Do you think Wal-Mart is evil?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Sunday, November 27, 2005 20:12
VIEWED: 21084
PAGE 6 of 17
Kmart failed for the same reason all megamarts fail. It's not a long term commercially viable idea. Walmart persists on chronic corruption and illegality. If it were force to abide by all extant laws worldwide it will fold. Someday it's past will catch up with it, and it will crumble, and then we will be griping about RoboMart.
Citizen,
I think I put this forward concisely a few times now. Walmart is the all purpose GUM store. This is something the Soviets and Chinese tried ad nauseum. There are many ways in which it meets this.
But this just explains my abhorance of walmart. It shares the same top down characteristics as socialism, but sure it is mostly a product of capitalism, except to the extent that it's a product of china.
But Capitalism is artificial. There really isn't anything natural about it. At its best, capitalism is an immitation of nature. Unfortunately, as an artificial environment, it must be carefully maintained or it tends towards catastophic failure, and degenerates into either socialism or aristocracy.
One of the major, probably the most major, control that helps free market capitalism be sustained is the anti-trust, which has completely fallen apart lately.
Natural biological evolution typically is much less subject to single species domination because competition is far more fierce, with a trillion or so competitors. A capitalism like this would be much more resistant to Walmarts.
But even so, the human race is evolution's Walmart, and if we don't abide by certian environmentalist constraints, it will head to catastrophic failure as well.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Still not socialism. Top down authority -- authoritarianism, oligarchy, tyrany --- you can find lots of words for what you're describing and some or all of them apply to Nazi's or Soviets-- but socialism is only about who controls production and under capitalism that isn't the people and in capitalist societies that isnt even the government.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Okay, I'll concede the point. If Walmart was socialist, it might have a better healthcare plan.
Monopolism perhaps.
But what I hate about Walmart is in line with why I hate socialism. The top down no choice thing. Walmart hasn't killed millions of people, but it is the GUM store.
Also, production here is Communist China, in the case of Walmart.
BTW, Those words don't just define the socialist states of old, Nazis and Soviets, but also all of the present ones, Zimbabwe, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Syria, North Korea, China, soon Venezuela?
When socialists win an election, and have total dominance, these characterists tend to quickly find their way. Not in a coalition govt. but if the socialists gain a flat out majority. Blair for instance, transforming Britain. Though lately I've heard he's betraying promises of govt.ization, maybe. But then, they often fall by the wayside before creating machinatopia.
I think people get sucked into bad ideas often because they find something they like in them, but the people supporting the one point, often have a whole nightmare slew of them. In time you can convince yourself that you support the other points.
I think lots of people are pro-choice because they are democrats, rather than because they've spent a lot of time trying to figure out when life truly begins.
Similar things could be said about a lot of positions. If socialists offer opposition to corruption, or a plaform of peace, people often follow that, and buy in to the whole line. But, of course, socialism isn't about either of those things. Sometimes people want socialism because they want cheap services. I don't think this is a good reason really. Cheap services would happen if there was adequate competition and deregulation. In extreme situations I could see supporting a subsidy, but only in extreme cases. Usually I think it doesn't need it. Like right at the moment, if I were the govt. I would probably subsidize the Americna auto industry to make a transition to electric cars. I might make this subsidy a loan. But right now, Detroit is about to fold, and it's going to put a million people out of work when it does. But I don't think there would be an industry that would need permanent subsidy.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The amusing thing about Blair is that he's generally seen as a Thatcherite. He has actually returned some state industries to private hands he has deregulated some areas and a lot of his policies --- his new stance on education for instance can be shown to be things Mrs T wanted in the 1980's.
Britain is a post Thatcherite nation, both of the two major parties are built on that platform except one is generally pro Europe and the other generally anti. You said you liked Michael Howard but he would just as readily followed Bush to war. The surprise wasn't that the Tories would back America with military force but that Labour did. Despite strong links with the Democrats and urgings from Johnson, Harold Wilson didn't deploy British troops in Vietnam for example.
So your general theory that Michael Howard is a traditional Conservative ally is wrong. A Prime Minister Howard asked by Pres. Bush to send troops to Iraq would have been just as happy to do it.
George Galoway the guy you admire so much IS a socialist, he says as much, believes as much which is why he took the traditional left wing stance and voted against the war.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Tories role was that of the snivelling Democrats, show no resistance, follow us into hell.
It's true it's a weakpoint in my argument. Galloway has gone to form a socialist party. I still admire the way he stood up to Blair, Clinton and Bush.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
which is why he took the traditional left wing stance and voted against the war.
