September 13, 2005
the irony
The shade from the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market sign is minimal around noon; still, six picketers squeeze their thermoses and Dasani bottles onto the dirt below, trying to keep their water cool. They're walking five-hour shifts on this corner at Stephanie Street and American Pacific Drive in Henderson—anti-Wal-Mart signs propped lazily on their shoulders, deep suntans on their faces and arms—with two 15-minute breaks to run across the street and use the washroom at a gas station.
Periodically one of them will sit down in a slightly larger slice of shade under a giant electricity pole in the intersection. Four lanes of traffic rush by, some drivers honk in support, more than once someone has yelled, "assholes!" but mostly, they're ignored.
They're not union members; they're temp workers employed through Allied Forces/Labor Express by the union—United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). They're making $6 an hour, with no benefits; it's 104 F, and they're protesting the working conditions inside the new Wal-Mart grocery store.
Perhaps we should organize some picketers to protest the low wages and harsh working conditions for the anti-Walmart picketers.
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boogiesan
middlemountain
so is conservativism, but not nearly as blatant (which makes it even more vile to some).
Leedar
Pretty funny story, however.
middlemountain
"De facto" liberalism is anything but capitalism.
But I suppose you are using some mangled definition...
<a href="http://www.dictionary.com">www.dictionary.com</a> --> use it.
Leedar
'Liberalism refers to a support for individual liberties and limited government. The term is generally used with a reference to a particular policy area, e.g. "market liberalism" or "social liberalism".'
middlemountain
You've accused me of mangling the word 'capitalism' by using it to refer to an absolutely free society, i.e. the theoretical version of capitalism, as against capitalism de facto.
Now you're getting upset that I'm using 'liberalism' to refer to de facto liberalism. Further, liberalism 'de jure' (which is an improper use of the term, de jure) is such a vague Kantian idea that has no relevance to serious politics.
I guess the mangled definitions are the ones that don't fit your amoral agenda. This I'm assuming, because I'm sure you're not trying assert superiority based on semantics; when it comes to verbal precision, you're owned. English was my first language.
hapy