Bobbi Murray: Walmart’s unexpected opposition to its Chinatown plans has been a game changer—altering the pace, momentum, and outcome of the fight.
Walmart: No Friend to Local Business
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Bobbi Murray: When a retailer like Walmart–one that controls global supply chains and has perfected the art and science of inventory—moves in within blocks of the local mom-and-pop shops, it’s got its own centrifugal force.
Walmart Trying to Open First LA Grocery Store, Major Fight Looms
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LAANE: Small business leaders have expressed serious concerns about Walmart’s impact on existing businesses, while opponents have long maintained that Walmart’s entry into the grocery industry would create a race to the bottom
Walmart in Chinatown: There Goes the Neighborhood
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Aiha Nguyen: LA’s Chinatown is built on small business and Walmart would be in direct competition with the local markets and shops that already serve the local population.
Eat at BJ’s
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Steve Hochstadt: The lesson for all of us is that we do better for ourselves and our communities if we patronize small businesses and use local tax dollars to encourage local entrepreneurs, not big boxes.
In California, Labor and Business Standing Together
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Caitlin Vega: While the Chamber of Commerce may call any bill that helps workers a “job killer,” the employer community is not monolithic. Small businesses care about our local communities and are often ignored by their own trade associations.
Is Walmart the Cure for Homesickness?
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Susan J. Matt: While chain stores, the internet, and cell phones may be the next best thing to being there, they are not the same as being there.
Keeping Public Schools Public
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Craig Williams: As progressives, we should also argue that educators need more funding just to deal with the increased poverty created in large part by the private sector.
The Ominous Expansion of Class-Action Suits
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Wendy McElroy: In the largest class-action lawsuit in American history, Walmart v. Dukes, Walmart stands accused of systematically discriminating against 1.5 million women in wages and promotions.
Boosting the Economy—One Big Screen TV at a Time
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Walter Brasch: Overall, America is slowly on the path to recovery. But, to those who lost their jobs and then their homes, it just doesn’t seem that way.
Midterm Choice: Profiteers or Bureaucrats
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Tina Dupuy: When Republicans talk about freedom, they don’t mean the freedom to be able to drink clean water piped into your home. When they talk about freedom, they don’t mean a job that pays enough to live on. When they talk about freedom, they don’t mean not being a victim of predatory lending.
‘Will They Get What They’re Paying For?’ — the Best Election Flier I’ve Seen
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Paul Loeb: I’ve seen no other piece that sums up the election issues as powerfully, and would love to see organizations and candidates adapt its template for their own outreach.
Honorees Revolutionize Progressive Communications
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Wendy Block: Valley Democrats United’s (VDU’s) 2010 Badge of Courage honorees knew corporate media would respect progressive voices about the same time Rush Limbaugh invited Amy Goodman to guest host his radio show. So documentarian extraordinaire Robert Greenwald, and citizen journalists for the world Sharon Kyle and Dick Price, crashed the international debate.
Beyoncé’s Soulless Starbucking of Music Industry
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Randy Shaw: Beyoncé has been a great star since childhood, and has gotten to the top through hard work, dedication, good looks and a powerful singing voice. But she seems to have gone through a corporate homogenization machine that has deprived her of real passion, real soul, and of the ability to express true feelings and emotions in her songs.
Fixed?
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Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Milk. All special interest patrons of America’s Big Money bordello. What are good progressives to do? Either we get lobotomies (not that recession-lashed activists can afford them) or we fix the way the country finances politics.
Another Reason to Skip Wal-Mart
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The CEO of Wal-Mart, just like Mormons, can exercise his right to free speech and expression however he sees fit. I too have that right — and will exercise it by refusing to give the company that pays him my business and by saying so. Why? Well, I have many reasons for not shopping there, [...]
Republicans Playing a 1993 Strategy
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In 1995, the Republicans swept into the House of Representatives winning 57 seats and running on term limits and a balanced budget amendment that they never passed. They implemented a strategy of obstructing everything that President Bill Clinton wanted to do and initiated a huge set of overlapping and expensive Congressional investigations of every aspect [...]
Walmart Against EFCA
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Walmart Against Employee Free Choice Act t’s estimated 86,000 workers got fired trying to exercise their legal right to organize a union during the Bush years and signs are Corporate America will fight to keep things that way. “We like driving the car,” Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott says, “and we’re not going to give the [...]
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Top 10 Most Read: The Coming Revolt
This week, Fordham professor Mark Naison’s article “The Coming Revolt: When Will the Sleeping Giant Awake?” took top honors as the week’s most read piece.