's behind why liberals truly hate the retailer. Wal-Mart does the very things liberals have been trying to do for decades and simply haven't gotten done. In free market fashion, Wal-Mart surpasses the liberal government solution model in every meaningful way and does so much more effectively.

Money is a key factor in this - If a liberal pet program is shown to be ineffective, which Wal-Mart is doing in a free market way - it can mean less money for liberals and their pet programs. Wal-Mart exposes the many flaws in the liberal idea of government first, 'government is best' solutions. Wal-mart threatens liberals and their silly little notions and urealistic quest for Utopia.

Hence, the core reason for why liberals hate Wal-Mart. Power. Not only does the retailer serve as an example of success, not only does it demonstrate the ineffectiveness of government 'solutions'......but such government inadequacy also means the possible loss of political clout. Private entity success can lead to the public questioning the value in a government program. Such questioning as to necessity can lead to funding cuts in a program, job loss in administering that program, and ultimately - the loss of a vote for an elected official. Simply put folks, liberals hate being out of power.

Let me repeat, the very success of Wal-Mart exposes the flaws in liberal ideology - that you somehow NEED government to provide for you. That elected officials can somehow provide for things better than you can. Wal-Mart demonstrates how invalid that liberal thinking is. liberals don't want you to realize that Wal-Mart has created 1.1 million jobs. liberals want you to believe that only elected officials can create jobs. liberals don't want you to realize that your dollar goes farther at Wal-Mart, in contrast to that same dollar going into a government program. liberals don't want you to realize that you are indeed better off with the benefit programs offered through Wal-Mart as opposed to government run programs. liberals would rather see you on the government dole, than working productively at Wal-Mart. liberals would rather see you getting an unemployment check for 26 weeks, than working your way up the Wal-Mart ladder or using the company as a stepping stone to a better job. If you ask me, the liberals have a very messed up way of thinking folks.

It seems to me the liberals would rather keep you in the dark about the true value of Wal-Mart. liberals offer government solutions as a first response, not a last resort. They push and favor deficit adding government programs as opposed to free market solutions. It seems to me that liberals aren't truly looking out for your best interests - heck no, they're party before country. A government program gives them power, your dependence keeps them in power. So what do liberals do? They sell you on dependence.

Wal-Mart truly does threaten that dependence. Why? Because free market solutions are almost always better than government ones and liberals hate that reality.

Wal-Mart is better than the government, and THAT'S why liberals are attacking the retailer.

Ben,

Missing health-care plans? There's no such thing. Besides, health care is an individual responsibility, not a corporate one.

Steve, there isn't anything wrong with making money, there is a lot wrong with making it over other people's backs. There is a lot wrong with causing injustice to be the normal thing while making money.

You are thinking in battles and hatred, as if they are a necessity for humanity and society to function. This is of course a very retarded view on things.

Being Wal Mart you have a lot of choices:
- You can be honest about your worker policies.
- You can be honest about wages and missing health-care plans.
- You can be honest about how your products are manufactured, in abusing the people who work in factories.
The list of choices, as made clear in the movie, is endless.

They make the wrong choices time and again, and they are not ashamed of them being wrong. This has not much to do with "normal" decent civilized behavior anymore. Wal Mart seems to want to have us believe we are merely animals, and only The Waltons aren't since they take all the profit. All they do is take, and not give. That much is VERY clear from the movie.

Then you wrote "All the workers you filmed came to realize their errors, which was a battle with their own mirror, not with Wal-Mart." which is just ludicrous. Have you even paid attention to what they were saying?
They have all been mistreated badly by WalMart, falsely accused of things. Chased away or hunted by WalMart, forced to work more for less, forced to be mistreated more for less, forced to be discriminated against etc. Wal Mart has told them lies.

The solution is simple: Make people pay what the products really cost to be made, and make sure no people get hurt in the process.
The fight to be the cheapest is not there so that one is allowed to rip off workers to get to number one.
Look at Bill Gates and MicroSoft. How do you think they can be so good and cheap, yet not underpay their employees? It has nothing to do with the employees, it has all to do with the guys on top.

Gaby, if there "isn't anything wrong with making money" then what is the complaint against Wal-Mart and the Waltons? They seem to be doing a very good job of it.

This is EXACTLY what Orwell was describing with the term Doublethink: the ability to hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously.

If it is okay for the Esry's to be pro-war and pro-growth, then why isn't it okay for the winners? Their only complaint is that they lost. And your complaint is the same.

You are not trying to change the system, you are only trying to change places in the system. Like George Washington, his biggest complaint against the King was that he didn't get to be King. He wanted, and got, all the power and privilege that the King had. Like you, he never questioned why or how the power was allowed to concentrate.

This film is not an alarm clock, it is a repeat of the same failed analysis that brought us to this place.

Like Pogo said a long time ago: We have mety the enemy and he is us. The Waltons are EQUALLY to blame, but they are not MORE to blame. Huge difference.

