A Walmart Story, Part 2

In our previous post, we saw how WalMart moved into  thriving small town and destroyed it with its low prices/low wages business plan, eventually leaving the town an empty shell of its former self,

Now we move to Pt. 2: REBIRTH!

Some years later some starving artists find this empty town with this grand old theater and empty houses. They move in and start making art and telling everybody at Burning Man to come see them. For about a year some truly revolutionary art is created.

Rich's real estate overseer finds these artists on his annual trip to the property and reports to Rich. Rich swings a deal whereby these "artists" can live in his vacant buildings for a modest rent while he still claims them as "vacant" on his taxes.

The following year more artists come, along with folks who love artists and want to be artists. YouTube videos of the spectacular events there get attention from the radical press, which are then picked up by the mainstream media. Art lovers start to come to this town to see the art. Vic works odd jobs for these artists, running to the convenience store to get them coffee. He manages to save up enough money to get a cofe maker and sets up a little coffee stand to cater to these new people coming to see the art. The artists and wanna-be artists set up little shops and boutiques in the vacant storefronts to sell things to each other and the art lovers.

Vic moves into a vacant storefront himself, gets some couches left behind by former residents and sets up a "cafe" where local art is displayed and the new residents hang out.

Rich finds out about all this, and so do local municipalities. Rich knows the gig is up, so he claims innocence, swears that he did not know about this, but he will bring the buildings up to spec for habitation if the municipality can change the zoning from "condemned" to "residential/commercial."

Rich offers official leases to all the people living and working in his buildings. These leases are a lot higher than the rents the people were paying before. Higher even than Bob and Carl were paying when they had shops there. 

Most of the "first wave" of artists can no longer afford to be there and have to move out. They are replaced by more up-scale entrepreneurs and trust fund kids who wear skinny jeans and ironic glasses. Vic takes out a small-business loan to expand cafe and make it really chic. The cafe becomes the social center of the community. The new residents start having kids and raising families. The neighborhood becomes safe and desirable. More people start moving in. There is new construction. The theater (which had closed because the artists who had renovated it were among the first who had to move out) is gutted and renovated into condo lofts.

Big corporations notice the growth of this community and start looking to move in their franchises. Starbucks. Subway. McDonald's. All with specially designed storefronts in keeping with the "hip, artsy vibe" of the new community. Vic's cafe turns out to be in the most desirable spot in town. Rich jacks up his rent again, to a degree that Rich knows Vic can't afford, but a major bank that has been looking for a spot to open a new branch can. Vic holds fundraisers and the remaining artists in town hold festivals to support him, but there is no way he is going to be able to afford the rent, and he closes a month later. In 3 weeks a spanking new Capital One branch opens in its place. Rich provides another storefront with the same rent he had been paying ("Look what I did for you!") in a far less convenient section of town. Vic gives it the "old college try," but the magic is gone, his customers have fled or are now at Starbucks, and he descends into a haze of alcohol and painkillers and PTSD nightmares and is dead before the end of the year.

The local community newspapers (started by third-wave people who had moved in, and which had taken over from those started by the first and second wave which did not survive the new rents) bemoan the "gentrification" of the town and write tributes to the Vic's Cafe as they write "what did it used to be?" articles about the former-theater-turned-condo-lofts and research the origins of the street names.

The WalMart comes along. The residents (most of whom have not been living there for more than three years) fight the new WalMart location in their community with a massive letter-writing campaign to their elected officials and demonstration on the proposed site of the WalMart with sign and banners and music and massive theatrics against the corporate takover of local, thriving communities. WalMart runs commercials about how warm and fuzzy they are and how they help communities. while sending out a mailing of flyers promoting their low prices and "consumer choice."

I understand they are still fighting it out in court.

But at least for now, that is why and how you keep WalMart out of your community.

A Walmart Story, Part 1

A few years ago someone on Facebook did not understand how WalMart cold be bad for a town and why you wold want to fight it. I came up with this two-part story, this hypothetical case, based on various reports, to help explain.

Imagine, if you will, a small town in America. In this town is Bob's Bicycle Shop, right across the street from Carl's Candle Shop. These shops have been around for years, their respective businesses having been passed from father to son for generations. Bob's business began when his grandfather, Buck, opened the store with a GI Bill loan after WWII, while Car'ls ancestors made candles for Colonel Chamberlain during the Civil War (it was such a big deal they named a street after him).

Bob has a son (Billy) who works for him in the bicycle shop, and a wife (Bertha) stays at home and takes care of his daughter, a 7-year old just starting second grade (Betty). He employs Tom, a 19-year-old bicycle expert who builds and repairs custom bikes while saving his money to go to competitions. He has a shot at making the US Olympic team.

