an earnest question for Nader/McKinney folk:

Without bashing Obama or the Dems. What good will come from voting for a 3rd party candidate?

Wal-Mart wouldn't have made such presentation to their managers unless they knew in advance that they would get away with doing so.

Like every other demand that the Bush administration do its job and uphold the law, this complaint will be ignored.

jj

"this complaint will be ignored"

no it won't! there are many like me who refuse to shop at walmart because of things like this. now i will DOUBLE not shop there!!! how's that for ignorance???

from the article:

"Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said that if the FEC decides to investigate, it will find the company did nothing wrong."

now there's a safe bet.

Shop Wal-Mart and you could lose your outsourced job.

"Wal-Mart opposes proposed legislation"

You allow corporations a voice in public policy and you open a can of worms. You disallow corporations a voice in public policy and you seal the can shut. It's YOUR choice. And if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

First of all, how in the hell are they going to know who people are voting for? Jesus, do they follow them into the booth, too?

I haven't shopped at that rag of a store since I learned of their ways; this just adds to the list! I agree with jj, the complaint will be ignored like the rest of the crimes of the regime.

MaryMag, Wal-mart, like all employers, maintains demographic data on all of their employees (excuse me, "associates"). They can compare precinct-by-precinct vote counts with that employee information and get some idea of how their employees may be voting. No, they can't demonstrate that a specific employee voted against their wishes but Wal-mart operates on a philosophy of mass intimidation.

jj

Constitutional Amendment (with thanks to Jim HIghtower):

A corporation is not a person. Constitutional protections will be limited for all corporations, for-profit or not for profit, as follows:

Freedom of Speech will be limited to truthful commercial speech.

No corporation will receive transfer payments of any kind from the federal gov't. corollary: No corporation will ever be considered "too big to fail"

that's it. (qualifiers may not be from JHt)

"the complaint will be ignored like the rest of the crimes of the regime."

no it won't. some people have heard loud and clear and refuse to spend money at walmart. mary contradicts herself when she says, "I haven't shopped at that rag of a store since I learned of their ways; this just adds to the list!" and in the same breath says, "the complaint will be ignored".

how is boycotting a store ignoring it??

Walmart is such a greasy, smarmy, slimy thing.

Yecch.

Since walmart can't move their stores to china a strong unionized walmart could bring back the middle class.

I worked as an election judge over 2 election cycles. If you changed the venue, to say the inside of the polling precinct, that would be considered classic voter intimidation. Even outside of this venue its still voter initimidation. They just don't use lynching techniques anymore. Paging the ACLU?

BTW, it's easy to boycott Wal-Mart. Just think of the money they will loose from those government issued DTV cards so people can keep their TVs going after February 17th, 2009. I checked Consumer Reports and the best DTV tuner for the money is a Zenith model which is not sold at Wal-Mart but has the best features for the given picture quality. Their only sold at Circuit City and Radio Shack. I would think that would be an immediate and effective response to Wal-Mart and you can phone their public relations department and fax your receipt to them if you like. The almighty dollar is the only vernacular that Wal-Mart understands.

And now a personal disclaimer: I neither sell, own stock in nor profit in anyway from Zenith, Circuit City or Radio Shack. There, hope that clears that up.

A real intelligence test for worker voters. Told to vote for the republican God father party so the company can exploit workers better, pay less, and make more profits, as a worker, who would you vote for?

When I first heard of this my first thought was, "this is illegal"; my second thought was, "will anything be done about it".

I am from Arkansas, and although I no longer live there, I still have strong ties to the state through Family, Friends and history; so I have a very good understanding of so-called "right to work" states. The only purpose of "right to work" laws is to keep employee costs, rights and power to an absolute minimum. These laws are sold to the citizenry by invoking fear and misunderstanding ("if unionized, you will at best, lose your individual independence and you will have to turn over a portion of your hard earned pay to the unions which will spend it however they see fit; at worst, your employer will move away and you will be left jobless).

jesusofjonesboro, I have been assuming by your "handle" and postings that you are an Arkansawyer (no self respecting person from Arkansas would call themselves and Arkansan). Your comments on this thread give me more reason to think so.
But then again, I could be wrong (I was once).

Fascism at it's finest.

Corporations are not people... remove their rights as such. Go back to the founding father's days when a corporation needed a charter, issued by the local community to operate. When the corporation fails to serve the local community.... yank the charter. Simple.

