YET ANOTHER REASON NOT TO SHOP AT WALMART

I have only been inside a Walmart store a few times. I have been aware of their anti-union practices for a very long time and chose not to shop there for that reason. Over the years, more and more news has supported my decision.

The actions of our country's largest private employer indicate that they have no regard for their employees, and in fact count on their 70% annual turnover rate to continue to make their profits go up. The majority of their employees with children live below the poverty line, the buy in for benefits at 35% of the total cost is double the national average so less than half opt to buy in. A 2004 UC Berkeley study showed that California taxpayers pay 86 million dollars to Walmart employees - imagine what it is now!

Walmart has been sued and found guilty of numerous wage and hour violations (otherwise known as theft.) They manage by intimidation and employees are frequently threatened with firing if they report overtime, injuries or other inequities on the job such as being denied lunch breaks. Gender discrimination has been proven, as has the knowing hiring of undocumented workers and breaking of child labor laws.

And now we can add discrimination due to sexual orientation. Fernando Gallardo, an 18 year-old resident of Las Vegas, got a seasonal job Walmart. A few weeks into the job, Gallardo says, his immediate supervisor asked him "point-blank" in front of four of his coworkers if he was gay. "I told her yes, and after that she was very rude and short with me," he told The Advocate.

Following that incident, his duties were changed, he was told to wear a yellow vest and "wander around the store." His supervisor and manager stopped speaking to him. His complaints to the store management didn't change anything. He left the job after he overheard two managers talking loudly. One, he says, told the other that Gallardo was "a little girl. All he is good for is walking around the store."

When contacted, Walmart corporate spokesman Phil Keene said the company fosters "respect for individuals" as one of its core beliefs and a foundation of Walmart culture.

Gallardo has filed a complain with the Nevada EEOC. He could win monetary damages and another job with Walmart, but he is requesting that the company hold mandatory annual cultural diversity training for all Walmart and Sam's Club supervisors and managers in Clark County, Nev., with a certified cultural diversity trainer.

PEOPLE AND PROFIT

I was pleased with President Obama's speech on health care. While he left some wiggle room on the public option, I was happy to hear his forceful stance and applauded right here in my living room when he actually invoked the morality issue.

I have long believed that there are businesses which should not be allowed to be run for profit and and beholden to stockholders. Medicine is one of them. It is immoral to make decisions based on profit when it comes to people's lives. That is not to say that all medical means available should always be used. People should have living wills and judgements must be made which do not always come down on the side of life at any cost.

I simply do not think that hospitals should be staffed with cheaper medical techs doing jobs which require trained nursing skills. Insurance companies should not be able to cancel the plans of paying customers when they become ill in order to pay out bonuses and dividends.

Will we be able to step back from the belief that profit is more important than our moral responsibilities? If we do not have the will to impose these rules on corporations, then we need to provide another option that puts people first.

Th button pictured can be found here.

IS IT JUST ME?

Perhaps it is just me, but I do not feel any safer today than I did on September 12, 2001.

I don't think flying is safer, I don't think attacking Iraq has been helpful in any way and I don't think that the intrusion into basic civil rights and the erosion of our national morality has made us safe.

That Cheney et. al, claim the ends (our security) justify the means makes me ill. I agree with Jeff Schweitzer 's article in the Huffington Post:

"When we appeal to the corrupt idea that ends trump means, nothing constrains our worst instincts. We end up with Japanese detention camps, witch hunts for "communists" by the House Un-American Activities Committee, illegal wire tapping, falsified evidence for war, and torture.."

In other words - we just keep on repeating our history of wrong headed, demoralizing, inhumane activities and learn nothing and become ever more morally bankrupt. Quite frankly if the lawyers who drafted those torture guidelines are not prosecuted, or at least have their "careers" destroyed, then it will never, ever stop. Just as those people on Wall Street and in the banks and mortgage companies who made a killing before it all came tumbling down will just go out and do it again unless they are regulated into responsibility.

I question the Obama administration's reluctance to further investigate and prosecute those who made these abhorrent activities possible. I know that there is concern that seeking "retribution" will divert time and attention from the bigger agenda items. However, I don't see how we can go forward as a nation of conscience if we don't make it very clear that, yet again, we have blundered and take responsibility for the damage done.