Carl has a 20-year-old son (Chris), who is attending the local college, and a 16-year-old daughter (Carrie) works for him in the candle shop, learning the trade in hopes of following in his footsteps. He has a six-year-old son (Connor) who is just about to be big enough for his own bicycle. Carl's wife (Cathy) is a partner in the business.

There is also Rich, a wealthy person who has a mansion just outside of town with a family he supports with his vast wealth, earned through shrewd investments. He is the biggest customer of Bob and Carl.

On the other side of town is Vic, an unemployed wounded veteran just getting by on his pension from the army.

Rich finances a theater company, which produces high-quality shows with out-of-town talent (and occasionally Carrie, Billy, and Chris) in a theater next to the gallery he sponsors that brings in visiting exhibitions of fine art. 

Bob's and Carl's families attend these shows and exhibits often, buying tickets with the money earned through their businesses. This also brings in folks from miles around, who also shop at the bicycle and candle shops.

WalMart moves into town with the help of a three-year tax break from the municipality. They post up "Help 

Wanted" notices in the local paper. Vic needs a job, cleans himself up, and gets hired full-time as a sales associate/stockboy. Bertha figures she could use a little extra money and has free time during the day when the kids are in school and at work, so she applies and gets a part time job as the morning cashier. Chris needs some cash for books and other college expenses so he applies and gets a part-time job as the night shift cashier. They all work for wages below those paid by Carl and Bob to their employees.

Rich sees an opportunity to save money, so he stops buying candles and bicycles at their shops and starts going to WalMart. The reduces the income for both stores. So when Connor's birthday comes around, and Carl wants to get him that bicycle he promised, he can't afford to go to Bob's any more, he has to go to WalMart, where bicycles are cheaper retail than Bob can get them wholesale.

Now Bob is making even less money, so when it comes time to buy those holiday candles he gets every year, he can't afford to get the fine, hand-made candles from Carl, he has to go to WalMart.

So both Bob and Carl go out of business. Now the big breadwinners in their respective houses are Bertha and Connor, who both work part-time. Without the support of his family, Chris will have to choose between either a) increasing his hours at WalMart (if they will let him), b) taking out student loans, or c) dropping out of school altogether.

Fortunately, WalMart has expanded and hires Bob and Carl. So now Bob gets to work in the bicycle department and Carl in the candle department and Cathy becomes the full-time cashier, working alongside Bertha in the morning and Chris in the evening.

Tom's Olympic dreams are put on hold as his savings dribble away as he looks for a bicycle shop somewhere in the country that could use his services.

Since both businesses are out of business, the municipality and state are not getting any business taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, income taxes, or licencing fees from them or their employees. WalMart is enjoying its tax-free status, and the wages it pays are so low, its employees don't have to pay taxes.

Bob and Carl fall behind on their mortgages and are in danger of losing their homes. They can no longer afford the property taxes, either.

The municipality now does not have the money to fix the roads or repair the streetlights, garbage collection goes from weekly to bi-weekly, and the annual 4th of July festival is cancelled for lack of funds.

Now that both families have multiple family members working at WalMart, they have little time to do anything else. 

They apply for food stamps and Medicaid, as they are not able to meet their household expenses on WalMart's pay, which is also too low for them to afford tickets to Rich's theater. Some out-of-towners realize that DVDs at 

WalMart are cheaper than the theater and calendars at WalMart or cheaper than admission to the gallery, so fewer people are going to the theater and gallery.

Rich closes the theater and the gallery for lack of business and moves his family to his Miami house because the town is going downhill. Those few people who were still coming to the town for the theater, gallery, bikes, or candles, stop coming because they are not there anymore. the only people coming to the town are coming to shop at WalMart.

WalMart opens another store in a bigger town nearby. Out-of-Towners stop coming to the WalMart at this town.

WalMart reduces its staff due to lack of business. The last ones in are the first ones out. Mortgage defaults are just a matter of time now.

WalMart closes its less profitable stores and lays off the rest of its employees in this town.

Bob and Carl default on their mortgages, and their homes are foreclosed by the bank (which is partly owned by Rich). they no longer pay real estate taxes, so the school closes.

Now the folks living in this town have no jobs, no savings, no businesses, no capital, and no cash, and the kids have no school to which to go. In good Okie tradition both families pile into the SUV's they got back when they had money, and, just one step ahead of the repo men, head to some big city in a state with generous Public Assistance programs.

Rich chalks up the foreclosed loans as a loss and collects the guaranteed payments by Fannie Mae. The municipality condemns the now-vacant buildings in town.

Vic struggles along on his Army pension, shopping for groceries at the convenience store attached to the gas station down by the intersection of the county road and the state road.

