Archive for the 'Wednesday' Category
September 1st, 2010 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
Back in December of 2006, after we opened our P.O. Box in Model City, New York, we received our first piece of junk mail, the kind of junk mail that makes us believe in a god of irony (okay, we don’t actually believe in a god of irony, but, well, sometimes we find it difficult to rule it out): a circular from Wal-Mart. Not just any flyer, mind you. This one promised, amongst other things, “instant savings,” “the season’s best savings,” and “brilliant holiday savings.”
At Progressive Wednesday, we’re all about saving and even savings, but we’re also about taking action to protect our tax dollars, our families, our environment, our safety, and our small businesses. And we could use your help. It’s time to stop the Walton family from harming our country far, far, far more than it helps (since, you know, it essentially doesn’t help us at all). It’s time to downsize Wal-Mart.
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Make Progress:
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Watch:
To witness an even-handed and wonderfully heartbreaking documentary, check out the PBS Frontline flick Is Wal-Mart Good for America? by clicking here. It’s conveniently broken into five segments, so you don’t even need to watch the whole thing straight through. You can watch ten minutes, then fix a sandwich (we dig Monte Cristos, by the way). You can watch another ten minutes worth, and then buzz your grandma (she misses you and you never call). You get the picture.
While this film filled us with pit-bull rage, it also left us feeling empowered. We realized that we could change things in our own small ways, because, despite what Wal-Mart would like you to think, we aren’t actually a bunch of wishy-washy wimps when we come face-to-face with even the largest, richest, and arguably most despicable, American company.
After watching the film, maybe take the time to send an email from the Frontline page to three friends (the email link is on the far left margin of the page). You might indicate which section you thought was the most interesting, so that folks could just take a few minutes to educate themselves about Wal-Mart and the ways it harms America’s hard-working families.
You can always click the Share button at the bottom left-hand corner of this post and email from there.
There are even more videos you could tell your pals about from the folks at Wakeup Wal-Mart.
Why do you want you to watch these films? Why do we want you to get your friends to watch these films? Because, quite frankly, we want everyone to stop shopping there until Wal-Mart radically changes its ways.
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Stop:
We ain’t never claimed to be perfect, people (read all about it in our FAQ), and we’ll never do so. And we’ll admit it: we’ve shopped at Wal-Mart; we’ve shopped at Sam’s Club.
There are few powers our general citizenry possess to fight major conglomerations, at least not many that don’t involve our arrests. But there’s always the b-word, and we don’t mean bulldogs or bananas or bills or baklava; we mean boycott, baby, boy-cott.
So we’ll also promise this: barring a fluke of nature or tequila-induced drunkenness, we’ll never shop at any Wal-Mart owned company again. If you haven’t already, please consider joining us. There will be very few times where we beg at Progressive Wednesday. But we do beg of you: stop going there. Wal-Mart isn’t saving you money, both in the short term or the long term.
So quit cold turkey, because shopping in bulk does seem like some kind of addiction. And how many three-gallon tubs of mayo do we really need?
But here’s the deal–today, this Wednesday or whenever you’re reading this–try to convince one other person to stop. A little ways down this page, we’ll provide you with additional resources to educate yourself or educate this other person. Explain to them gently what you’ve learned and how disgusted you are with the company.
Or click the Share button at the bottom of this post, and email them this Wednesday’s info.
And now we’ve arrived at the big question: where should we shop instead? Well, we don’t exactly have the answer to that because we don’t know where you live. But here are three suggestions:
- Whenever possible, buy American products.
- Shop locally at privately owned businesses that care about the planet. You can always try the Yellow Pages online. (Remember: to cancel getting the hard copy just click this sentence.)
- Only buy items of significance or necessity; stuff doesn’t make us happy. (If you’ve got to read it to believe it, check out this University of Colorado study or this CNN article.) Of course, Progressive Wednesday stuff will bring ebullient joy to your life whether you’re 9 or 99.
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Write:
We believe that one of the most powerful ways to make progress is to be the voice of progress and to state your case publicly. One of the most effective means of doing this is writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper. (For advice on writing letters to the editor, check out our brief tool or our full tool.) We’d like to encourage you to write one of two different letters.
1. If there’s a Wal-Mart in your area, we’d like you to consider writing a letter that tackles one of the following topics:
- Wal-Mart fails to be a good steward of the environment. The EPA has consistently fined Wal-Mart, including a 2004 penalty to the tune of $3.1 million for violating the Clean Water Act.
- Wal-Mart costs tax-payers billions of dollars in subsidies from state and local governments. And according to a recent study, “more than 90 percent of the company’s distribution centers have been subsidized.“
- Wal-Mart “bulldozes” local businesses. A recent decade-long Iowa State University study has shown that “some small towns lose up to 47% of their retail trade after ten years of Wal-Mart stores nearby.“
- Wal-Mart hurts hard-working families. Besides violating family leave laws and forcing employees to work off the clock, there’s this: in 2006 Wal-Mart was found liable of (of all things) meal break violations; the court ruling dictated that Wal-Mart had to fork over $172 million.
- Wal-Mart violates child-labor laws. In 2002, thanks to the 1,436 child labor infractions Wal-Mart committed in Maine alone, the Maine Department of Labor levied the largest fine in state history for violating child labor laws. And in 2005, the Department of Labor fined Wal-Mart because the company permitted teens to operate “hazardous equipment such as a chain saw, paper bailers and fork lifts.” (We know, we know: this sounds made up. Follow the link: it ain’t.)
- Wal-Mart, the largest corporation and private employer in the United States, knowingly hires illegal immigrants. Check it out for yourself.
- Wal-Mart does not view, treat, promote, or pay women as equals to men. Read about it by clicking this sentence.