Shop at Wal-Mart and make the Walton family richer.

A recent article spoke of how the rebate checks helped boost Wal-Mart's recent sales.

Let's see, China buys T-bills effectively "loaning" the American government money, backed by the promise that the American people will pay it back.

The American government sends out tax rebate checks and encourages people to spend.

The American people go to Wal-Mart and buy goods made in China.

So the money which was loaned to the American government by the Chinese government goes to Chinese manufacturers and all Americans are left with is the debt, fewer jobs and a bunch of junk that will break right away facilitating the need to buy more junk. And the Walton family and the "shareholders" get richer.

Brilliant!

The really funny part of all of this is that Obama's economic adviser is a friend of Wal-mart who tries to tell people that Wal-mart is good for poor Americans.

This is all just a part of the charade. They want to make it seem like there's a difference, even when both major candidates support the same policies that benefit Wal-mart.

You'll see a lot of this over the next few months. Completely bogus issues from both sides that get lots of noise and that are total nonsense.

"First of all, how in the hell are they going to know who people are voting for?"

Well, the Obama sticker on the car they drive to work might be a clue.

"Wal-Mart wouldn't have made such presentation to their managers unless they knew in advance that they would get away with doing so.

Like every other demand that the Bush administration do its job and uphold the law, this complaint will be ignored."

Again, the really funny part is that this is true if Obama wins too. Not a snowball's chance in hades that an Obama administration would try to push any charges against Wal-mart if elected.

Now, if Ms. McKinney got elected, that might be another story. :)

Someone at WalMart must have a personal agenda with Obama. Or, as Samson stated above, the whole thing is a total charade, probably to give Americans the impression that there is a real choice.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/klein links to a story about Obama's economic advisers.

Right on, fakedemocracy, the people have ample grounds to revoke Mal-Wart's charter.

Samson writes,

This is all just a part of the charade. They want to make it seem like there's a difference, even when both major candidates support the same policies that benefit Wal-mart.

Well, yes and no.
No, because I don't think Mal-Wart would do this if they didn't believe that Obama will be tougher on labor standards. I think Obama is marginally better for your average American (cf. Obama's position on taxes -- far less regressive than McCain's). Obama does support the right of American's to unionize. Don't get me wrong-- he isn't the best-- he won't repeal Taft-Hartley as Nader rightly calls for, but he does back the Employee choice act, which calls walmart to task for its illegal, paranoiac, fascistic anti-union stance.

Yes. Because I believe that the dems are only marginally better than the repugs and ultimately stand for the same elite, corporate interests. And yes, because Obama's advisers do represent corporations such as Mal-Wart-- why because like Obama they are capitalists and that's what capitalists do. Right?
---------------------------------------------------------
But margins are important and I think this issue highlights a place where marginal makes a difference. Of course, I'd like to vote for someone who wants to repeal Mal-wart's charter..but is that a practical decision this year?

This is truly remarkable. Common Dreams presents an article with Obama's name in it and I have to read through 17 responses before the usual useful idiots start shitting on him.

Like I said, remarkable.

"Just Say No" ... to Wal-Marts.

There's a PBS Frontline documentary entitled, "Is Wal-Mart's Ruining America?
... The title says it all.

As many people posting here know, there are committees formed in town and cities with the sole purpose of KEEPING WALMART's OUT OF THEIR TOWN!

So spread the word, having read this article
-- and I'm sure many other articles on Walmart's -- tell your friends (all of whom of course shop) to hit these bastards where it hurts. BOYCOTT WAL-MART'S! That's the only language they know.

Go to your local Walmart's. Ask to speak with the manager (I did), and tell them how you feel. Ask them for their boss' telephone number and cellphone them right there on the spot!