NEXT: Rebirth!

Uniforms and Patriotism

News item: Mississippi Students Upset After 'Patriotic Day' Apparel Flagged
Mississippi Students Upset After 'Patriotic Day' Apparel Flagged

Apparently a school in Mississippi declared Sept. 11, 2013 "Patriotic Day" and said that students could "either wear a white shirt containing an image of the American flag, or their regular school uniform," according to the Huffington Post.

Two students violated that policy by wearing regular T-shirts that said “America, land of the free, home of the brave” and "U.S. Pride." They were told to change their clothes because he shirts did not follow the school dress code, and now the article reports that the school is considering not having a "Patriotic day" next year.

I seldom get inspired to take time out of my day to comment on news articles and such, and most often other people say what I would have said anyway or a simply idiots. I was feeling inspired,this morning, however. Here is my take on the matter (which I also posted in the "comments" section of the article):

Patriotism is fun and all, but WHY are we patriots? "Guess what everybody? You can wear a DIFFERENT SHIRT than you always have to today, so long as it is THIS PARTICULAR SHIRT that we say you can wear!" I really don't get how that helps me understand why I am supposed to feel patriotic about this country. How is this serving the educational message of the school? If discipline is one of the primary educational missions of this particular school, sure, but I don't see anything empirically or intrinsically worthy of patriotism about being allowed to wear a US flag image on your shirt one day out of the year, and the rest of the year you may only wear your school uniform.

If the point of the uniform is to create an atmosphere of...well...uniformity among the student body, then are we to assume that patriots are allowed to express their individuality once a year now? Are those the only individuals that are allowed to express their individuality? Are those who do not wear the flag not patriots? Is no one else allowed to express their individuality on any other day of the year? Is there something special, better, greater about being a patriot as opposed to not being a patriot? Suppose someone wants to keep their patriotism in their hearts (as many do about their religions, for instance), would they be singled out by the "expressive" patriots for ridicule?

I am going to go out on a limb here and say if you want to maintain uniformity and discipline, you can do it: the same uniform, all year long. If you want to allow free expression, you can do that too: no dress code, all year long. I can even accept a "free expression day" in a uniformed school in which everyone is allowed to wear whatever the heck they want (all right, you can add "within acceptable community standards" if you are afraid of someone showing up with "swear words" on their shirt or in non-gender-appropriate underwear). But "Patriotic Day," in which you are "allowed" to wear one specific alternate uniform, especially one that is as loaded with subtext and meaning as the American flag, and nothing else, strikes me as facetious and against both the spirit of the principles behind school uniforms and the First Amendment's guarantee of the freedom of expression.

Thank you.

Disturbing dream about America

I just woke up from the following dream:

I was looking at a map of the United States, and it seems that a few years ago, a chunk of middle American states (mostly the ones stacked north of Texas extending all the way up to Canada) have been defined as areas which should belong to Native Americans. In fact, a big chunk of central Oklahoma and all of Kansas and Nebraska, as well as chunks of Missouri, Iowa, and maybe a little bit of Colorado have been defined as "B. B. B." I'm not sure what that stands for, but they are now an autonomous region administered by Native Americans.

So I was sitting in the window of the kitchen of my mom's old apartment on East 61st Street (only it was on the first floor in this dream, not the 4th floor, as in real life), and there happened to be a very large map of the US on the wall of the building across the street. There was a fight going on in the street over the situation represented by this map. It seemed to just be fistfights and grappling, and no one was getting bloody, so I stayed out of it. But then I saw that one guy, who had his arms held by three others, was just stabbed in the chest with a knife. I actually saw the knife being pulled out of his chest. That's when I reached in my pocket for my phone to call 911. But a police car pulled up right at that moment.

The people fighting started to scatter. I opened the windows so I could tell the cops which way they went, but one guy started advancing to the window, and I closed it, not knowing if he was a plainclothes cop or not.

Eventually I figured out he was, as a cop in a suit came to my window, which I opened. I told them I saw one of the guys who was fighting run around the corner, and that I witnessed a stabbing. The cop in the suit pulled out some papers saying they needed authorization to check my apartment for fingerprints (that fingerprint bit may have been inspired by something I saw in "Rules of Engagement" tonight). Then another guy reached right through the open window to grab something out of the kitchen. I smacked it out of his hand, and it turned out it was Woody Allen.

There was a little bit of discussion about checking the apartment, as I was sure no one came in from the street, and I wasn't comfortable with cops tromping through the place.