We think these frames are strong as well, so feel free to use our language. You might ask readers why Wal-Mart is so morally irresponsible. You can find other talking points and info here and here and here and here. The thing is, you’re going to want to localize the problem of Wal-Mart in your area so you can better reach the audience. You might express concern that one of the problems you read about in the above links might happen in your area.
As we mention in our letters to the editor how-to tool, we recommend offering a solution. This solution might be urging folks to support local businesses and to stop shopping at Wal-Mart. You can probably come up with solutions of your own.
2. If there’s not a Wal-Mart in your area–after you thank your luckiest of stars–we’d like to suggest writing a letter expressing how grateful you are, and how much you’re hoping it will stay that way. You might want to pick one of the aforementioned topics to explain why you feel this way.
If you’re swamped and still want to yawp a bit to your community, there’s a simpler approach to writing a letter to your local newspaper’s editors. Wakeup Wal-Mart has a section of their webpage dedicated to just such writing. You choose the topic you’d like to address, select your state, click on your newspaper or newspapers, and then tweak your letter.
We applaud the ease of this, but find that more personalized letters have a better shot of getting published (though you could easily add some personal narrative to the form letter they’ve created). We also think it’s good to get into practice writing letters, as they play an integral role in making progress.
One last thing to keep in mind: the opinion section of a newspaper is actually the most read section of the newspaper. You read that right.
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Donate & Replace:
This act of progress is really pretty straight-forward. We’d like to suggest you donate just one thing (though a dozen would be even better) which you don’t need or don’t want or dig but want to update somehow, and, if you have to, replace it with something else used or something new.
This will achieve several aims. By helping others in poverty, you very well might help reduce the odds someone else will to go to Wal-Mart. And you’ll help another person in need. And you’ll help the economy by making a purchase. And you’ll help small businesses or blue-collar American workers or both when you replace the item or items with something not sold at Wal-Mart. And you can even get a tax break for your donation. It’s one of the gifts that keeps giving and giving and giving and….
Here’s how donations help Salvation Army. Here’s how to find a Salvation Army near you.
And what to buy? And where? You’ll find a few links and ideas in the Stop section of this Wednesday topic, but below you’ll find even more of our favorite progressive venders:
Editor’s Note: Think Target’s better? Maybe so. But we read that they recently donated over $150,000 to help support a candidate running for governor in Minnesota who has taken a strong stance against gay rights. (As an aside, Best Buy recently donated $100,000 to support the same regressive candidate.) What is Target doing to rectify this? Like cowards, they’re just shutting up.
Want to help make marriage equality for all a reality in a country who supposed ethos is to offer equal rights to all? Consider making even the smallest of donations to the Human Rights Campaign.
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Sign:
Talk about an easy way to make some progress: ask Wal-Mart to hold itself to moral responsibility. How? Sign this message to Wal-Mart, then print, sign, and send the letter to the C.E.O. of Wal-Mart.
You can also sign up for more information about Wal-Mart here.
You might also consider printing this letter, signing your Jane or John Hancock at the bottom, and sending it off to your local and state legislators. If they use the resources at Wal-Mart Watch, they’ll be better at waging a strong fight against this unethical company.
Your voice matters in a very real way. The goal is to reach a tipping point so that we can have more progress made.
March 19th, 2008 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
We aren’t at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our soldiers are.
Both wars individually have gone on longer than the U.S. involvement in the War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Persian Gulf War. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for either.
Our fellow Americans are sweating and dodging, not just bullets, but bombs in the desert and on our behalves.
We know some of them personally. We miss them. We want them home.
You might be thinking: There’s nothing I can do to help stop the wars. That’s too big for me to tackle. We respectfully disagree, but that’s not the problem we’re talking about this Wednesday.
We owe our soldiers more than we can repay them. That’s the problem.
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Make Progress:
Diane was a student of mine at Ohio State. During the autumn quarter, Diane asked to be excused one Friday. Why? Because she was going to marry her boyfriend before he was shipped off to Iraq. Most of my students asked for time off because their friends needed to be bailed out of jail or because their Great Aunt conveniently died for the seventh time right before a paper was due. So, Diane’s request couldn’t possibly be refused. And she and her one-and-only did indeed wed.
After winter break, Diane signed up to be in another of my writing courses. This quarter, she seemed transformed. Some days she’d be filled with a kind of bubbly hope, the kind you see in people truly in love. Other days, she’d snap at fellow students, fall asleep in class (surprising since it started at 2 pm), and miss office hours appointments she’d scheduled with me. While discussing one of her papers, she started crying, dropped the paper in the trash can, and slowly walked out of the room backwards.
Come spring, I could tell Diane was a wreck. She pulled me aside on the second day of course to ask if it was okay if she left class every once and a while. I thought this was strange because my students never had to ask to go to the restroom, grab a snack, or get a drink of water. Hell, they could even take off for a minute or two to stretch if they needed to. “I need to leave sometimes,” she said, “to go outside and cry.”
And she did. Often. I’d say at least twice a week. Of course, she also missed at least one class a week. As the quarter moved along, Diane would forget to turn in assignments completely or would just turn in one page for a five-page essay. She’d pop by my office hours just to talk about the latest letter she’d received from her husband. She’d ask me to read them. Over the course of the year, I watched her weight dramatically drop to unhealthy levels.
Summer came and went, and the next autumn I saw Diane on campus the first day of classes. She smiled at me with her lips. I assumed her husband had returned. He hadn’t.
“I got divorced,” she told me. “I just couldn’t take it any more. I love him. But it stopped being worth it. The love, I mean.”
This is a cost of war. This is one side of war.
But this Wednesday, five year anniversary of the War in Iraq, we’re going to look closely at war from the other side. Please, we know it’s easier to do, but don’t look away.