If you want to change the system, then you need to make changes TO the system. Changing faces will make no difference. Wal-Mart will eventually be replaced. For example, if this film creates a Wal-Mart backlash, then Target will be the next mega-store. Nothing will have changed, only the face of the person on the top.

Your thinking you have a "clear conscience" is exactly the problem. So don't all the CEO's who played by the "rules" and won. Everybody who attends a Hate Hour is sure that their demon is evil and that they are beyond reproach. (Isn't that exactly what Billy Boy does?) In all three countries in 1984, they all held Hate Hours against their opposite. Fox has theirs, the Left has this film.

This activity can be a solution, but not when the debate is framed around hate and anger.

I am a "Mom & Pop," too. But unlike the Esry's I have a history degree, and after working on the problem of war and poverty for a number of years, I finally figured out how I came to believe the lies I was taught, and how I contributed to war and poverty.

The film is a perfect example of Orwellian doublethink, yet the same footage with a different dialog could explain everything that is going wrong. All the elements are there, but the connections are misunderstood by the director.

I am not an observer, I lived it similarly to the Esry's. Have you ever seen The Matrix? It is more like that. We are battling the machines that we created.

All "responsible financial success" has the same root: Screw somebody else by shifting costs. What we have is a Financial Jim Crow system. The perks that Wal-Mart gets are just the icing on the cake. They used those perks to unseat Sears, but there will always be someone at the top based on how the system is set-up.

To put it another way: Thomas Paine made a huge error. The King was never personally to blame. He was born a Prince, he didn't choose to be a Prince. People do, however, choose to hate. And the easiest way to gain power is to convince other people to hate.

Peace,
Steve Consilvio
www.behappyandfree.com

in response to Steve Consilvio, I think that you are missing the point. There isn't anything wrong with making money. Free market Capitalism is the basis of our democracy. However, there is a way to do this without taking advantage of those who work for you, unlike what WalMart has done and continues to do! Also,one has to look at why large corporations such as Walmart get subsidies from the Government and not small Mom and Pop operations? There is a huge difference between free market capitalism and Corporate croney capitalism which I believe is the greatest threat to our democracy. We are at great risk in this country by the domination of government by corporate power.. There is such a thing as responsible financial success. The Wal-Mart film is simply shedding light on the offenses of this corporation, perhaps one of the largest offenders but certainly not the only one. Allowing people to be aware is the key. We need to wake this country up and I think this film a GREAT alarm clock! Last night 150 people saw the film at Santa Barbara city college at a screening I organized. It felt wonderful raise awareness via this film even on such a small scale and to feel like one can actually effect change in this ever more fragile world. Sometimes, the only consolation you have is a clear conscience that you did all you could. Gaby

There is absolutely no difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle except for the motor. Wal-Mart has a big motor, Mom & Pop does not. They are both built for the same purpose.

While the Walton's are rich, the stockholders are their "clients," and vendors, customers, and workers are last in line. Generally, the later three are regarded as "expenses." The debt to stockholders is the "engine" of a public company and the difference between them and a private company. Mom & Pop can pay the bank back and own the company outright, corporations are perpetually in debt to their "owners," like slaves.

In historical terms, Wal-Mart is similar to the Tea Trading companies. They are driven by profit, but the profit all gets sucked out of the company to go to individuals that seeded the company with cash many years ago. Like a ponzi scheme, new players are welcome to play, but the only way to "play" Wal-Mart is by owning stock, not by buying from, selling to, or working for them.

For every person that hates Wal-Mart, there is another that loves them for the easy unearned income that their stock returns. The wealth generated by the workers' labor goes to the stockholders (whick the Walton's own a lot of) and that is how the bleeding of cash occurs.

That "bleeding" is the same at a Mom & Pop level, too, but the scale is different. The owner of the company can make a lot more than the workers. In part, this is because the owner takes all the financial risk. But more importantly, it is because the workers are excluded from taking part in the SYSTEM of financial risk. Few people live on a farm and share the harvest. Workers today may have sweat equity in the company, but no legal or financial involvement that reflects their contribution.

But, Wal-Mart is also in a trap of their own. The only reason they are so successful is because they sell so cheaply and use their size for advantages. The managers are working for the stockholders the same way that the employees work for the managers.

The entire system is dog eat dog, even for the biggest dog. The historical impulse is to blame the top dog (blame Wal-Mart, the President, etc) but the problem is actually the base rules of the system. (Essentially how currency is created.) Rebellions are led by people attempting to trade places in the system, they are not making systemic changes. In our case, we overthrew the King, but we recreated the same central government, central bank and standing army.

Corporations are modern-day nobles. Any one noble is not the problem, it is the systems and sub-systems of nobility that the laws grant. Everyone is afraid to bite the hand that feeds them, and they are equally afraid of feeding the hand that bites them, too. The conflict is a mirror image, and is a basic characteristic of the system that the wealth automatically divides. That was the lesson the Monopoly game was supposed to teach. It was created to demonstrate the economic observations of Henry George. Unfortunately it was named Monopoly, when it should have been called Scrooge. Instead of teaching an idea, it reinforced the idea it was meant to challenge.