I have to give this my WTF? response.
Sorry.
It's just...
WTF?
I'm aware that a small segment within the political left has a "peace movement."
But the idea that socialists, or the political left are inherently anti-war is absurd.
US history, world history, even british history proves as much.
As an American I'm most familiar with the American side of things, but my general familiarity of the world is Communists, nazis, baathists, the african ANC, and countless individuals I can name are the most potent agents of war in human history, and all hail from the political left, in fact, all above are socialists.
But I want to take an aside to once again remind people, that among these traditional hawks must be counted the Democratic Party.
If anyone is still a pro-peace libertarian and counts themselves as a "democrat" they are delusional:
1. 1820s Democrats, formed by Jackson on a platform of pro-war, against the indians. This was would claim 12 million lives.
2. 1850s Democrats switch focus to pro-slavery, which eventually would lead southern democrats to secede and declare war on the remaining United States. This war would claim one million lives.
Afterwords the Democrats essentially became marginalized until a split in the Republican Party when TR refused to back Taft.
3. 1917, US under Wilson enters into WWI, and directly follows into conflict with Russia in the Russian Civil War. Millions die, US shares some responsibility.
4. 1941, US is attacked by Japan, after the incident, avoidable or not, FDR enter into a truly avoidable mad conflict with the goal of conquering Japan. 15 million die, US shares some responsibility.
5. After dropping two nulear bombs on civilian populations, Truman goes to war in Korea. 2 million people die.
6. 1961, US Under Kennedy invades Cuba, and later also Vietnam. 1963, Johnson drastically upscales conflict with Vietnam. 3 million people die.
In all of these examples, the president in question was a democrat, and the war was a left-on-left war, where both sides were the left side political faction of their country with the exceptions of WWI germany and WWI japan.
I left out WWII because I have to agree with the decision to go to war with Germany in WWII, I would have even liked if we had done in sooner. But I would point out that the bulk of casualties of this war came from the conflict between Germany and Russia, which was another left-on-left conflict.
But lets turn more towards the present.
In Democrats since then, after a 4 year peaceful stint of Carter, we reverted to the Clinton War machine, a series of small wars with heavy casualties, Iraq, Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, overall uppwards of a million casualties.
While Kosovo might arguably be least death, the others are not, and Clinton's avoidance of the high casualty wars in Rwanda and Croatia were proof enough that he wasn't concerned with preventing genocide, adding to the Kosovo pipeline theory.
Next, we go to the current state of the Democratic Party.
In the last Democratic primary, here's what we had a landslide victory for the most pro-war candidate, who beat the next contender 5:1. This second place contender was Edwards, another pro-war candidate.
The top peace candidate took in 2% of the final vote tally.
By contrast, in the last Republican Primary in 2000, the sole hawk, with his preset plan for war nudged in with 50% while not mentioning his pro-war stance as a platform point. The opposition split 25/25 making a walk for Bush.
PLEASE NOTE:
I'm not saying this to insult democrats, the left, or peace minded people.
I'm trying to make a point here:
The sensible right needs two things in order to regain control of their party:
1. Unity. A solid heads up like Kerry vs. Edwards, or like Reagan vs. Bush Sr. in 1980. (remember at this point in his life, Bush Sr. was anti-neocon, unlike today)
2. Just a few more votes.
For the sensible left to win
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
You have no left wing parties so your analysis is flawed. You have two parties financed by business who buy electoral support from two different segments of society. To say that the Democrats are left wing and actually give a damn about poor people outside of an election cycle is like saying that Washington Republicans are God fearing Christians -- they talk the talk but once they have your vote forget it.
The same little history map you held up would look like this in the UK.
WW1 -- Asquith (Liberal)
WW2 -- Chamberlain (Conservative)
Korea -- Atlee (Labour)/Churchill (Conservative)
Suez -- Eden (Conservative)
Cypress -- Macmillian (Conservative)
Vietnam --- Labour was in power and resisted US pressure to become involved in Vietnam.
Falklands War -- Thatcher (Conservative)
Gulf War 1 --- Thatcher (Conservative)
Kosovo --- Blair (Labour)
Afgahnistan -- Blair (Labour)
Iraq -- Blair (Labour)
Like I said our Tony bucks the trend a little. The Liberal party was the direct equivalent of your Democrats.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Okay, if the democrats don't fit your definition of liberal, and none of the socialists states do, then your fantasy liberal doesn't exist.
I'm not saying conservatives don't fight war, but the idea that the left is somehow peaceful is again a pure fantasy.