February 27th, 2008 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
The first years of my memory are of Niagara Falls. We lived on Orchard Parkway in a tiny second-floor house apartment. And as I grew up in the surrounding area, I learned to think of my hometown as the honeymoon and suicide capital of the world.
I grew up with daredevils risking life, limb, and the lives and limbs of their rescuers, by plummeting in various contraptions over the Horseshoe Falls. I saw news reports of poor fools who fell and drown to their deaths on kayaks and jet-skis as they tried to conquer the cataracts. I watched national television coverage of the lawsuits connected to Love Canal, a neighborhood that was the site of one of the worst toxic-waste-dumping scandals in American history.
My first job, as a bakery assistant, was in Niagara Falls at the headquarters of Di Camillo Bakery, a family business still thriving in this city. And I watched as department stores and jewelry stores and restaurants evaporated from Main Street, turning the road into an assortment of seedy bars, adult novelty stores, and boarded up buildings, each empty as the pockets of the homeless wandering the city. And I watched as the factories closed their doors, and added good, hard-working souls to the unemployment lines– ¦.
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Make Progress:
But I also grew up next to a place where people teem to see one the natural wonders of the world. And I grew up in an area where my relatives worked the bluest-collar of jobs, but managed to put lasagna on the table (we're good Italian-Americans, after all). And I grew up where my grandfather landed after traveling the Atlantic to move to America, the same city where my father was raised and remained, the same city where my sister got married. And I grew up next to one of the marvels of electrical science, the Niagara Power Project.
And so I believe in this place. And I love this place. And it's time we all helped this treasure of not just New York, but of America, and not just of America, but of the world. We're ready, if you are, to make progress in Niagara Falls.
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Editor’s Note: Below you’ll find photos of some of our favorite locations in the city of Niagara Falls.
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The Little Italy neighborhood and business district.
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The genius that is the Niagara Power Project. To learn more about it, click here.
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Di Camillo Bakery, where they make the best Italian bread you’ll ever eat.
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The Niagara River in autumn (if it wasn’t obvious from, you know, the leaves).
February 13th, 2008 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
As the polls closed on Election Day 2004, I watched the state-by-state results eek in from the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Columbus with a thousand other volunteers, including Jerry Springer, the former mayor of Cincinnati, and Eric, who'd road-raged his way down from Rochester, New York, in his rusty and rust-colored – ˜86 Monte Carlo, to lend a hand for the final few days. I bit my nails to the quick and pulled and twisted at my goatee. The news seemed grim.
And so, the war would rage on. And the poor would increasingly fight it. And our broken health care system would cause more bankruptcies. And monolithic business would rule instead of wise environmental stewardship. And I felt too guilty to sleep. But it was that night, and deep into the morning, that Eric and I came up with the idea of Progressive Wednesday, a new way to empower people when there weren't elections, and hell, even when there were. And it was that night we decided that helping to fix the election process would be at the top of our Wednesday list.
Two weeks later, I attended a public hearing with sworn testimony by Franklin County residents reporting voter suppression, fraud, and the inequitable distribution of voting machines in both poor and predominately African-American districts, which made 2004 Ohio seem a little too much like 1960 Mississippi.
Since I'm not a Democrat, I now deeply question why I didn't just support a so-called “third-party– candidate like Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate, or David Cobb, the Green candidate. But my experience helped me question, even more, the process by which we select our elected officials and the ways we decide whom to give our vote. I imagine I'm not alone.
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Make Progress:
We'll definitely be returning to this topic time and time again, because it's intensely complicated and similarly significant to not just our rights as Americans, but to what we value as a human right. What follows, then, is a beginning. Consider the starter's pistol fired.
Bookmark:
It's a little bit difficult to describe Project Vote Smart in 304 words, but here goes:
- This non-profit uses oodles of volunteers (from the right and the left) to examine “voting records, campaign contributions, public statements, biographical data (including their work history) and evaluations of them generated by over 100 competing special interest groups.–
- In addition, they “test each candidate’s willingness to provide citizens with their positions on the issues they will most likely face if elected through the National Political Awareness Test.– In other words, they see if candidates will openly, directly explain what they stand for — a tall order in some instances.
- You can also use Project Vote Smart to learn about judges, congressional legislation, voter registration, polling locales, ballot measures, and lots and lots of accurate et cetera.
- The Project also offers up a Voter's Self-Defense Manual, a must-read for progressives of any political ilk. The booklet can be downloaded as an Acrobat file, or you can order one by giving them a jingle: 1-888-868-3762.
- They are truly bipartisan: “No one can join the Project’s board without a political opposite.– And whose served on the board? Carter, Ford, Dukakis, McCain, McGovern, and Goldwater, to name a few.
- They don't take cash money from special interests. To quote: “We do not accept contributions from any corporations, labor unions, or other organizations that lobby, support or oppose candidates or issues.” The money comes only in the form of donations by individuals (70%) and philanthropic foundation grants (30%). Plus, 83% of their funds go directly into their programs and content.
- U.S. News and World Report has this to say: “Project Vote Smart would make the Founders weep with joy.– The New York Times pointed out that the Project kicks so much tail that “even the Federal Government recommends it.–
- This service — this wonderful, wonderful service — is completely free.
Want to read more? Go check it out for yourself. Then bookmark it. You'll want it down the road: we guarantee it.
We'd also like to ask you to give some love in the form of greenbacks to this incredibly worthy, dare we say essential (okay, we dare), this essential cause. Even if giving means three bucks. Here's the beauty of your generosity: not only do you help out this organization whose sole purpose is to help you as a voter, but your gift is tax-deductible, and you can choose how the money is spent. So give a little and have them spend it wisely.
But remember to bookmark it, baby, remember to bookmark it.
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Call:
This sucker might come as a shock, but the Constitution does not guarantee American citizens the right to vote.