People with a little bit of money are little Scrooges; people with lots of money are big Scrooges. The only thing that differs is if the motor on their bicycle is running or not.

Look at the proliferation of 501c3 organizations, for example. They all claim to be acting for the greater good, but the first thing they do is stop paying their share of taxes, which puts a bigger burden onto the others that do pay taxes. It is the same concept of trickle-down economics. More importantly, more and more people are doing less productive work. The machines are working overtime, but the economic theory of the Left and the Right hasn't moved an iota in 300 years. It is still based on class warfare, and that is basically all the movie was about and the same error that it reinforced.

Peace,
Steve

I find it necessary to address some of the points mentioned by Steve Consilvio. These are my thoughts. I do not pretend to speak for Robert Greenwald or Brave New Films. First of all Steve, you asked: "what is the difference between the small hardware store and Wal-Mart?" That's like asking, what's the difference between a bicycle and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle?

As an educator, I find fault with your logic that it's "normal" to have some at the top and some at the bottom. I suppose in a classroom setting, if your argument is used, a teacher who gives out 7 A's, is also obliged to give out 7 D's or F's to "balance things"? This is not the way to run a classroom or the economy. Right now there are no "checks and balances" on Wal-Mart. Companies like Target, K-Mart, and Kohl's Department stores, are not even a close second. There is no other corporation that is like Wal-Mart. They are leading the charge in bringing cheap foreign goods into this country, and doing more to keep America's massive trade imbalance at all-time high levels.

I believe Mr. Consilvio is wrong in his statement that the film did not offer an "explanation or a strategy to solve the problem." That was not the intent or purpose of the film. The purpose was to raise an awareness of the issues. This fight will continue for a long time to come. The battle will be won, one by one at the local level. When is the last time you attended a local city council meeting Mr. Consilvio. Citizens must organize and do this on their own. Don't look for a movie or book to "solve the problem." Contact your state and local representatives.

Lastly, you found fault with the film because it didn't address the biblical teaching to "love your neighbor." The movie also did not mention the teaching to "love your neighbor as yourself." I wonder if Lee Scott truly loves all of his "associates" as much as he loves himself? Who is one's neighbor anyway? Could they also be the thousands of textile workers in this country who have lost their jobs because Wal-Mart wants to "roll back the prices?”

Tom Boese
Field Producer
Brave New Films

I would like to share a story about a tearful woman who was seen leaving last night's successful screening in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. On a chilly, rainy Tuesday night, we had 125 very attentive citizens, brave the weather to view WALMART: The High Cost of Low Price. After the screening, comment or "Talkback" cards were handed out. You can understand why this woman wanted to remain anonymous. This is her comment: "I am currently employed at Wal-Mart, and I can relate with so many people in the video. Their wages keep me in poverty and relying on public assistance programs. I go home aching and sore from all the heavy lifting and standing all night, yet I am not compensated."

Tom Boese
Field Producer
Brave New Films

I don't see Steve Consilvio's point.
My father, and other WWII veteran businessmen, did not have as their main goal making lots of money. The values they spoke of were usually family, God, country. Their businesses were like a large family.
Steve, perhaps you could be a little more clear? I don't buy the 'hatefest' arguemnet at all. Truth will set you free.

Hi Robert,

I saw your film last night.

There are a lot of good solid facts in the documentary, but it is also very short on analysis. While Billy himself is a "Liar and an idiot" because of his refusal to discuss the substance of what you reported, there is a lot of substance that I disagree with and worth discussing.

For example, what is the difference between the small hardware store and Wal-Mart? One is bigger than the other, but every morning the owner gets up and goes to work to make a profit. I am a small business owner, too. I do the same thing, as does everyone else. The relentless pursuit of currency is "normal" in modern society.

Since the system is based on competition (checks and balances) somebody must win and somebody must lose. Wal-Mart represents a problem, for sure, by they themselves are not THE problem. They are 1 today. Yesterday it was Sears, tomorrow it may be Target. They climb to the top only to tumble over the cliff. Somebody is perpetually at the top and at the bottom.

You would have done much better to analyze the pressures that create companies like this. (Marx tried, but he got it all wrong, too.) In fact, you had all the relevant pieces in your film, but you did not put them together properly. It didn't offer either an explanation or a strategy to solve the problem.

In Orwellian terms, it was just another Hate Hour. You hate Wal-Mart, Billy hates you, etc., ad nauseum. Since you opened with preachers and a spiritual message, I had hopes that perhaps you would make a break-through in your analysis, but they were really just guest-speakers at the hate hour. "Love your enemy" was nowhere to be found.

There is both an explanation and a solution for the existence of predatory corporations, but changing the status quo won't be easy. The combination of doublethink and groupthink is hard to combat. Think mercy, not justice. All the workers you filmed came to realize their errors, which was a battle with their own mirror, not with Wal-Mart.

Everyone who works there, shops there, and sells to them has a choice to make. They don't make it. Why? What is the fear that is driving their choices?

Peace,
Steve