Walmart and President Clinton SJ Dodgson 2012 MJoTA v5n2 p1209
The negotiations continue in Washington. The Republicans are kicking back, trying to convince lawmakers and citizens that having wealthy citizens pay their fair share of taxes in undemocratic and unconstitutional.
As the victim of scams and thieves, I understand now why citizens in the 98% have largely believed Republican advertisements, stories, smiles and discussions of how making the citizens poor is Godly and will get everyone to heaven.
But, my gosh, listen to the sermons that tell you about your own power, if you are indeed born in the image of the creator of the Universe, you are powerful, and you have been given eyes to see and voices to be heard. Speak out. Join forces.
The Republican machine demands poor people who will work for sub-poverty wages, so the Republican superwealthy (the 1%) can become richer. And fly all over the world in first class, spraying money on first class hotels, first class house builders, first class automobile salesmen, first class universities. Some super-rich people can do this and build hospitals and schools - Bill and Melinda Gates come to mind, so do Bill and Hillary Clinton and Warren Buffett. Wonderful, and as a citizen of the world, I thank them.
What has really upset me since the Clinton Global Initiative conference in Sep 2012 was seeing the president of Walmart on the stage with President Clinton, with President Clinton praising him for his philanthropic work.
Hold it! Walmart was started in the early 1960s, and has rapidly grown like a cancer. Cancerous cells take over healthy cells, and make the healthy cells gray and incapable of functioning. That is Walmart.
My local Walmart moved in about 5 years ago. The local township spent around $2 million on building roads so that people can easily drive cars in and park next to the store.
We had a lovely mall before that, with trees in courtyards where I could sit with a child in the stroller and others running around, looking at the fish in tanks in Woolworth. About 2 or 3 times a year, I dropped off my car at the local Dodge dealership, and while it was being fixed, I hung out in the mall until it was ready.
All that is gone. The mall was completely razed and stores surround a middle parking lot that is bigger than 2 football fields.
And what happened to the shops? They are gone. All the shops rimming the huge parking lot are parts of big chains: the main shop is Walmart, but also we have Petco and Staples. No vendors with trucks, no little shops like the one the Hungarian Jewish refugee Frank Lowy had in Australia in Westfield, which 50 years later grew into Westfield shopping malls all around the world, including in New Jersey.
Walmart does not only build ugly, ugly stores. It impoverishes neighborhoods. Walmart has spent a great deal of money making sure that its hundreds of thousands of workers do not unionize and remain employed on low wages that keep the workers poor.
Walmart is rich, it owns ships and airplanes and factories, and its owners are several in the 10 richest people in the worlds. All this wealth comes from cheap labor and from getting townships filled with poor people to spend $2 million on building roads to its stores, instead of hiring more teachers, giving summer classes to children born to teenage mothers and murdered fathers.
What possible good can Walmart be doing that makes President Clinton praise the company's philanthropy?
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Excerpt from the New York Daily News, Dec 3, 2012
"......“I really needed this job — I have a son to support,” said Montgomery,
21, who’d been hunting for work since March and had just started her
Fulton Mall Wendy’s gig on Nov. 13.
After hours of noisy demonstrations at the restaurant led by City
Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Flatbush) her boss relented and rehired
her.
Montgomery put her desperately-needed job at risk by striking because
fast-food workers can’t make ends meet on what they earn, she said.
“We deserve better than $7.25 an hour,” said Montgomery, who lives with 2-year-old son Daniel, her mom, sister and 2 nephews....."
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USA and the Fiscal Cliff
SJ Dodgson 2012 MJoTA v5n2 p1205
Becoming rich in America, being part of the
richest 2%, means you have used more public resources. More roads, more
electricity, more security, more tax deductions, more everything. So you
need to pay at least the same percentage of your gains in taxes, not
less. Small business who bring in 250K are not taxed on the gross, they
are only taxed on their profits.
I read through the document produced
by the treasury: simply, the treasury does not have enough cash to pay
for all the programs we demand and either we can have less programs
(less fresh water, less electricity, are we ready to become Nigeria?) or
we can raise more money.
The George Bush chaps are rich folks
who love being rich and want their friends to be rich, and everyone
else to be poor. (They are descended from slave-owners and they want
everyone else to be slaves. Everyone! They are not racists.) So they cut
taxes for the slave-owners and then threw in crumbs for us slaves so we
would be grateful and vote Republican. Support President Obama who is
asking simply for increased taxes on the 2%, no increased taxes on us
slaves.
Being a slave, or a slave-owner is a human rights issue. This is prohibited in the Statute of Rome from the International Criminal Court, which 10th anniversary celebration in Philadelphia I had the privilege of attending in Sep 2012.
Paying anyone less than $8 an hour in New York City should be illegal, because he or she is being paid less than the amount needed to survive in New York City. Apparently, this is not illegal, and even these jobs are hard to come by. This week, when a young mother protested her low wages she was fired; and was only reinstated when Councilmember Jumaane Williams protested and she got her job back.
The Bushes believe this young woman should pay a higher percentage of her income in taxes than someone who makes $300,000 a year. This young woman has to work the better part of an hour every day just to pay for the train ticket that brings her to work. If she only works 4 hours, she brings home around $25.
I want more support to this young mother of an American child. I want us all to help her because she is trying, and she wants to try. I want more money in the Treasury, and I want that money to come from the slave-owners. Not us slaves.
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