We'll give you a second to reread that sentence. Okay, now that we've got your attention we'll give you all the support we need to prove it to you. In the Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore, the Court ruled: “The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States.– We think, well, we think this is a load of crap, and not cute little rabbit pellets– ¦ no, we're talking a dump truck full of nasty elephant waste.
We'd like you to take five minutes right now, immediately after reading this, and call your Senators (take a peek and make sure your boss ain't lingering around). Just click this sentence to find a list of all the Senators with phone numbers for each. Here's what we'd recommend saying:
- “I'm a voter from [name your state], and I'm outraged that there's no Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing my right to vote. If Senator [last name] wants my vote the next time [he or she] is up for reelection, then [he or she] will introduce or support legislation that would guarantee this basic American right.–
Be sure to thank them for their time.
If such an Amendment existed, folks could sue states for voter fraud, suppression, a lack of equal protection, and faulty machines or a lack of functioning ones. There are 7,800 different election jurisdictions. This adds a lot of variables. If there was a Constitutional Amendment, there could be a universal voting system for all elections. Fairness. That's what we're talking about here. Accountability. Equality. A more perfect union.
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Write:
Even though we're far, far away from the next national elections, we think it’s more apropos to deal with this topic well before November, which is, of course, National Pomegranate Month.
Okay, here's the main idea of our letter-to-the-editor campaign: Our fellow Americans, Election Day should be a national holiday.
Now, it's hard to argue with a day off (though we're sure the workaholics out there could give it a shot). But we think for the sake of the U.S. of A., voters deserve a greater opportunity to choose what goes down.
Here are some talking points for ya to use and morph and personalize and localize to your heart's content:
- Election Day is an excellent way to emphasize the importance of community.
- As a holiday, we'd be reaffirming the cultural significance of voting.
- Voting was a central catalyst behind the founding of the country.
- Voter turnout in the United State for presidential elections ranks 65th in the world. Democracy deserves better. Common sense dictates that a holiday would raise voter turnout.
- Most workers paid hourly can't afford to take time off work to vote.
- Polls in some states close as early as 7 p.m., further limiting turnout.
- Long lines wouldn't seem as daunting since folks wouldn't need to hustle back to work.
- Election Day is already a holiday in Puerto Rico.
Here's a link to the newspapers throughout the country to help you find the address and specific requirements to the daily “Extra, extra, read all about it!” in your community. You can always check out our How to Read Newspapers tool. Also, you might want to take a gander at our How to Write Letters to the Editor tool, both in brief and in full.
Read:
Adopting Election Day as a national holiday and banging out a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote seem like two it's-about-time steps in the right direction.
There's got to be more we can do to help out so-called “third parties– and their very qualified candidates. Third parties deserve a greater voice in our country, and having more voices, more opinions, and options seems incredibly American to us. Two-party domination seems a bit archaic, a bit undemocratic.
There are several suggestions out there for ways to change the ways we vote and the ways third party candidates get treated on ballots. These ideas include:
We'll be returning to the topic of election fixes in the future, and we're curious what your thoughts are about each of the various options. After you read about each, let us know what you think by leaving a comment or by contacting us. Let us know which you prefer, which you have questions about. Your comments will help us decide which ones to support down ye ole road. So, thanks in advance.
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Wear:
Okay, this one's easy enough. We'd like to encourage you to plunk down a few bucks, snag yourself this t-shirt, and wear it around all year long (taking it off occasionally to shower, make the love, and maybe even wash it here and there). Sport it when you head to the grocery, the gym, the Grand Canyon. (Speaking of the Grand Canyon– ¦.)
This is a way to send an honest and constant message. Plus the word “vote– is bad-ass as Mr. T and drop-dead gorgeous as Rita Hayworth. Since you're reading Progressive Wednesday, we're confident you're a little bit of both, too.
February 6th, 2008 by Progressive Wednesday
The facts and only the cold hard facts:
- According to the United Nations, “about 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes.”
- 36.9 million Americans live in poverty, and that’s more than the population of California. 13 million of those Americans are children, and that’s more than the populations of New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New Mexico combined.
- A study conducted by Tufts University indicates that “mild under-nutrition experienced by young children … may lead to reductions in physical growth and affect brain development.”
So let’s do something from the relatively wealthy comfort of our computers.
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Watch:
Below you’ll find a video of Bono, the front man for the band of bands, U2. In case you weren’t aware, this Nobel Peace Prize nominee (2003, 2005, 2006) has dedicated a huge chunk of his life battling poverty throughout the world. A large portion of his efforts has to do with eradicating so-called “third world” debt, and the organization he founded with Bobby Shriver, DATA, recently joined forces with 10 other groups to form the ONE Campaign, whose motto is “The Campaign to Make Poverty History.” ONE, we ought to mention, is a grassroots organization partially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
So we’ve found a video of Bono speaking about AIDS, poverty, and other pandemic diseases at the 2008 World Economic Forum. We find his words, though at times critical of the Western world, ultimately inspiring, as they were the impetus behind this week’s Wednesday. We hope you have a similar reaction to his words of innocence and experience.
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Quiz:
Okay, I’ve got to say it: this is the weirdest way to combat poverty that I’ve ever seen, but it’s fascinating and effective nonetheless.
Here’s how the site works: you take a vocabulary quiz, and for each correct answer you give, “20 grains of rice” are donated to poor people through the United Nations World Food Program. You might be thinking: “20 grains of rice? Seriously guys? That’s it?” Well, consider this, buckaroo: in the four months of Free Rice’s existence, “the site’s creator has given over $250,000 to the [World Food Program].” Keep this in mind, as well: that’s one billion grains of rice. And this sucker is a non-profit raising money through advertising.
So, the benefit here is twofold: you increase your vocabulary, which can only help you at work, or help you land a job, or help you ace the SAT or GRE; you donate food without doing much more than exercising your brain. (Just click the logo above to start playing this game that helps save lives.)