I don't shop in Wal-Mart. My niece from Utah (a mother of 4) tried to work at Wal-Mart. What a horror story she related to me. She had a daycare in her home for years before the switch to an "outside the home" job. I hadn't been shopping at WM even before her experience. And as for unions, I was in the home for 9 years raising 3 kids before I embarked on a job outside the home--I became a grocery checker in 1978-NON-union. $3.00 an hr. round the clock. (STATE OF WASHiNGTON< AND currently HAS THE HIGHEST minimum wage). When I switched to a Union grocery checking job, with full health benefits, med.,dental,vision, and part-time(28-32 HRS.WEEK), I was up to $11.00 (journeyman)an hour IN 1980. really helped me feed,etc. 3 kids!! THERE EVEN WAS AN AFTER 9PM PROVISION, (MORE $ for us), so consequently, we didn't work much past 9:30pm or 10pm....well, I am just showing you my experience with unions, everyone of us Americans deserve a decent living and it is there and has always been there for us,(but not given to us)wages in alot of jobs have not kept up with the cost of everything, houses -cars, etc. wages are NEVER discussed on the news. what are people supposed to do? I didn't mind paying my Union dues, and I felt secure in my job. I wish for everyone in America-a decent living, good wages, and job security.
but -I am just a gramma now--but I want all people & all young people to know, what it was like in my day-30 years ago when I was a Union grocery checker. Thank you for allowing me to tell my history and good luck and blessings to all Americans!

can you say more, opeluboy.

I tend to agree that there are some folks on the web-site who live to dump on Obama.

On the one hand this is a progressive website, so it isn't surprising that folks are disappointed with or skeptical of Obama.

At the same time it gets unacceptable when folks are throwing right-wing criticisms out at Obama (e.g. he went to a racist church for 20yrs.)

My problem with the Obama-bashers is that I don't find their indignation very compelling. Obama won't fix what's structurally wrong with America much less capitalism. The two party system stands for the same overall power structure. sure. But won't Obama be a little better for some people?

I could easily vote for a 3rd party were I certain
a. that the candidate and party had a grassroots movement behind it.
b. that I believed that there was a strong popular movement that would sustain us through the four years of another McCain term.

Convince me of these two and I'll jump on the McKinney Nader bandwagon. Or...the SP is running a write in candidate this year.

I'm with you Samson-

Cynthia McKinney would make an excellent president. Leftk is right - up to a point. Yes, Obama would be better than McCain. But why settle for a hamburger when offered a choice between hamburger and hot dog when you can have a seven course meal.

Those who don't like Wal-Mart have a simple choice, Boycott their stores and encourage others to do the same thing! I never shop wal-mart as they are unfair to ther workers and they import most of their goods from other countries, cheap stuff, not made in America!

Costco pays it's employees an average of $17 an hour and even parttimers get some benefits.Cities need to do their best to woo Costco to their communities and whittle away at the behemoth that those lovely Waltons exploit over a million employees with.

Leftk - exactly.

Seaweed - lovely sentiment. But you seem to actually believe you can give up the hamburger and really get the 7 course meal. You can't. McKinney has (now listen) NO CHANCE of becoming president. None. Zero. Zip. This is what frustrates me with you Nader and McKinney supporters. If you want to make a protest vote, do so. But quit trying to get us to drink your 3rd party kool-aid and believe that somehow neither McCain or Obama will be president. One of them will.

Lose their jobs? LOL
Many have already lost their jobs that were outsourced to China, where much of Wal-Mart's merchandise is made, Mexico included. I bought toothpaste and other items at Wal-Mart that said it was made in Mexico.

The real issue is whether workers, suppliers and consumers be given the PARTICIPATORY opportunity to invest our diverse gifts into corporations such as Walmart in order to make them work and serve community and the world better. The Latin root of community means 'com' = 'together + 'munus' = 'gift or service'. Participatory businesses around the world such as the Keiretsu of Japan (Toyota and others), the Chaebol of Korea, Associative Economics of Europe and hundreds of participatory companies across Canada and the USA are leading the way by involving all stakeholders in progressive ownership investment plans. These stakeholder owned industries and businesses are outperforming hierarchal and union shops in environmental, economic, community economic development and every other way. Such win-win solutions unite both the right and the left.

here come the employee interrogations - complete with lie detectors and waterboarding

My family stopped shopping at Wal Mart a long time ago. Sam Walton would roll over in his grave if he knew what his company has turned into.

Wal-Mart is quaking in it's boots. Sure. I didn't discover until I left that Wal-Mart had actually taken out a life insurance policy on me. This wouldn't have helped my wife as the money would have went to them.

Wal-Mart Sucks. If you need to go big box go to Target.

The real reason that Walmart doesn't want you to vote for Obama is because he is an "elite" who doesn't shop there. Come to think about it, I don't thin John and Cindy shop there either.
Seriously, progressives need to support unions because unions protect workers. As a longtime union member, I know that there is more than a marginal difference between the Dems and the Repugs. I wish the Dems were more anti-war, but bashing Obama and voting for Nader or McKinney will not bring one soldier home or get fair trade practices for anyone. The Republicans are profit driven to the core!

This is dumb.

Vote for Nader and they might lose their job, but Obama is a friend of corporate America. His top economic advisor is a former Wal Mart executive.

A vote for Wal-Mart is a vote for your own voluntary servitude whether you are a worker or customer.

"Cynthia McKinney would make an excellent president. Leftk is right - up to a point. Yes, Obama would be better than McCain."

McKinney - what would she do? Hit the Capitol police officers with her phone again?
McKinney is not a progressive - she is a nutball! I lived in the Atlanta area when she was in office. She and her father are racist turds.

Voting for a third party will do nothing but slightly enable the Repugnicans to steal yet another election. Nader did not even get three percent of the vote in 2000 but he did manage to get enough votes in Florida to allow Bush & Co to steal the election. Bush "won" Florida by less than 600 (yes, fewer than six hundred) votes - only a small percentage of the votes Naderites gave to Nader instead of voting Democratic.

If you think there wouldn't have been a huge difference in what is happening in the world today if Gore had won Florida in 2000, you are brain damaged. Winning Florida enabled Bush & Co to steal the national election.
Had Gore won, would have had no war in Iraq and it is possible that the attack on 9/11 might have been prevented because Gore would have heeded the warnings from the Clinton Administration which Richard Clark did his best to get Bush to take seriously, warnings that an attack by Bin Laden was imminent. (Read Clark's book)!
We also might not be paying $4 a gallon for gas right now had Gore been the president. Part of the reasons for gasoline prices increasing more than three hundred percent are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the threats of more wars of choice.

Aside from anything else, we must help Obama win because of the fact that if McCain wins, he will appoint right wing ideologues to the Supreme Court as he has promised to do. If that happens, the Bush assault on our Constitution and the rights it guarantees us will continue unabated for years because Supreme Court Justices sit on the bench for life, and that will mean the end of the United States as we have known it.

This doesn't surprise me at all coming from this company. I remember in 02 when I went to work for a new WalMart store in my community. In orientation it was made quite clear to us new employees that no talk of unions whatsoever would be tolerated. They even went so far as to let us know that if we even discussed unions that we would be immediatly fired. WalMart is a very anti union company and will stop at nothing to keep unions out of its stores.

Always hide a voice recorder on your person when attending company meetings.

Is Wal Mart selling the voting machines? Look when you go in the booth or what ever you vote for whom ever you want.

Speaking as someone who has actually benn deeply involved in this, and many union org'g struggles, I find the attacks on Obama offensive! I'm very glad to see some actual people on here, taking on this deeply offensive drivel! Some folks on the ultra-left have their own agenda, single-mindedly that of promoting a "third party, regardless of any conditions on the ground.

Let me make one thing extremely, chystal clear! If you support unions, org'd labor, workers and their right to organize, there is only ONE position that those folks, really on the ground, fighting that those fights, want you to take, and that is to defeat the GOP, and elect Obama and a strong Democratic majority. Every single union in our nation and all of the pro-labor org'g groups, as well as all of labor's coalition partners and all the main organization in the minoritiy committees are calling for you to do that. The reason that we have taken that position is because of the issues involved. Obama and the Democratic Platform support the Employee Free Choice Act, which gives workers to right to organize w/out corporate intimidation. Sherrod Brown/Durbin are sponsoring S2092, to redo the corporate bankrupcty system, now stacked against workers. Obama has pledged to place pro-labor appts onto the NLRB, Labor Dept, PBGC, etc. Obama strongly is supporting our right to organize.

Furthermore, the most important task, without which it is absolutely impossible to take any progressive steps forward, is that we MUST DEFEAT BUSH/GOP/MCCAIN!! There is no illusion that the election of Democrats will automatically solve anything. It is, however, an absolutly a necessary immediate step. There are a great number of progressive Democrats that will be in strong positions to take over key committees in congress. By defeating the ultra-right wing, GOP forces it will make it possible for the big, labor-led people's movement to pass laws that will make it possible for WalMart and other unorg'd workers to organize unions!

