If anyone want's to discuss any other feel-good causes, like being concerned about the impact you have on the world we live in, agreeing that people have the right to not be exploited, understanding that our obsession with meat negativly impacts our world, or believing that women are people...goofy stuff like that... maybe we could move the discussion to a more appropriate location, or PM me.

And remember kids:
Fair trade = Patriotism
Walmart = Imperialism

If anyone want's to discuss any other feel-good causes, like being concerned about the impact you have on the world we live in, agreeing that people have the right to not be exploited, understanding that our obsession with meat negativly impacts our world, or believing that women are people...goofy stuff like that... maybe we could move the discussion to a more appropriate location, or PM me.

And remember kids:
Fair trade = Patriotism
Walmart = Imperialism

So you are also one of those people that jump on the back of the top dog because everyone else does. Don't get me wrong, Wal-Mart has some things they need to change, but imperialist... I think not. Just because they are the best at what they do does not make them the enemy.

No please give me that long drawn out conversation on how Wal-Mart is only good at exporting jobs to cheeper labor markets and selling goods at a bottom dollar...

Now that little hardwear shop down the street (that I am sure you will defend,) I guess the Black and Decker hammer he is selling came from the free trade market that Wal-Mart turned down. Now lets talk about the 65 year old man that works there... with no health care at all (cue the: Shitty health care in U.S. arguement) True he might pay a large amout of his check to Wal-Mart for health care, but when he needs an opporation, his kids won't have to take out a third morgage on the house...

True this all might have been different in the 1950's, and the change to the system we have now could have been avoided, but times have changed... Is that really Wal-Marts fault?

j-

Thing is, no one cares about those "causes", not even the people claiming to support them. Do you buy fair trade Gas? Fair trade automobiles? Fair trade everything?

Nah. Too inconvenient. Just get in there when the getting's easy, because then you can pretend you're morally superior. Nice warm fuzzy feeling.

At least I admit I don't care, as opposed to trying to fool myself.

Small town, stable economy, mostly locally owned stuff with a few smaller chain stores here and there. Most everybody's happy with the product, happy with the service. People make a road trip to the city twice a year to stock up on cheap rubber boots and work clothes and the occasion nice dress.

Then one day Walmart arrives. Woo Hoo everyone proclaims. New jobs, cheap stuff, one less trip to the cit a year (still need that nice dress, remember). Everyone's on the Walmart wagon.

First the local clothes store shuts down. Then one of the smaller groceries. Walmart starts controlling the towns job economy for those willing to work for under $9/hr (teens, seniors and housewives etc). Next the local garden center folds and so does the small hardware store. The other store that used to close at 6 now has to stay open to 11 to compete which means he has to bring on more staff even though he is actually getting less sales...

Now lets say then Walmart decides to make a change. Could be anything significant. Move down the highway to the next town, stop carrying garden products. What happens to that nice small town now. It's entire culture and economy is now built around this big foreign interest. It can't go back but it has no future without Walmart...

Man that is so the exact definition of Imperialism...

(edited to remove the stray bolding)

Why would it bother you to see people support causes like this? Do you feel morally inferior? Does it detriment you to see people support causes that are consistent with there value (which however they may differ from yours are no less relevant)?

The point is not an all or none approach. if all anyone did was do a little something to help only when it was convenient, they'd still be doing something to help, rather than shrugging their shoulders from the comfort of their developed nation. Whether or not someone buys fair trade "everything" is hardly a measure of their consistency on an issue. You should abstain from arguments like this because they leave you with much less credibility, and make you look like an all around ass.

Small town, stable economy, mostly locally owned stuff with a few smaller chain stores here and there. Most everybody's happy with the product, happy with the service. People make a road trip to the city twice a year to stock up on cheap rubber boots and work clothes and the occasion nice dress.

Then one day Walmart arrives. Woo Hoo everyone proclaims. New jobs, cheap stuff, one less trip to the cit a year (still need that nice dress, remember). Everyone's on the Walmart wagon.

First the local clothes store shuts down. Then one of the smaller groceries. Walmart starts controlling the towns job economy for those willing to work for under $9/hr (teens, seniors and housewives etc). Next the local garden center folds and so does the small hardware store. The other store that used to close at 6 now has to stay open to 11 to compete which means he has to bring on more staff even though he is actually getting less sales...

Now lets say then Walmart decides to make a change. Could be anything significant. Move down the highway to the next town, stop carrying garden products. What happens to that nice small town now. It's entire culture and economy is now built around this big foreign interest. It can't go back but it has no future without Walmart...

Man that is so the exact definition of Imperialism...

(edited to remove the stray bolding)

My favorite part about scenarios like this is that commonly (I am not saying this applies to the poster quoted) people are against multi-national corporations and for aid to third world/developing countries.

Which one ya want?

It's like the global warming thing - EVERYTHING gets spun to be evidence of global warming and the threat it poses. Remember last year when they were predicting a record hurricane season here in the US?

Oops.

Of course, we got a record *drought* in hurricane country instead. But it's the GLOBAL WARMING (AHH! RUN!) that's causing this. And this line is fed to us by the same yahoos who predicted the record hurricane season.

These chumps are guessing, and they're relying on panic to keep people blind to the fact that they have no idea what they're talking about, their predictions are worthless, and they don't even know if warming is a problem or not. And yet, the sheeple of the western world continue to wring their hands and have strokes at young ages.

Bottom line: 9 times out of 10, if someone has a cause, it's mainly because they want to bullshit you into agreeing with them and/or getting their way. Religion's been workin' that angle for millennium.

