Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2004 7:22 PM
Subject: [Homestead] Wal-Mart Sovereignty


> Wal-Mart Sovereignty
>
> By CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL
>
> Published: December 12, 2004
>
> Americans claim they favor leaders who understand their wants, have a
track
> record of creating jobs and can be ruthless when required. Sounds like
> Wal-Mart! Maybe that's why, last spring, the Arkansas-based retail
behemoth
> asked the citizens of Inglewood, Calif., to hand it the reins of
> government. When the Inglewood City Council rejected Wal-Mart's bid to
open
> a 130,000-square-foot superstore, company executives did not sulk. They
> disparaged the council as the captive of outside special interests,
> particularly organized labor. And with the help of election professionals,
> they collected more than 10,000 signatures to sponsor a ballot referendum
> to reverse the decision. In the ensuing referendum campaign, the company
> spent more than $1 million to convey the idea that it would create
hundreds
> of jobs and pump up the local tax base. Opponents emphasized what they saw
> as the company's legacy of blighted downtowns and falling wages.
>
> Ultimately, though, voters were most upset by something else: Wal-Mart's
> initiative would have exempted the company from Inglewood's zoning,
> planning and environmental laws and established a provision whereby the
> deal could be altered only by a two-thirds vote of the public. By the time
> voters rejected the initiative at the ballot box in April, this strategy
> had acquired a name: Wal-Mart Sovereignty.
>
> There's nothing new about the urge to turn economic power into political
> power (and vice versa). Misgivings about it aren't new, either. But in
> times of economic transformation, when society renegotiates what is public
> and what is private, the questions that arise get really nettlesome.
Should
> inmates pay their debt to society through the middleman of a for-profit
> prison company? Would you say no even if it meant more criminals on the
> street? Should sports moguls pocket fortunes from publicly financed
> stadiums? Would you say no even if it meant your city lost its baseball
team?
>
> For a long time, Wal-Mart steered clear of such quarrels. It was out of
> sight, out of mind, building retail space mostly on the ahistorical,
> apolitical exurban frontier. But more and more, it is encroaching on
> communities that are more settled -- Inglewood is part of Los Angeles
> County -- more ideological or snobbier. The Inglewood referendum won't be
> the last time voters are invited to trade citizen rights for consumer
> rights -- and no one should make any glib assumptions about which of those
> rights Americans hold more dear.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12WALMART.html
>
***NYT is a little behind the times, this wasn't the first time WallyWorld
tried to buy a city.  We ran them out of town in 1999.  Several other cities
have done the same thing.  There are webpages and attorneys who are
dedicated to keeping Wallyworld out of towns all across the U.S.  The amount
of money they spent in our town worked out to $10,000 for each vote they
got.  Didn't do them much good since over 60% of the folks that voted voted
against them.

Lynda