The only drivel on these pages are the sheeple marching lock step with one of the corporate owned parties and their pathetic candidates: McCain and Obama. Every year Democrats and Republicans produce via their elective process mediocrity. While I am for Union organizing, good Unions represent the minority in our contemporary moment. For most parts Union officials are parasites sucking the life blood out of their members while looking the other way on corruption. WHen I was young, I was a member of the good Teamsters - and there is a BAD teamsters too. Nevertheless, the corruption was appalling. The head of my local was living in a mansion and driving a fifty thousand dollar car much like Perlosi now jetting on her corporate jet paid for by the little people she and her democratic handlers step all over. Piss on the Dems. My vote goes to a third party candidate.

unionguy August 14th, 2008 9:15 pm :

That's the narrative I frequently hear and the favored one of big-party Democrats. But an "absolutely a necessary immediate step" to take progressive steps forward is rejection of the 2-party duopoly, not 4, 8, or 16 more years of playing by the fundamentally bankrupt rules of this system we have.

Scenario: Obama loses in November "because" a significant number of progressives vote for 3rd parties (let's ignore the rhetoric for now of who is really responsible for their own political loss - really the candidate himself and his compromised, triangulated policies), and McCain is elected. Lots of moderate Democrats and progressives who pushed for Obama are very upset. The right has another party for 8 years and the average American's fortunes go further in the toilet, or worse.

What realizations will the Obama supporters of 2008, and the working class in general, and the Democratic political leaders, make as these events unfold? Will they recycle the same dumb anger as at Nader and Nader supporters in 2000, and gear up for another wasted 8 years as they do their same treadmill routine again? Or will they finally cognize that running as a Republican Lite is a losing proposition, given the realities of the world?

Will they blame people of principle who run on policies motivated by reality and integrity, or will they get their shit together and support people and policies that the country truly, desperately need?

The longer that Obama/business-as-usual-Dem supporters fail to make the crucial realization that the latter choice is the only one that will meaningfully help working Americans, the longer they make us all suffer on this asinine political treadmill.

Should read "Obama supporters of 2008", not 2000. Wordpress won't let me edit.

Memo to the actual workers. You have no union. For the sake of your job, remember to lie well and often.

Send $1 to the McCain campaign. In response they will reward you with buttons, an autographed picture of heiress Cindy McCain, etc. Put these up prominently inside your locker or cubicle at work. Now give cash to a trusted friend to give to the Obama campaign.

Post a note by your home telephone. If an "independent" pollster calls, remember to tell them we're all voting for McCain. It could be a spy.

Wal-Mart doesn't give two shits if you vote for McCain or Obama. The point of the 'faux' leak is that voters are lured into the box that the choice is between Obama and McCain when in reality it is only the 'non-corporate' candidates (Nader, McKinney, etc.) that pose a threat to the corporation.
Meanwhile the mainstream media plays up the illusion that Obama is some kind of maverick and that Americans might witness monumental changes if the Democrat is elected. But neither McCain or Obama would have been "nominated", if corporate America didn't pre-approve them. They were instead SELECTED because they have both proven worthy of carrying out a corporate agenda.
Having said that, there are competing corporate interests and therefore the two candidates will differ on how to divy up the middle class tax dollars and deliver the goods to their respective sponsors, but at no time will the American public (the bottom 90%)be a factor in the decison process.
This article only reinforces Wal-Marts foothold by ignoring REAL alternatives to our current system of a corporate controlled government. If the author had spoken the truth, which is that neither Obama or McCain have any record of helping the Wal-Mart employees of the world (supporting unions, raising the minimum wage to a LIVING WAGE, introducing universal healthcare, etc.) and instead explained how a vote for either candidate is a vote for the status quo, the public might finally figure it out!

I am as disgusted with Obama as anyone, but as a union member myself, unionguy does give probably the only indisputable benefit an Obama candidacy would have. In conjunction with a democrat majority in both houses, it would nearly guarantee passage of the Employee free Choice Act, and and it would remove some of the foxes from the NLRB hen house. Then, with more newly unionized workplaces and energized members, we might also be able to move the unions themselves in a more leftward, and for some construction trades, less racist and sexist direction.

But then again, I have reached the point that I wouldn't be surprised if Obama came up with an excuse to veto the EFCA. So, more important than electing Obama is to elect a veto-proof majority in the house, and get plenty of fresh progressive faces in Congress, like kicking out the crooked Tim Murphy and electing Steve O'Donnell here in the Pennsylvania 18th.