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Click:
Okay, people. This one's easy as a fried egg given one spatula flip. All you've got to do is give two clicks. First, click this sentence to be taken to the Hunger Site (you can read more about this organization here). Then click the button that reads “Click Here to Give — it’s FREE!– on that page. There – ” you've just help feed those suffering in poverty you generous little devil you. According to the site, over the past seven years “more than 300 million visitors have given more than 500 million cups of staple food.–
This website is run by the good folks over at Charity USA, a for-profit organization that funds health care, animal, literacy, and ecological reform through advertising. If you purchase gear, you can help raise even more of the green. We’ve previously written about the Rainforest Site, Breast Cancer Site, and Literacy Site, and trust us when we say that we’ve researched the hell out of this, vetted it more than a Vice Presidential candidate, and it's completely legit.
December 5th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
A scant few weeks after we opened our P.O. Box in Model City, New York, we received our first piece of junk mail, the kind of junk mail that makes us believe in a god of irony (okay, we don't actually believe in a god of irony, but, well, sometimes we find it difficult to rule it out): a circular from Wal-Mart. Not just any flyer, mind you. This one promised, amongst other things, “instant savings,– “the season's best savings,– and “brilliant holiday savings.–
At Progressive Wednesday, we're all about saving and even savings, but we're also about taking action to protect our tax dollars, our families, our environment, and our small businesses. And we could use your help. It's time to stop the Walton family from harming our country more than it helps. It's time to downsize Wal-Mart.
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Make Progress:
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Watch:
To witness an even-handed and wonderfully heartbreaking documentary, check out the PBS Frontline flick Is WAL-MART Good for America? by clicking here. It's conveniently broken into five segments, so you don't even need to watch the whole thing straight through. You can watch ten minutes, then fix a sandwich (we dig Monte Cristos, by the way). You can watch another diez minutos, and buzz your grandma–she misses you and you never call. You get the picture.
While this film does fill us with pit-bull rage, it also leaves us feeling empowered. We realized that we could change things in our own small ways, because, despite what Wal-Mart would like you to think, we aren't actually a bunch of wishy-washy wimps when we come face-to-face with even the largest, richest, and arguably most despicable, American company.
After watching the film, maybe take the time to send an email from the Frontline page to three friends (the email link is on the far left margin of the page). You might indicate which section you thought was the most interesting, so that folks could just take a few minutes to educate themselves about Wal-Mart and the ways they harm America's hard-working families. You can always click the Share This button at the bottom left-hand corner of this post and email from there.
If you dug this documentary (though “dug– might be too generous a word), you might want to check out The Wal-Mart Movie, a flick by Robert Greenwald, who's produced several other charged and progressive movies. This one takes a more sharply critical eye to the company than does the PBS program. You can buy the sucker here or check out the trailer first:
There are even more videos you could tell your pals about from the folks at Wakeup Wal-Mart.
Why do you want you to watch these films? Why do we want you to get your peeps (that's right, we said “peeps– ) to watch these films? Because, quite frankly, we want everyone to stop shopping there until they change their ways.
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Stop:
We ain't never claimed to be perfect, people (read all about it in our FAQ), and we'll never do so. And we'll admit it: we've shopped at Wal-Mart; we've shopped at Sam's Club.
There are few powers our general citizenry possess to fight major conglomerations, at least not many that don't involve our arrests. But there's always the b-word, and we don't mean bulldogs or bananas or bills; we mean boycott, baby, boy-cott.
So we'll also admit this: barring a fluke of nature or tequila-induced drunkenness, we'll never shop at any Wal-Mart owned company again. If you haven't already, join us. There will be very few times where we beg at Progressive Wednesday. But we do beg of you: stop going there. Wal-Mart isn't saving you money, both in the short term or the long term.
So quit cold turkey, yo, because shopping in bulk does seem like some kind of addiction. And how many three-gallon tubs of mayo do we really need? (The answer rhymes with “hero.– )
But here's the deal–today, this Wednesday or whenever you're reading this, try to convince one other person to stop. We'll provide you with additional resources to educate yourself or the educate this other person. Explain to them gently what you've learned and how disgusted you are with the company. Or click the “Share This– button at the bottom of any of these posts, and email the sucker.
And now comes the big question: where should we shop instead? Well, we don't exactly have the answer to that because we don't know where you live. But here are three suggestions:
- Whenever possible, buy American products.
- Shop locally at privately owned businesses. You can always try the Yellow Pages online.
- Only buy items of significance or necessity; stuff doesn't make us happy. (If you’ve got to read it to believe it, check out this University of Colorado study or this CNN article.) Of course, Progressive Wednesday swag will bring ebullient joy to your life whether you're 9 or 90.
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Write:
We believe that one of the most powerful ways to make progress is to be the voice of progress and to state your case publicly. One of the most effective means of doing this is writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper. (For advice on writing letters to the editor, check out our brief tool or our full tool.) We'd like to encourage you to write one of two different letters.
1. If there's a Wal-Mart in your area, we'd like you to consider writing a letter that tackles one of the following topics:
- Wal-Mart fails to be a good steward of the environment. The EPA has consistently fined Wal-Mart, including a 2004 penalty to the tune of $3.1 million for violating the Clean Water Act.
- Wal-Mart costs tax-payers billions of dollars in subsidies from state and local governments. And according to a recent study, “more than 90 percent of the company’s distribution centers have been subsidized.–
- Wal-Mart “bulldozes– local businesses. A recent decade-long Iowa State University study has shown that “some small towns lose up to 47% of their retail trade after ten years of Wal-Mart stores nearby.–
- Wal-Mart hurts hard-working families. Besides violating family leave laws and forcing employees to work off the clock, there’s this: in 2006 Wal-Mart was found liable of (of all things) meal break violations; the court ruling dictated that Wal-Mart had to fork over $172 million.
