The Danger of Cause-Head-ism

Tennessee Ernie Ford sang a song that I think was called "Fifteen Tons".

Ya move fifteen tons and what do ya get?
Another year older and deeper in debt
St Peter don't ya call me cuz I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.

The song is about the plight of the coal miners in Appalachia in the early 20th century. Coal companies would hire people to work the mines and since these were almost always in very remote areas they would provide housing for the miners for a cost. Basically the miners had to buy their houses from the coal company. The general store was also owned by the coal company as was everything else the miners needed to have but could not produce for themselves. However the companies were careful to have the pricing structure established far above fair prices to ensure that the miners would always be just a little short on their pay and consequently they would borrow money from the company which would be paid out to them in loans notes or coins called "scrip". The miners would borrow money in scrip and would then have it deducted from their pay the end result being that the miners would not only pay all of their wages back to the coal companies but would also borrow money from their employer resulting in a workforce which was not only unpaid but also forever in debt to the company.

The practice is now illegal in America.

However Wal Mart keeps the practice going in other parts of the world, such as China, where workers are compelled to live in company housing and repay to Wal Mart all of their wages which they earn producing textiles for American markets. The workers either live in the company housing or have the cost of doing so deducted from their pay to ensure that they are unable to do anything other than to subsist.

But hey t-shirts at the wally world are $10 for the back-to-school sale.

OK I know I have b---hed about this before but I want to point something out.

I have two friends who recently pointed out to me how much they love Wal Mart while at the same time boldly wearing their cause in direct contradiction to this practice.

The first was a person who declared that Wal Mart was good and Target was bad because Wal Mart was selling the Lady Gaga CD and Target was not. This person took this as a slur against gays, and for all I know it was, and recommended that people should therefore shop at Wal Mart.

The next person was raging against illegal immigrants and how they are hurting the economy and America's workforce as well as putting undue strain on our already over taxed healthcare system.

First. Are we to understand that there is a moral equivalency between Lady Gaga CD's and slavery? If you are so devoted to your cause, and hey I think gay rights is a good one, that you are willing to overlook the grossly evil practices of Wal Mart around the world for the sake of your pet issue being pandered to then you have just given everyone else reason to completely disregard your cause. Because you, by your stance, are declaring loud and clear that you don't actually care about right and wrong you just want your way and damn the consequences. Also Wal Mart has so pathologically discriminated against women that the employees of Wal Mart actually won a class action judgement against the company for sex discrimination. But that somehow is OK too.

So if I get this right, then we are to believe that evil employment practices and discrimination are to be tolerated just so long as it is not I who am being discriminated against, right?

Second. Wal Mart is the largest employer in the USofA and has a long established practice of refusing to pay benefits to their employees. They systematically keep the work hours beneath the threshold where they would be required by law to offer these benefits. Furthermore any and all attempts to unionize Wal Mart have been met with swift and harsh retribution which is why all the meat in Wal Mart is now pre-packaged and there are no butchers there anymore. The result is that the employees of the largest employer in America are forced to to take remedial pay without benefit. This means that they will have to apply for every social aid program which comes down the pike in spite of their employment which means that the free lunches, breakfasts, books, shoes etc that go to schools in your neighborhood probably are not just for illegal brown people but for the children of the person ringing up your milk at Wal Mart. Also the long lines at the emergency rooms and free clinics are also made longer by the persistent refusal of Wal Mart to care for its employees or their children by providing benefits which a generation ago were the norm. And, thanks to Nafta, the subsidized sugar, corn, grain etc which flows freely over our southern border into Mexico has destroyed the agriculture industry in Mexico resulting in the massive influx of dispossessed people coming to America looking for anything to do at all and the having to take the remedial jobs (which apparently are destroying our economy I guess) such as working at Wal Mart which means that their kids are seeking free lunch and free medicine every time they get sick.

So if you have a cause about which you are passionate, and hey passion is good, and you shop at Wal mart, just know that every dollar you spend their either directly or indirectly contravenes your cause in some way and also contributes to evil probably far greater than the one you are trying to prevent.

So try and remember that the next time you plunk down $200 at Wal Mart and b--ch the checker doesn't speak English.

Just thinking.