Wal-Mart Drives Democrats BattyThe Left’s dunderheaded broadsides at the nation’s biggest employer.
By Jonah Goldberg
Ned Lamont’s primary victory against Joe Lieberman in Connecticut supposedly represented the triumph of the antiwar, anti-Bush “netroots” within the Democratic party. Alas, our troop presence in Iraq is increasing; it appears Lieberman, running as an independent, will trounce Lamont; and President Bush is having his best week in the polls in six months (which is not quite the same thing as saying he’s doing well in the polls).
So have the Lamonters and other victims of so-called BDS — Bush Derangement Syndrome — been routed? Not quite. Because BDS sufferers have a related secondary affliction: WMDS. This refers not to the unfound weapons of mass destruction but to Wal-Mart Derangement Syndrome. And the Democratic Party is ministering to these patients with reckless abandon.
This bonfire of buffoonery is helping me learn to love Wal-Mart. First, let’s talk politics. More people shop at Wal-Mart every week (127 million) than voted in the 2004 presidential election, according to a company website. They are disproportionately low-income folks who, by some estimates, are collectively saving hundreds of billions of dollars by shopping there.
Full Article (It's worth a read, especially of this is the best these people can offer.
Response:
Dear National Review,
I am concerned for the perceived relevance of NRO regarding your news organization's retention of the services of Jonah Goldberg. His latest article, Wal-Mart Drives Democrats Batty, is proof of Mr. Goldberg's lack of vigilance in participating in the Republican Party's most current political machinations. Supporting such incompetent leaders requires constant adaptation, and "Bush-haters" is so 2003.
This particular political manipulation certainly had its value. If you can effectively characterize critics of the Bush administration as simply having a mental illness, you can discredit everything they say without offering a rational counter argument. After all, why argue with them? They're crazy!
Nonetheless, this talking point has come and gone, despite Mr. Goldberg's best efforts to assist President Bush, who, if poll numbers are any indication, is apparently a rather lonely sane man living in a nation populated by a majority of crazy people. But Goldberg has also decided to lend this particular method of manipulation to his hero of the poor, Wal-Mart.
Mr. Goldberg is certainly an intelligent man; I doubt NRO would publish his work otherwise. But perhaps a consideration of Wal-Mart beyond a brief perusal of the corporation's own website would assist Mr. Goldberg in understanding why an increasing number of Americans are falling under the influence of "Wal-Mart Derangement Syndrome."
If I were under such influence, and hence unable to form rational thought, I might actually wonder how Wal-Mart is able to sell products for such cheap prices. Just in case Mr. Goldberg reads this, I will make the case brief in order not to offend his short attention span (due of course to his highly intelligent and active mind):
Wal-Mart is a colossus of American retail who can use its influence to force producers to sell their products to Wal-Mart at cheaper and cheaper prices. In any business, the highest operating costs are payroll. Therefore Wal-Mart is taking part, albeit indirectly, in the falling American working-class wage. And since Wal-Mart can address nearly all purchasing needs of a community at cheaper prices, local businesses are doomed to fail when Wal-Mart comes to town. When local businesses fold, the profits for doing business no longer stay in the community, but are shipped to Bentonville, Arkansas. As a result, the economies of local communities are depressed as Wal-Mart works to realize its utopia - a nation of small communities in which everyone works at Wal-Mart, earns the small Wal-Mart wage, and can therefore only afford to shop at Wal-Mart.
Mr. Goldberg's unimaginative mind, perhaps stricken with Jonah Goldberg's disease, seems incapable of a train of thought longer than 5 seconds, which can only produce such simple conclusions as: Wal-Mart is cheap, therefore Wal-Mart is good for the poor.
I encourage NRO to more adequately review Mr. Goldberg's work before embarrassing yourselves further.
Yours,
Ian Watson
www.republicandictionary.com
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