- Wal-Mart violates child-labor laws. In 2002, thanks to the 1,436 child labor infractions Wal-Mart committed in Maine alone, the Maine Department of Labor levied the largest fine in state history for violating child labor laws. And in 2005, the Department of Labor fined Wal-Mart because the company permitted teens “to operate hazardous equipment– including chainsaws, scrap paper balers, and fork lifts.
- Wal-Mart, of course, knowingly hires illegal immigrants. Check it out for yourself.
We think these frames are strong as well, so feel free to use our language. You might ask readers why Wal-Mart is so morally irresponsible. You can find other talking points and info here and here and here and here and here. The thing is, you're going to want to localize the problem of Wal-Mart in your area so you can better reach the audience. You might express concern that one of the problems you read about in the above links might happen in your area.
As we mention in our letters to the editor how-to tool, we recommend offering a solution. This solution might be urging folks to support local businesses and to stop shopping at Wal-Mart. You can probably come up with solutions of your own.
2. If there's not a Wal-Mart in your area–after you thank your luckiest of stars–we'd like to suggest writing a letter expressing how grateful you are, and how much you're hoping it will stay that way. You might want to pick one of the aforementioned topics to explain why you feel this way.
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If you're swamped and still want to yawp a bit to your community, there's a simpler approach to writing a letter to your local newspaper's editors. Wakeup Wal-Mart has a section of their webpage dedicated to just such writing. You choose the topic you'd like to address, select your state, click on your newspaper or newspapers, then tweak your letter.
We applaud the ease of this, but find that more personalized letters have a better shot of getting published (though you could easily add some personal narrative to the form letter they've created). We also think it's good to get into practice writing letters, as they play an integral role in making progress.
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Donate & Replace:
This act of progress is really pretty straight-forward. We'd like to suggest you donate just one thing (though a dozen would be even better) which you don't need or don't want or dig but want to update somehow, and replace it with something else or something new.
This will achieve several aims. By helping others in poverty, you very well might help reduce the odds someone will to go to Wal-Mart. And you'll help another person in need. And you'll help the economy by making a purchase. And you'll help small businesses or blue-collar American workers or both. And you can even get a tax break for your donation. It's one of the gifts that, much like the Energizer Bunny, keeps giving and giving and giving and– ¦.
Here's how donations help Salvation Army. Here's how to find a Salvation Army near you.
And what to buy? And where? You'll find a few links and ideas in the Stop section of this Wednesday topic, but below you'll find even more of our favorite progressive venders:
Shop Union Made
Pangea
CD Baby
Powells
The Book Corner
One Good Bumblebee
The Progressive Wednesday Store
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Sign:
Talk about an easy way to make some progress: ask Wal-Mart to hold itself to moral responsibility. How? Sign this message to Wal-Mart, then print, sign, and send the letter to the C.E.O. of Wal-Mart.
You can also sign up for more information about Wal-Mart here.
You might also consider printing this letter, signing your John Hancock at the bottom, and sending it off to your local and state legislators. If they use the resources at Wal-Mart Watch, they'll be better at waging a strong fight against this unethical company.
Your voice matters in a very real way. The goal is to reach a tipping point so that we can have more progress made.
November 14th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
PLEASE NOTE: In an effort to keep it real, let's just say that this Wednesday entry may include graphic descriptions of sexual acts and links to material that some might find objectionable. Much of the content below offends the heart and mind, and we've included it to do just that. Please proceed with appropriate caution. In other words, you might not want to read this at work (particularly if your boss is a “snooper– ) or at home with your wee ones in the room or at all if you don't want to face the ugly truths about pornography.
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Preamble:
I'm sure my grandmother is going to be thrilled that I'm writing this story, but I'm apologizing in advance to the woman rode a filthy boat for weeks so she could move to this country so that, decades later, I could live, and breathe, and you know, write this story, which I like to call “Everything I didn't want to know about sex because I was afraid to ask.– Here goes– ¦.
My grandmother suffers from some pretty debilitating arthritis, but is still able to walk, though with limitation. Despite our protests, she still drives regularly, and a couple of years ago she was driving along a highway in Niagara Falls, New York, when her car started to ka-thunk. She pulled of at the nearest exit, where the car completely died. The exit is fairly removed from, well, just about anything. As with most octogenarians, she didn't have a cell phone (this incident proved to be a fairly powerful impetus behind getting one). The only building close enough for her to hike to? If you guessed a porno shop, then you guessed right. This one was creatively named “Talk of the Town.–
I couldn't help but picture my sweet, sweet grandmother walking past row after row of pocket vibrators, double-sided dildos, and blow-up dolls, row after row of girl-on-girl, barely legal, and anal adventure videos. It didn't help matters that, after picking her up some said adult establishment, I had the following conversation while hightailing her home:
“I couldn't believe how many cars were in the parking lot,– said my grandmother.
“I bet,– I said.
“I think they show movies in the back or something. Right?–
“Um– ¦ I wouldn't really know, but that makes sense.”
“For twenty-five cents I think the sign said.”
“I suppose if someone had an extra roll of quarters– ¦.–
“I mean, in the middle of the day? Really? Who does that? Who's that horny that they don't want to eat lunch instead?–
“Grandma, that sounds like a trick question.–
What's the moral of the story? I guess it's that a cell phone is your friend, and that if you pick your grandmother up at a porno store when her car breaks down, you might hear her say the word “horny.–
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Problem:
And after that light, ambling preamble, here's where we get as serious as a stroke. Porn is everywhere. And this might not be a problem in and of itself if it weren't for some of the disconcerting side effects. Like the damaging impact on children and teens who don't know a world without pornography available on a whim. Like the damaging impacts on adult sexuality. Like the damaging impact on the performers and the dehumanization of sexuality as a result. Like the damaging desire for more violent pornography.