The theme of this dream, the fighting over the situation in America where a big chunk of it is given back to the Native Americans, was probably inspired by a debate I have been having on Facebook. It seems there is a guy who got an advertising circular from a used car dealer that included the words "Se Habla Espaniol! Trabajamos Con Tax ID!" He posted a picture on his FB page of the circular with that phrase circled in red and a yellow sticky that read "Bob- We live in America! We speak ENGLISH! 'NO BUENO!' You have permanent (sic) lost my future business."

This picture was followed by a bunch of supportive remarks, leading to accusation of a "Socialist Agenda" by the Obama administration, etc, etc, etc., and saying that this car dealer was not "pro American."

I found this quite disturbing. What's the big deal? So the car dealer speaks Spanish. In my America, we have the right to speak whatever language we want, and it is simply good business to be able to speak the language of potential customers.

Apparently there are bunches of people (some who call themselves a "silent majority") who really don't want people to use languages other than English here. Spanish seems to be the biggest target around here. Some of them are spouting a psuedo-Aristotlian quotation, "Tolerance is the last virtue of a decaying society" (which sometimes appears as "Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a decaying society" and sometimes it's "...decadent society"). Most of them are hollering "You're in America, SPEAK ENGLISH!"

They are actually taking offense at advertising and public signage that is not in English. They say that anything that makes it easier for someone who doesn't know English to get around and get along is hurting this country. They are calling for boycotts of businesses that speak Spanish (and presumably other languages). Some of them even admit, proudly, to defacement of advertisements in Spanish.

Another common theme among them is the stories of immigrants who came to America because they wanted to be Americans and learned English right away and assimilated. Assimilation with American society is a big thing among these folks. They claim that all these "push #2 to hear this message in Spanish" stuff is coddling lazy people who don't want to be Americans.

They claim that because the Founding Fathers spoke English, and the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were written in English, that no other language should be used in this country. They point out that a common language help commerce and gives a sense of unity.

Now I grew up in New York City, a multi-ethnic town with lots of neighborhoods loaded with non-English signage. I never saw it as any sort of threat to American society or as something not "pro-American." Heck, thanks to the signage, I know that "no se apoye contra la puerta" means "do not lean against the door." I had bi-lingual friends, and went to school right near Spanish Harlem. Half my high school was Asian. There was always a Spanish TV station or three on the dial. So to hear objections to businesses that speak Spanish and non-English signage and advertisements is to hear objections to the world in which I grew up. It sounds like they are objecting to my friends.

It is not a very far jump from boycotting businesses and defacing billboards to throwing rocks through windows and attacking store owners. Should restaurateurs refuse to serve people who speak Spanish while they are eating? Should Telemundo, Telefutura, and Univision be shut off the air? Should foreign-language newspapers be banned? Should we have education camps for non-English speakers?

This sounds like fascism. Yes, I am saying that, Fascism. Does Krystalnacht ring a bell? To get rid of all non-English advertising and signage would take an effort much like that. There are too many people in this country, citizens, immigrants, residents, visitors, and tourists, who enjoy speaking their native tongue or the language of their parents and grandparents to make the enforcement of English possible through boycotts and nasty letters alone.

If anyone wants to get ahead in this country, they are going to have to know English. But if they want to increase their customer base, it won't hurt to learn any other languages that happen to be in use in their neighborhood, or for that matter, the languages of any tourists or foreign visitors (such as students) that may come through their neighborhood. Market forces will lead to a common language being used. That is the history of language. Sure, we could force English Immersion on them, but the vehemence with which this message of "English first" is being spewed does not convince me that it would be done in a helpful and supportive way.

Furthermore, language is the preserver of a culture. Different languages, and different cultures, have different ways of seeing things, different values, different tastes, different aesthetics. Having a variety of cultures gives us a variety of ways of looking at the world and a variety of choices in dealing with the world. Just as you would want to eat different foods at different times of the day, it is beneficial to have the availability of different outlooks on the world. You may find one day that what you have learned is not helping you with your current situation. If there is someone else who has a different outlook with you, they might be able to provide a solution.

I find that permission and support of variety and diversity is a strong unifying influence. It is the promotion and effectiveness of that ideal that has carried these United States through a Civil War and a couple of World Wars (despite the hypocrisy of the sentiment at the time, what with things like Jim Crow laws, Japanese-American internment camps, Indian reservations, etc). There are few things that will anger a person like saying they cannot do something that they enjoy doing. One's right to say something, in any language they choose, seems far more worth fighting for than forcing people to speak only one language.

That psuedo-Aristotlean statement above does not hold true when you notice that ancient Rome, a society that was very tolerant and diverse, lasted for a thousand years, while the 3rd Reich, a society defined by its intolerant unity, barely lasted a decade.

So it's quite possible that this debate inspired my dream of fatal stabbing in a fight under a map of the US in which several mid-American states were given back to the Native Americans. I have no idea why Woody Allen was in there.