The surplus population

``Are there no prisons?'' asked Scrooge.
``Plenty of prisons,'' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
``And the Union workhouses?'' demanded Scrooge. ``Are they still in operation?''
``They are. Still,'' returned the gentleman, `` I wish I could say they were not.''
``The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?'' said Scrooge.
``Both very busy, sir.''
``Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,'' said Scrooge. ``I'm very glad to hear it.''

-Charles Dickens-


Wall-Mart has of course disassociated itself from Andrew Young’s sleazy denunciation of Arabs and Jews and Koreans or anyone else brave enough to operate a story in some inner-city neighborhoods, but they really couldn’t avoid it or afford to back him up.  It’s bad for business and business is their business, or more accurately, maximizing profit to the detriment of any other ethical, moral or environmental scruple is their business.

To this purpose they are willing to do almost anything to stifle and thwart any discussion of Union organization or any other hint of benefits for their employees, who as we have had pointed out are encouraged to go on public assistance if they can’t live on  Wall-Mart wages as well as forced to work extra hours without overtime. Even Scrooge was more kindly disposed toward Unions than the Waltons.

Andy Young’s words are like so many sticks and stones after all and Arabs, Jews and Koreans among others are used to such abuse, but being forced out of a job and into the Dickensian world of Wal-Mart employment is something anyone can fall into in our strong and dynamic economy. Wal-Mart isn’t giving up on making America more of a fertile field for their kind of Industrial Revolution style exploitation.  They continue to, as the movie Wall-Mart, the High Cost of Low Price claims, use any means at their disposal to resist treating their employees as human beings or to comply with environmental laws.  

Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group that promotes the interests of Wall Mart, not working families, has their own fleet of Swift Boats and is quite willing to engage in the no-holds-barred – no-truth-told tactics of the RNC, Fox News and Ann Coulter.  According to a piece in Raw Story today, Herman Cain, an African-American businessman and radio show host affiliated with the group has posted a column at the opinion website Townhall.com in which he tagged potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidates, among them Sens. Hilary Clinton (D-NY) and Joe Biden (D-DE), as "Hezbocrats ... determined to take down Wal-Mart."  Hezbocrats are, per Cain, a “roaming band of militant guerrillas seeking their party’s 2008 nomination for president”

Some might be puzzled that voting or running for office is a militant act of guerilla warfare, but such is the rhetoric of Cain and such is the rhetoric of the rapacious and irresponsible right.  That which made America the land of opportunity is to them a threat to their new  world order. No grotesque plethora of hyperbole therefore is too much; no slander too scummy.  Wall-Mart’s mouthpiece would, without a doubt or hesitation compare Mother Theresa to Hitler or indeed anyone who suggested anything that cost the Walton family ( or should I call them Wall-Mart Wahabbiyah?) a dime out of their staggeringly huge profits.

"Hezbocrats risk a huge political backlash by drawing horns and a tail on Wal-Mart’s trademark yellow happy face,"  says Cain with a huge grin.  Perhaps he’s right, perhaps not.  Perhaps America now stands for unrestrained exploitation and the end of domestic enterprise.  Then too, it’s possible that the well paid Cain who doesn’t have to deny himself medical care so that his children can eat is wrong and the Republican backed Cleptocracy has a more limited future than he proposes.