Our culture tries to hide it's addiction to pornography, which we do amazingly well considering it's a 10-15 billion dollar industry (that's billion with a “b– ) in the U.S. (Feel free to check out that sentence again.)
We have a problem with sex in America, from viewing to educating, and something needs to be done. Why? Because we live in a culture where, increasingly, Americans are watching videos that include fake rape scenes, bestiality, gangbangs, men spitting on women, men urinating and having bowel movements on women, double penetrations, multiple oral sex performances, fisting, unprotected anal sex. We live in a culture where pornographic sex makes women into subordinate, submissive body parts and men into superficial, heartless, violent animals, morphing sex into something violently robotic, clinical and feculent.
Our love of pornography is selfish. It's damaging. And we at Progressive Wednesday now think, after doing enough research, that much of it (maybe most if it) is dangerous.
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Make Progress:
Let's just cut to the adult-entertainment chase.
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Read:
We thought we ought to let porn speak for itself (“porn on porn,– if you will), so here's a series of actual quotations by adult film actors and directors on their experiences, their beliefs, their profession, and their concerns:
“[Wicked Pictures, one of the largest adult video production companies, doesn't] cater so much to the raincoat crowd, your hard-edged, hardcore viewers. There are companies where that's all they cater to– ”the nasty shit. We don't do that. There's still lots of anals, and facial come shots, but it's not usually degrading to women.– — Brad Armstrong
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“I was the first to shoot Rocco [Siffredi]. Together we evolved toward rougher stuff. He started to spit on girls. A strong, male-dominant thing, with women being pushed to their limit.– — John Stagliano
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“I don't have relationships anymore. They make life unstable. The only sex I have is the sex I have on screen.– — Temptress
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“Some girls are used up in nine months or a year.– — Jonathan Morgan
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“But at least if a guy is unhappy with the way his wife is performing, he can watch porno and jerk off maybe, rather than have an affair.– — Brad Armstrong
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“I had actually never had anal sex before the business. I tried it and loved it so much that I went a little crazy. I got hurt doing it. I stopped doing it and we are going to wait a bit until I heal and then go back to it.– — Alicia Alighatti
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“There's tons of girls who think it's way hot and desperately want to make or see a movie featuring– ¦ tentacle rape, gagging on cum, girls getting the shit beat out of them, whatever it is, there is some girl somewhere who is way into it and just wants to be able to get her hands on it.– — Zak Sabbath
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“You're not going to be arrested. You are not going to be hit. You are not going to end up in a car truck somewhere.– — Nina Hartley
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“I got the shit kicked out of me, but that was not in the program. I was not prepared to be roughed up that much. I couldn’t stop crying for the rest of the day. I was traumatized from that video. They did not tell me that they were going to be literally hurting me. This is the worst line ever put out there. It’s right up there with snuff videos. [The actor] choked me while lifting me off the ground. I couldn't breathe. I was being hit and choked. I was really upset, and they didn't stop. They kept filming. You can hear me say, – ˜Turn the fucking camera off,' and they kept going. If they think women are into that, they’re dead wrong.– — Regan Starr
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“Nearly everyone has STDs. I had 10 different venereal diseases during my first year in the industry.– — Chloe
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“The tests we take only test for AIDS. We've contained AIDS in the industry, but what about all the others? You know we're now up to hepatitis G?– — Chloe
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“Yeah, a fourteen year old look.– — Alicia Alighatti, when asked about her glasses and braces.
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“Men take advantage of women in every industry. We live in a patriarchy. But that being said, when you want to do porn, you go to an agent and they ask you what you will do and what you won't do — will you do girls? Will you do boys and girls? It's not like that in the real world. They don't give you options like that.– — Joanna Angel
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“We're prostitutes. There are differences. You can choose your partners, and they're tested for AIDS — you won't get your john to do that. But we're prostitutes: We exchange sex for money.– — Chloe
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“There’s a little bit of Jenna Jameson in every woman out there.– — Jenna Jameson
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“To this day, I still can't watch my own sex scenes.– — Jenna Jameson
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Protect:
If you're a parent and you let your kids have access to the Internet, there are a variety of parental controls available to protect your kids from pornography. Why do we need them? Because according to a study run by the London School of Economics, 60% of children using the Internet happen upon pornography regularly. Most Internet service providers, like MSN, AOL, and Earthlink, have built-in parental controls available, but if your provider doesn't offer these protections or if you'd like to double-up the safety, you can turn to some of the tools listed below:
This is just a small sampling and not an endorsement or a statement of efficacy in regards to any of this software in particular, though Optenet did receive a five-star rating from the reviewers at c|net.
We owe it to our kids to protect them this much more.
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You can also find a ton of free (Did you just say free? We did.) downloads here from, of all places, Download.com.
You can find reviews of parental control software by clicking this sentence.
You can also learn more about protecting your kids on the Internet (in terms of instant messages, MySpace, blogging, etc.) at the NetSmartz Workshop, a informational resource put together by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
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Watch:
“American Porn– is a FRONTLINE documentary put together by the generous and somewhat genius folks over at PBS. When I first watched it in 2003, it left me shocked and a little sick to my stomach. Apparently, I want to spread the acid indigestion. But seriously — this film, given the rise of pornography in both our popular and private cultures, is a must see. Just click the PBS logo to be taken to the film.
Here are three of the highlights (or lowlights, depending on how you look at them):
- AT & T, GE, AOL, hotel chains, and other companies make hundreds of millions of the cash-register cha-ching off adult films every year. The numbers are only rising.
- Some pornography (and we're not just talking about child pornography) appears to break criminal laws.
- September 11, 2001 greatly diminished the way the federal government prosecutes criminal pornography.
