Evil Empire Rant

I have been boycotting Wal-Mart for a few years now. Originally, I didn't like to shop there because the company has a very conservative Christian agenda. They do not sell CD's with Parental Lyrics advisory labels on them and they do not sell Plan B (or at least they didn't last time I checked).

They are a business and have the right to stock, or not stock whatever items they wish. And I have a right as a citizen to not shop there and I chose to not support their fundamentalist belief system.

So I stayed away.

Then there was the scandal of sweatshop workers in China (mostly female) making items for Wal-Mart at meager wages. No longer was Wal-Mart the place to get your "Made in the USA" items. The items were now made by the lowest bidder, in horrible conditions.

But wait, it gets worse.

I just finished reading about the class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart. Over 1.6 million female employees and former employees sued the company for sex discrimination and disparity in wages. The experiences of some of these women read right out of a pre-1950's mindset.
I thought we had something called equal work for equal pay? Isn't that a federal law somewhere?

Wal-Mart only looks out for one thing...the bottom line (profits). It cares nothing about its employees or its consumers. As long as they keep consuming. As long as Wal-Mart and its shareholders keep making money.

When I read that some women who worked full time for Wal-Mart had to go and apply for gov't. assistance because they couldn't make enough to survive and feed their families, it made me so very angry.

When that same company, instead of raising pay to a living wage, gives its employees memos on how to file for public assistance (thus forcing the tax payers to foot the bill instead of where it rightfully belongs...in Wal-Marts hands) It makes me want to walk into the corporate headquarters and smack every upper-level executive upside their heads.

Then I want to take their multi-thousand dollar bonuses and spread them out amongst the women who cannot make ends meet working for a company that says its all about "family".

Not my family. And not yours either.