Sure, there were things like Gulf War I, or the spanish american war. But let me add this.
So recently, you'd say that your wars have been conservatives, until blair.
But then you're wars weren't really that big.
Excluding war with germany, wwii, in which britain could hardly be called the aggressor. I think the war against the nazis everyone is off the hook. I let FDR, a liberal democrat, off the hook for it.
America, being under left rule (america's left, which btw, meshes with the world's left) has fought much bigger wars. Russia, China, as left states have been almost constantly at war, or in support of a war abroad.
But I didn't intend to start a partisan bicker.
Just putting forth that anti-war was not a good reason to be leftist. It isn't a reason to be leftist at all.
That would be like being a right winger because you wanted to help poor people. Nothing wrong with helping poor people, but if that was your main objective, right wing philosophy, which lends itself much more to a sink or swim sort of deal, would probably not be the first choice. Similarly, leftist ideals of universal equality lead directly to conflict and global militarism, and so if overall peace and prosperity was your main goal, being a leftist wouldn't support that goal or make logical sense.
I think there are left leaning corporations. Not socialist of course, because socialism is an anathema. But true, our presidential tickets are pretty corrupt as you say, but there is more to the parties than that. Generally, democrats create large scale social programs that at least aim to help poor people.
On the right, it's not fair to apply the christian label to us as a lot. Until recently, chrisianity, even christian fundementalism wasn't solidly right. The GOP has built itself much more firmly on being pro-business.
I readily admit that to say the GOP admin. in the white house today is pro-business would be even more absurd than to say they are fundamentalist christians. Well, fundamentalist theocrats, since many of them are jewish, and quite openly so, it would be wrong to say they claim to be chrsitians.
But still and all, you have a point.
However. If we did have actual socialism, world history indicates we might have even bloodier wars. Usually someone else started the war, and America came ot the party. Iraq is the only exception I can think off-hand since the 19 century wars.
Here are my principle political concerns:
Environmentalism
Peace
Pro-Business
Individual rights
Given these, with about equal weight to all, I would pretty clearly be better off as a republican, historically speaking.
I grant that if I just said
Environmentalism
then it would be much more of a toss up.
But traditionally, Bush excluded, the GOP is more likely to give me:
Peace
Individual rights
And it is much much more like to give me
Pro-Business
So, well there it is.
It would pain me to think that someone was on the left because they wanted peace, but I think it is so. I would hope that some of those people could help us over here on the right who want peace, by adding to our numbers, making a majority. That's the only way I can see of having peace as a platform in the whitehouse. It's just not going to happen on the democratic side of things, and pro-peace voters should realize this.
To be fair, I would suspect there are probably pro-economic equality christians who vote on the right because of religion who also delusional.
Finally,
The center is whoever is in the middle, regardless of where that stand is. I think when the entirety of the world's political spectrum is taken into account, the most overall rightwing country is India, the most overall leftwing country is China, the rest of us fall inbetween, and America is pret
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Wal-mart = Zerca Corp. (Anyone who's a Star Wars Junky, or who has played KOTOR knows what I'm talking about)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
My point wasn't that Republicans WHERE God fearing Christian zealots it was that they pandered to that constituency come election time without ever truely delivering. Democrats seem to throw the poor a bone and then wait for them to vote. As George Calin says the dumb F**** really believe that this millionaire and his friends actually care about poor people? It's corrupt bullshit.
In my country I used to know exactly where the parties stand.
Conservatives
Pro Law and Order
Pro Defence
Pro Business
Lower Tax
Anti local government (because if you are a tax cutter but you need big central government for L&O and defence you make cuts elsewhere)
Unilateralist
Not fond of Federal Europe
Labour
Pro disarmament
Pro Unions
Pro services (and by default not tax cutters)
Pro local government
Multilateralist
Slightly pro Europe (though that topic ebbs and flows in both parties)
So a Tory will pay for tax cuts by slashing services while keeping high defence spending sacrosant. Labour will pay for services by raising taxes and/or cutting defence.
This is part of the reason we tend to get involved militarily when a Tory government is in power, because it's hard to justify spending on a military you don't use.
Neither of these parties is for small (central) government -- the current civil service is a Tory invention and the kinds of programs Labour favours needs a big bureaucracy to run it.
Neither is overly concerned with the kinds of civil liberties Americans find so vexing. We absolutely know that our government spies on us and does all kinds of naughty things both home and abroad irrespective of who is in power.
Oh and neither party is socialist -- though one still claims to be. Interestingly the left wing of the Tory party is now to the left of the Blairite front bench on a lot of issues.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME