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Today's Stories October 15 - 17, 2010 Adrienne Pine / October 14, 2010 Mike Whitney Jonathan Cook Dean Baker Marjorie Cohn Stewart J. Lawrence Carl Finamore Dave Lindorff Raúl Zibechi Willie L. Pelote Website of the Day October 13, 2010 Vijay Prashad Uri Avnery Dean Baker Winslow T. Wheeler Patrick Bond Michael Winship Myles B. Hoenig Tom Turnipseed Website of the Day October 12, 2010 Ralph Nader Franklin C. Spinney Mike Whitney Robert Alvarez Deepak Tripathi Chris Genovali / Camilla Fox Harvey Wasserman Robert Jensen Mark Weisbrot Charles R. Larson Website of the Day
October 11, 2010 Michael Hudson Bill Quigley Linn Washington Paul Krassner Jonathan Cook Cal Winslow Sherry Wolf Peter Stone Brown David Michael Green Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day October 8 - 10, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Alain Gresh Patrick Cockburn Rannie Amiri Conn Hallinan Ramzy Baroud Saul Landau Sam Smith Yvonne Ridley Ellen Brown Santwana Dasgupta David Macaray Labor Secretaries: Frances and Elaine Gerald E. Scorse Tony Newman David Ker Thomson Christopher Brauchli Jon Mitchell Kevin Zeese Steven Best Missy Beattie Binoy Kampmark Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini Dave Marsh David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 7, 2010 Franklin Lamb Dean Baker John Ross Ron Jacobs Harvey Wasserman Stanley Heller Gamal Nkrumah John Blair Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 6, 2010 Bill Quigley / Jonathan Cook Jeffrey Sommers Jayne Lyn Stahl Tanya Golash-Boza Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez Guy Bouthillier Alvaro Huerta Don Monkerud Website of the Day October 5, 2010 Stewart J. Lawrence Ghania Mouffok Rape City? The Women of Hassi Messaoud Neve Gordon Ralph Nader Mark Schuller David Macaray Julie Hilden Richard Anderson-Connolly Ahmad Barqawi John Halle Website of the Day
October 4, 2010 Pam Martens Stephen Soldz Jonathan Cook Mark Weisbrot Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Cpt. Paul Watson Sarah Knopp Website of the Day October 1 - 3, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Ray McGovern George Ciccariello-Maher Michael Hudson Franklin C. Spinney Wajahat Ali Saul Landau Ramzy Baroud Rannie Amiri Bruce McEwen Dave Lindorff William Blum David Swanson Sherry Wolf Lawrence Davidson Tanya Golash-Boza John Severino Missy Beattie Belén Fernandez Binoy Kampmark Mohamed Abdel-Baky Elvis Mendéz / David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 30, 2010 Franklin C. Spinney David Macaray Susan Galleymore Michael D. Yates Russell Mokhiber Eric Walberg Mark Weisbrot Charles R. Larson Website of the Day September 29, 2010 Dean Baker Michael Hudson Martha Rosenberg Brian Ehrenpreis Michael Winship George Lakey Patrick Bond Sheldon Richman Website of the Day September 28, 2010 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh & Karla Hansen Jonathan Cook Julie Hilden Russell Mokhiber David Macaray Stewart J. Lawrence Voice for Immigrants Wins Historic Seat Brian McKenna Laura Flanders Linh Dinh Bouthaina Shaaban Website of the Day September 27, 2010 Pam Martens Ron Jacobs Patrick Irelan Greg Moses Dave Lindorff Jayne Lyn Stahl Ahmadinejad Steals the Show, But Citigroup is the Real Culprit Uri Avnery George Wuerthner Wolf Restoration: a Challenge to the Old Guard James McEnteer David Michael Green The Dismantling of Civil Society Website of the Day September 24 - 26, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Ishmael Reed Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Anthony DiMaggio Julien Brygo Rune Engelbreth Larsen Gary Leupp Norman Solomon Shir Hever Ramzy Baroud M. Shahid Alam David Rosen / Rannie Amiri Russell Mokhiber David Macaray Missy Beattie Rich Wiles David Model Harvey Wasserman Jeff Deasy Laura Flanders Jesse Strauss Tom Stephens Binoy Kampmark Going Mad in Delhi Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 23, 2010 Doug Peacock Dana Frank Mark Weisbrot John LaForge Martha Rosenberg Animal Experimentation Funny? Yes, Says This Researcher Jay Arena Alvaro Huerta James Rothenberg Managed Misconceptions Website of the Day September 22, 2010 Conn Hallinan Joanne Mariner Jonathan Cook Ron Jacobs Jonathan M. Feldman Shamus Cooke Michael Winship Anthony Papa Website of the Day September 21, 2010 John Ross Dean Baker Steve Breyman Robert Bryce Yvonne Ridley Jesse Strauss Bouthaina Shaaban Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day September 20, 2010 Michael Hudson Gareth Porter Dave Lindorff / Pam Martens Ralph Nader Stephen Crawford / Marjorie Cohn Lawrence Davidson Steve Early Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day September 17 - 19, 2010 Alexander Cockburn James B. Rule Elizabeth Warren's Challenge: the Banks and Their Protectors Saul Landau / Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Diana Johnstone Rannie Amiri David Rosen Ramzy Baroud Richard Phelps Sheldon Richman Alan J. Singer Margaret Kimberley David Tresilian Missy Beattie Mark Weisbrot Marco Antonio Martínez García Stewart J. Lawrence Linh Dinh Jim Goodman Abdel-Moneim Said An Aesthetic Desert: Egypt's Stolen Van Gogh John Grant Robert Jereski Billy Wharton Shahid Mahmood Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 16, 2010 Laura Carlsen Alexander Cockburn Clancy Sigal Gareth Porter Patrick Cockburn Philippe Marlière Lawrence Davidson The Great Muslim Scare: Here Come the True Believers John Severino Website of the Day September 15, 2010 Mike Whitney Alan Nasser Nelson P. Valdés David Correia Ron Jacobs Saif Shahin Shamus Cooke Michael Winship Mohamed Abdel-Baky Betsy Ross Charles R. Larson Website of the Day September 14, 2010 Kathy Kelly Israel Shamir / Esam Al-Amin Dean Baker Stewart J. Lawrence Benjamin Dangl David Macaray Sheldon Richman P. Sainath Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day September 13, 2010 Michael Hudson Obama's Thatcherite Gift to the Banks Mike Whitney Mark Weisbrot Michael Barker Ralph Nader Michael Dalton Marjorie Cohn Richard Trumka Dave Lindorff David Michael Green Website of the Day |
Weekend Edition New Model, Same Old ThingGreenwashing the Wal-Mart WayBy DAVID CORREIA Wal-Mart announced on Thursday a plan to “focus on sustainable agriculture” and according to the New York Times, “expand its efforts to improve environmental efficiency among its suppliers.” The massive retailer, and now largest grocer in the US, intends to sell locally grown food in their US stores and invest in “training and infrastructure for small and medium-size farmers, particularly in emerging markets” The retailer heralded the change as part of their “sustainability goals,” announced in 2005 in which they pledged to double the fuel efficiency of their massive fleet of trucks, reduce energy consumption in stores and minimize packaging. What does this actually mean? First, it’s a part of ongoing efforts by corporate actors like Wal-Mart to brand “sustainability” as a corporate-friendly term synonymous with productivity, efficiency and maximization. Sustainable means, in other words, whatever Wal-Mart says it means. And in this announcement, sustainable agricultural products mean one thing and one thing only: local. This is smart, of course, because the locavore movement is the bourgeois obsession du jour. And local, in Wal-Martease, means simply anything grown in the same state as the store selling the product. It’s that simple. So, for example, conventionally grown agribusiness-sourced grapes picked in southern California by migrant farmworkers shipped thousands of miles to other California stores via the Wal-Mart fleet of trucks is now ‘sustainable.’ And since few others will ask what this means, particularly the New York Times in their gushing article of October 14 reporting on the announcement, perhaps we should. What does this announcement really mean and what social and environmental cost does Wal-Mart’s new definition of sustainability promise? First, as Cesar Chavez reminded us, the agricultural products we buy from large grocery retailers “come from the work of men and women and children who have been exploited for generations.” According to the California Research Bureau (CRB), “80 percent of U.S. farm workers earn less than $10,000 per year; half earn less than $5,000… wages for entry-level seasonal farm workers averaged $5.22 per hour.” And it’s not just the workers at Wal-Mart suppliers. According to a 2006 study of Wal-Mart labor practices, an average Wal-Mart retail worker averages 34 hours per week and earns, on average, $17,874 per year. That’s a pay rate nearly twenty percent less than the average retail worker, according to some estimates. The Income insecurity of immiseration wages paid to farmworkers means, among other things, widespread housing insecurity. Nearly one million farm workers nationwide lack adequate housing. Many live in shacks on the private property of the farms where they work. And it has become commonplace for California growers to bulldoze farmworker labor camps while at the same enriching themselves from farmworker labor. The CRB found that in California many are forced to live in tool sheds, abandoned automobiles and even under porches. These workers are so exploited, their lives so invisible, their status usually undocumented that they rarely access what social services and health care are available to them. As a result, farmworkers, who work in the second most dangerous occupation in the US, have the lowest rates of health insurance coverage among California workers. According to the CRB, “around 40 California farmworkers die on the job” each year from accidents and heat stroke. But Wal-Mart would have you forget about farm work as brutal and deadly. No, just stamp the bag of grapes “sustainable.” And of course Wal-Mart would consider the brutal exploitation of farmworkers sustainable, after all the exploitation of workers, the source of their enormous profits, is their specialty. In February of 2009 Wal-Mart reported quarterly sales of nearly $108 billion with earnings per share of 96 cents. At the same time they were embroiled in at least 73 class action lawsuits regarding working conditions and labor policies at Wal-Mart stores. The lawsuits included a host of allegations including that managers forced "employees to work unpaid off the clock, eras[ed] hours from time cards and prevent[ed] workers from taking lunch and other breaks that were promised by the company or guaranteed by state laws. Hundreds of thousands of former Wal-Mart employees have joined class action lawsuits alleging that Wal-Mart forced them to work off the clock. In 2004, Michael Rodriguez, an overnight stocker in a Sam’s Club store, was locked in the store, a policy common at Wal-Mart, when he suffered a serious injury. ''My ankle was crushed,'' by an electronic cart driven by another employee he told the New York Times. ''I was yelling and running around like a hurt dog that had been hit by a car. Another worker made some phone calls to reach a manager, and it took an hour for someone to get there and unlock the door.'' He writhed in agony awaiting a manager to unlock the door so he could go to the hospital, a policy Wal-Mart said was necessary to kept people like Michael Rodriguez from stealing from them. Second, Wal-Mart’s new green washing shell game ignores the health effects of large-scale pesticide use. Nearly 1,000 farmworkers in California are poisoned each year from the use of agricultural chemicals. Wal-Mart’s sustainability policies and their laughable “focus on sustainable agriculture” use the mark of sustainability as an attempt to protect the kind of low wage, race-to-the-bottom production that serves as the foundation of their success. So buy ‘sustainably-sourced’ vegetables at any California Wal-Mart and feel good knowing that prolonged exposure to agricultural chemicals raises the risk for lung cancer and other illnesses. Throw a handful of Wal-Mart seedless grapes into your mouth without concern for the fact that, according to a 2003 study of Spanish farmworkers in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the offspring of agricultural workers suffer almost twice the risk of fetal death than offspring of non-agricultural workers. Wal-Mart’s sustainability policies mask the real health and environmental costs of agribusiness and are designed not to transform patterns of production, distribution and consumption (that would only mean less profits after all and who wants that?). So instead their sustainability goals serve to obscure the human costs and environmental consequences of the rapacious pursuit of profits made on the backs of workers. The only thing Wal-Mart’s sustainability policies are sustaining is their continued access to low wage workers toiling in brutal conditions who are eventually, like Michael Rodriguez, sacrificed at the alter of their all important earnings per share. Wal-Mart has joined the crowd and has seized on the new green economy as insurance for their continued growth and expansion. It’s the new model but it means the same old thing. It means sourcing products from huge agribusiness firms who grow monocrops dependent on the heavy use of pesticides and make narrow profit margins by brutally exploiting farmworkers. Bon Appetit. David Correia is a Visiting Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. He can be reached at dcorreia(at)unm(dot)edu.
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