If nothing else, check out section five, “A Demand Driven Business,– to witness some seriously screwed up shit (pardon our lack of French, but there's really no other word for it).
When you're done watching, please tell someone else about it. Just click the green “Share This– button in the lower, left hand corner of this post, and then click “E-mail.–
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Stop:
Because we're social libertarians (we believe we have a right, as odd as it might be, to harm ourselves but not others), we can't quite bring ourselves to think that “pornography” should be completely banned (because some consider erotica pornographic, and, well, we don’t). There are valid arguments that porn increases rates of rape, pedophilia, general misogyny and misandry, distorted sexual expectations, and addiction, amongst other problems. But the issue remains too pervasive and complex, too gray around some of its edges. We've at least come to believe that greater governmental oversight is required. If pornography should be shut down, and there is a great deal of research to suggest that the societal damage it creates would permit the government to enact such a ban without being too paternalistic, we really can’t rely on the government to do it.
We are going to recommend, however, that you take one simple action: stop.
Odds are, given the fact you're an Internet user and likely a citizen of a country that spends 10-15 billion dollars each year on pornography, that you have or do watch pornography. But stopping can seriously improve your life and the lives of others.
Why? As the author Pamela Paul argues, “the all-pornography, all-the-time mentality is everywhere in today's pornified culture.– She's painfully right. We live in a culture where stores hock Hello Kitty thongs, a piece of clothing which is “literally a byproduct of the sex industry.– A culture where between 1992 and 2004, “breast augmentation procedures in this country went from 32,607 a year to 264, 041 a year.– A culture where Paris Hilton is celebrated by teens because “she is our mascot.– A culture where a porn star's book tops the best-seller list (a porn star, we should add, that according to her own book, “was beaten unconscious with a rock, gang-raped, and left for dead– ¦her sophomore year of high school– ). A culture where, according to a 2004 study, porno websites get three times the traffic as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Search combined.
But this isn't “a– culture. This is our culture, and not for the sexually better, but for the worse.
In her 2005 book, Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy describes the problem of pornography this way: “porn stars are selling something more than a skill — they are giving up the most private part of their being for public consumption.– Some might respond by saying, “Well, they're choosing to do it.– This, of course, doesn't mean we have to participate in it by viewing and purchasing the material. According to Dr. Melissa Farley, a psychologist and researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, “the vast majority of women in the sex industry have experienced incest or other childhood sexual abuse– (180 FCP). As she points out, “there is something twisted about using a predominately sexually traumatized group of people as our erotic role models. It's like using a bunch of shark attack victims as our lifeguards.–
We think that what we've written in our opening salvo (and the Read, Protect, and Watch sections of this Wednesday topic) do a good job of supporting the simple argument we're making now: stop, people, stop.
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End:
Child pornography is an insult to humanity. It must be stopped. And it's much more pervasive than you might think. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 20% of all Internet pornography involves children. This organization also indicates that the “global sales of illegal pornography that exploits children–including those under 4 years old–are about $3 billion a year.– If that doesn't churn your stomach, we're not sure what will.
Well, maybe this will: according to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, “of the juvenille victims identified in conjuction with pornography crimes, 25% were members of the offender’s family, 59% were teens, 28% were elementary school age, and 13% were preschoolers.– Additionally, “by the end of 2003, the CyberTipline was receiving more than 1,500 reports on child pornography per week.– (Emphasis added.)
Or maybe this info from the NCMEC will do the trick: “according to investigators who handled the cases of estimated arrestees, “most had images of children who had not yet reached puberty. Specifically 83% had images of children between ages 6 and 12; 39% had images of 3 to 5 year old children; and 19% had images of toddlers or infants younger than age 3.–
Need more? Unfortunately, we've got it: “between 1996 and 2004 the total number of child porn cases handled by the FBI's cyber-crime investigators increased 23 fold.–
One of the largest organizations trying to battle the sexual exploitation of children is ECPAT International. According to their website, this stand-up, and unfortunately necessary, organization does the following and more:
We follow what governments are doing, and have done, to combat commercial sexual exploitation of children, and we publish the results. We explore good models for prevention work, and share those models and experiences. We find and develop training modules to help caregivers to do their work better. We develop learning tools for police training curricula. We provide advice and information to groups who are trying to make a national plan for their country, or to implement an existing plan. We carry out research and develop research methodologies. We promote the participation of young people in seeking solutions to the problems and in providing support to victims.
As far as child pornography is concerned, ECPAT “seeks to develop positive cooperative relationships with the ISPs and the software and search engine production industries in order to find answers to the technological problems concerning the transmission of child pornography via computer and the Internet.– But, as they indicate, this battle is an uphill one due to technology changes, definitions of “child,– and legal practices.
What we've learned is that this is an international problem, not just an American one. But all children deserve respect, kindness, and caring, not sexual exploitation and abuse. If there's ever been an organization that needs and deserves your help, it's this one. No child should suffer at the hands of these predators.
You can help. And since you've got more than ventricles and atriums — I'm saying you've got heart, man – “ you will help. Here's how:
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Postscript:
We realize this may have been a disturbing Wednesday to read. But we live in a somewhat disturbing world in need of our help and in need of the progress we can make.
Toward the end of his article about pornography in Talk Magazine, Martin Amis writes: “porno is littered — porno is heaped — with the death of feelings.– In an issue of Walrus, Charles Foran makes the case more specifically. He writes that:
Pornography may be stalking one emotion more than any other. That would be the shared feelings we have for fellow humans, along with the inclination to recognize kindred suffering and even lend aid. Porn may yet be the death of empathy.
Because life is, quite possibly, the thing we desire most of all, life itself is progress. So it might be time we considered a slightly different way of living. It might be time we, as individuals and as a culture, made a different choice.
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