|
CounterPunch
October
14, 2002
The Washington
Post and the Wal-Mart Way
by ANTHONY GANCARSKI
Even before I read Barbara Ehrenreich's justly
acclaimed NICKEL
AND DIMED, I was aware that Wal-Mart was the retailer
of the damned and that it catered to the fixes of those cursed
souls. Consumer electronics of suspect quality. Lingerie that
wouldn't survive three washes, made in some blighted US-backed
dictatorship. Cases of Doritos and Captain Crunch. When Wal-Mart
opens shop in a small town, things usually happen to the former
shopping districts. Windows are boarded up. Those who made their
livings on the former Main Streets find themselves queuing for
the honor of wearing blue smocks. If Wal-Mart deems them worthy.
I have found Wal-Mart disgusting for
the entirety of my adult life. Yet I have gone and expect to
go again. A necessary evil, a step saver, I will call it, by
way of justification, when I pop back in some evening for petroleum
jelly and 9-Volt batteries. Yet, despite my admitted patterns
of Wal-Mart patronage, I cannot envision a scenario in which
I would produce streams of exhortatory prose in support of Wal-Mart.
Perhaps that is why I don't write for the Washington Post.
In the 10/6 edition of the aforementioned
paper, a Wells Tower writes a piece called "Sam's Dream",
which affects to take a look at how "Sam Walton created
a place where low-wage workers aspire to riches and lonely old
men look for love at Tuesday morning bingo". Ironic, isn't
it, that a place stocked with so much documented sadness as Wal-Mart
gets an "embodiment of the American Dream" write-up?
Ironic only if you understand the message of the major media
in 2002 as anything but "sit down, shut up, and be bipartisan
consumers for freedom."
Tower begins the piece with a feel good
description of store greeter Carole Pfeifer, "holding a
spool of adhesive yellow smiley faces, each with "Wal-Mart"
printed in an arc across its brow. She has pressed such a large
number of these stickers into the palms of grateful children
that she is known to local youngsters as 'the sticker lady',
a designation that pleases her considerably." A nice old
lady, we are left to surmise. A sympathetic figure. Soon after
meeting our hero, however, we receive our first indication in
"Sam's Dream" that things aren't always idyllic. Our
hero has a conflict, our piece a villain.
Seems that Carole got stuck handing out
complimentary pencils to those unlucky enough to cross her path,
and that her path was crossed by some surly wench "hurrying
into the store". Pfeifer jams a pencil into the woman's
face, giving Tower an opportunity to chide the woman for "[squinting]
at Pfeifer, as though she's been asked an unreasonable favor".
When the woman takes two pencils -- not simply the one offered,
thanks be to Sam's beneficence -- and "strides off to women's
wear", we are left to identify with the spurned clerk. Not
to think about the teeming, disgusting masses in the Wal-Mart
parking lot, that benighted rabble spawned from the bastard hips
of Faulkner characters.
Simply put, the dehumanizing effects
of shopping with people and in a place that disgusts someone,
yet doing it anyway seems to escape the consideration of Tower,
who takes the default Post position that any system that exists
profitably merits defense. After all, as Carole Pfeifer puts
it, "this job's the only reason I leave my house. So I guess
you can say Walmart's pretty much my whole darned life."
God help her if she's downsized.
There is more to "Sam's Dream"
than the "direct and unobtrusive decency" of the Carole
Pfeifer story, however. There is what Tower dubs "a promise
descanting"; associate after associate, in this telling,
sees Wal-Mart as a place where dreams really do come true. As
an "associate" -- Tower shies away from dated terms
like employee or wage slave -- declared, "you can make your
own future here. Look above the sky, beyond the clouds. Let your
light shine for others to see!" By the time we get to social
critique, Tower has little energy left for such formalities as
active voice:
"Wal-Mart's expansion is a mixed
blessing for its workers. While some associates will someday
rise to salaried positions, the company depends on a much larger
cushion of low-wage workers, people for whom simply making a
living will remain a perpetual challenge. These days Wal-Mart
is beset with union battles and workers' lawsuits, not to mention
citizens' groups who bemoan the retailer's impact on local culture
and mom-and-pop businesses. Still, whatever hostilities the
company faces, critics have hardly diminished Wal-Mart's magnitude
in the marketplace or on the American landscape."