And apparently your alternative is socialism; a well regarded failure.

Of course, we got a record *drought* in hurricane country instead. But it's the GLOBAL WARMING (AHH! RUN!) that's causing this. And this line is fed to us by the same yahoos who predicted the record hurricane season.

These chumps are guessing, and they're relying on panic to keep people blind to the fact that they have no idea what they're talking about, their predictions are worthless, and they don't even know if warming is a problem or not. And yet, the sheeple of the western world continue to wring their hands and have strokes at young ages.

Just the same, you have a very poor understanding of Global Warming. If you believed those "yahoos" (good word choice) who predicted the record hurricane season, then you're just blind person following yet another blind person. Like you, the people who predicted that don't understand the slightest thing about Global Warming. Are you also of the understand that the whole planet will get nice and toasty? Not so much. Global Warming results in extreme weather. This is exemplified by hurricane country: a record season one year, followed by a record season on the other end of the spectrum the next. Similarly we had the massive European drought in the summer of '06. Then the winter of '06/'07 Russia got ridiculously cold. Global Warming causes extreme weather on both sides of the spectrum. Not just toasty goodness.

No, I understand global warming just fine. I also understand the *situation* pertaining to global warming quite well.

Guess what? The climate's been changing....

FOREVER!

We're not getting any "extreme weather" right now. None of what is occurring is unprecedented in the geological and climatological history of the planet. It's unprecedented since we've been living in these areas.

It is a major delusion on the part of humanity to assume we can control something as awesome and dynamic as the planet's climate.

We are going to have our effect as a species, the planet will alter, and there is no way we can meaningfully control it.

I offer a solution to people who will be inconvenienced by changing weather:

Move.

There's plenty of real estate getting meterologically more friendly as other parts of the planet are becoming less so.

Upset that you'll have to uproot and adapt to change? I'm sure the planet pities you.

If you believe socialism to be a well regarded failure then you have a very poor understanding of socialism.

Correct. Yet if you'd actually done some research on Global Warming, you would understand that it's changing drastically differently than ever before. Before you bring up some "only since RECORDED weather!" argument, we have plenty of soil samples and glacier cores to prove it. We know what the weather was like perfectly well thousands of years ago.

I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not paying attention to the world weather right now. But just because you don't know it's happening doesn't mean it isn't.

Is it? We control everything else. Take a visit to any major city, then take a nice deep breath. Refreshing? No? Too much smog, huh? There's one example of controlling weather on a small scale. On a larger scale we could talk about all the factories in the mid-west causing acid rain in New England. Then there's all of us driving cars, burning coal and oil, etc. I think it's perfectly conceivable that we're altering our climate.

Are you aware that you just confessed to understanding Global Warming as fact?

I don't think the state of Florida, nor the city of New York will take very kindly to this idea when they're twenty feet underwater. I know I wouldn't.

Well, no. As I said earlier, climates are moving towards one extreme or another. There won't be too much of a middle ground.

Not fact-based at all, but an interesting idea: Perhaps the planet hates us and is trying to get rid of us. Humans are a lot like cancer when you think about it.

Those are goofy things, and Bill O and Rush have far far worse things that they believe in.

Thing is, no one cares about those "causes", not even the people claiming to support them. Do you buy fair trade Gas? Fair trade automobiles? Fair trade everything?

Nah. Too inconvenient. Just get in there when the getting's easy, because then you can pretend you're morally superior. Nice warm fuzzy feeling.

At least I admit I don't care, as opposed to trying to fool myself.

Ok, i understand where all of you are coming from with the fair trade stuff and getting rid of the "imperialist" multinationals such as wal-mart, but those outsourcing multinationals are still providing millions of jobs for people whose own economies could not support them without the outsourced jobs from the US and other larger countries. Ultimately we are helping fight poverty, at the expense of the environment, but people's LIVES dependent on the minimum wage that these factories provide.

You have all seen the commercials of the little children in the third world countries, and the poor conditions they live in, but how many of you have experienced or seen these conditions for yourselves?

Ive been to a third world country. no not for tourism, not to just look around to see what bad conditions they live in, but not do anything. No. I went there to help build a clinic in a town that had a population of over 3000 people living in a completely different 21st century than us. The nearest hospital is a 2 hour's drive in either direction through mountain roads, many of them dont have cars to actually drive, making it near impossible to get to the hospitals that may or may not be able to take care of them. These people along with many others who might even live in worse conditions would kill for the part-time jobs at walmart that you say dont pay enough. They would kill for the opportunity to work in a factory would pay them even a little more than the crops that they make with their own 2 hands.

You people are all concentrating on the wrong issue. Global warming-scientifically proven to be something that is a natural cycle. Thus why we have ice ages that we come out of. I think the ocean levels might have gone up a few inches then too. Instead you need to be concentrating on how to help those in 3rd world countries who dont even have factory jobs that dont pay enough. Why worry about the ones who already have jobs that allow them to eat and feed their families, why not concentrate on bettering the conditions of the ones who dont. hospitals and clinics could be built with the money that you want to give towards giving fair wages for work, thats lives, not comfort.

Try and do something that allows people to live. Im not saying give up everything and go help. Just stop bashing the multinationals for doing something that helps them in their pursuit of money, being that we live in a free enterprise economy and all, and helps others live where they may not be able to because of a surplus of people and a lack of jobs.

I think I'm gonna head to Wal-Mart now and buy some goods made in a third-world sweatshop.

Anyone wanna join?!?