For millions, Wal-Mart has become synonymous with “buying.” After all if you want to go shopping for clothes you go to the mall, but when you want to go buy clothes — you get my drift. For a long time I was in that crowd, just like everyone else. I went there to buy my socks, my milk, and even my car’s tires. (Biggest. Mistake. Ever.) Not just that, but I also went there for entertainment. After all, there’s nothing like going to a mostly empty Wal-Mart at 2:00 AM with a few of your buddies and having some fun in the toy and outdoor sports section.
But for the past few years, I’ve pretty much been Wal-Mart free. Why? Simple: I don’t like the idea of sending all my money to China. I don’t like buying sub-standard Chinese crap made from American garbage. I don’t like the thought of my money going to support a communist regime. And most of all, I don’t like the fact that the Chinese have so overpowered us with our own trade deficit that they’re now largely in control of whether the US can ever pay of its $8-trillion national deficit. (Yes, I said $8,000,000,000,000. It’s actually $8,178,214,218,900,70 as of this writing, but who’s counting?)
Anyway, a few nights ago I was watching a PBS special titled Is Wal-Mart Good for America? (The link goes to a site where you can watch the whole report online for free.) The report goes behind the scenes to show how Wal-Mart — a company no longer worthy of being called “American” — has become China’s #1 customer, as well as its chief export route to the US. It also shows how the pockets of Chinese export moguls are being lined with the money of the American workers, who in turn are losing their jobs to Chinese workers employed by these very moguls. This practice has, in fact, become so nefariously common that our media is cashing in on the blinding stupidity of middle-class America. (The link goes to JibJab.com which has a video, BigBox-Mart making fun of how American’s are losing jobs to China and bragging about how much they save on all their crap every time they do it.)
If you have even a scrap of patriotism in you, take an hour and watch that report, as well as the video. I guarantee you’ll never look at Wal-Mart (or Target, or any of those stack-em-deep-sell-em-cheap places) the same way again.
Remember Wal-Mart’s “Buy American” campaign? You should. Too bad they don’t.