As Marie Antoinette might have said if
she were alive now, "let them drink Sam's Choice."
Except for that "cushion" for whom paying bills is
a "perpetual challenge", those pesky workers, those
uppity union groups, and those citizen activists, it seems that
280 million Americans share Sam's Dream. In that light, we should
find the tale of the store manager who parks in a "distant
acre" of the parking lot admirable, even as we nod with
sympathy for the occasional disgruntled employee's perspective
that Wal-Mart is "bullshit". Typical Washington Post;
a token expression of dissent by someone not worthy of being
named, overwhelmed by the preponderance of evidence saying that
the status quo is what is reasonable and what works, so we may
as well pretend not to notice the misery on which it's founded.
Anthony Gancarski, a freelance writer based in Spokane, WA, can
be reached at Anthony.Gancarski@attbi.com
Yesterday's
Features
Alexander Cockburn
Vindication
Through Violence:
Jimmy Carter and the DC Sniper
Robert Jensen
The American
Political Paradox:
More Freedom, Less Democracy
Ben Tripp
Congratulations! It's a War!
Susan Davis
Proverbial
Wisdom:
Red!
David Krieger
A Bleak Day for America
Anis Shivani
George W. in Therapy
Ken Paff
Where Do Hoffa's Tactics Belong in a Mob-Free Teamsters?
Carol Norris
The Politics of Fear
Elaine Cassel
The Lynne Stewart Case:
When Representing an Accused Terrorist Can Land a Lawyer in Jail
Musa AlShaer
Scenes
from an Occupied Wedding
Anthony Gancarski
Concerned Citizen: a serialized
novel (Episode 3)
M. Shahid Alam
I Will Fight Your Enemies
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- How to Change the Subject: Corporate Scandal and Pension
Reform as Weapons Against Warmongering;
- Padilla's Predecessor: Court Ruling Cites 1904 War
Against Mining Union;
- Adios Hitchens: the Dorian Gray of Our Time;
- Object of Suspicion: How the FBI Watched Janis Ian
From Birth;
- First Carter, Then Clinton,
Now Sen. John Edwards:
Another "New South" Slimeball;
- Corporate Crooks: Nature or Nurture?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
October 9,
2002
Hesham Hassaballa
Here
We Go Again:
Rev. Falwell's Slurs
Ann Pettifer
Brainwashing
in America
Anita Ramasatry
Airline Security Run Amok
Josh Frank
Iraq: It's
About Globalization
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
Iraq:
the Double Standard
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Illogical War Speech
David Vest
Dylan in
Eugene
October 4,
2002
Ahmad Faruqui
The Anvil
of War and the Ailing American Economy
Norman Madarasz
The
Truth and Violence
of a Symbolic Act
William Hughes
Political
Show Trial for
Marwan Barghouti
Ron Jacobs
The Struggle
Against
Another Oil War
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Bush War
Plan:
Blind and Improvident
Michael Schwalbe
The
Costs of American Privilege
Ralph Nader
Holding
Politicians' Feet to the Fire on Corporate Crime
Robert Buzzanco
Pacifica
Caves in to Zionist Smear Campaign
October 3,
2002
Gary Leupp
Talking
to Your Kids About Fascism
Will Youmans
The New
Anti-Apartheid Movement: The Campaign to Divest from Israel
Deb Reich
Report from a Mad World
Todd Chretien & Sue Sandlin
"It's All About Power on the
Docks"
Kurt Nimmo
Poetry
as Treason
Amiri Baraka
Somebody
Blew Up America
Alexander
Cockburn
October Surprises
October 2,
2002
Carol Wolman,
MD
Is the
President Nuts?
Diagnosing Dubya
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Something
Rotten in Klamath
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|