“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Richard (RJ) Eskow: A Walmart Thanksgiving, by Charles Dickens
“A pretty high energy day” for employees. That’s how a Walmart executive described Thanksgiving after the corporation announced that this year’s “Black Friday” would begin on Thursday evening, leaving many of its workers unable to spend the holiday with family or friends.
Walmart’s wages and employment practices can rightfully be described as “Dickensian.” What, we wondered, would the Victorian author make of this latest development?
It was the night before Thanksgiving. Walmart’s top brass had assembled in the executive boardroom for a last celebration before heading home to their families. Amidst the din of laughter and chatter, nobody noticed the thin figure silhouetted in their doorway.
“I am a Walmart Associate,” the figure finally called out, “and I beg your pardon for the intrusion.”
The revelers stared in amazement. “A Happy Thanksgiving to you all!” added the shadowy Associate.
“Happy Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving?!?” came an answering voice from inside the boardroom. “What right have you to be happy? Why would you be be happy? You’re poor.
Marian Wright Edelman: Preventable Hunger in Our Land of Plenty
While many American families gather around the Thanksgiving table this week, some of us combining this year’s traditional dinners with Hanukkah feasts, a too quiet group will be left out of the national celebration. The nearly 49 million Americans — including nearly 16 million children — living in food insecure households will be struggling to afford the food they need. These families won’t be choosing between apple or pumpkin pie this holiday season but will face choices about paying for groceries or rent, heat, electricity, medicine or clothing for their children as they do each month — choices no family should have to make in our nation with the largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world. Congress will be choosing how many of these desperate families and children in need to cut from life-giving and life-sustaining federal nutrition programs. In the middle of this season of gratitude for plenty, Congress has put the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, often called food stamps) on the chopping block while leaving largely intact subsidies for rich farmers and even some non-farmers.
Inequality is the biggest economic issue of our time. It’s only surprising it took so long for a globally prominent figure to say it
Pope Francis is a pontiff who has constructively broken all the rules of popery – so far to widespread acclaim. He’s faulted the Catholic church for its negative obsession with gays and birth control, and now he has expanded his mandate to economics with a groundbreaking screed denouncing “the new idolatry of money”. [..]
The pope’s screed on “the economy of exclusion and inequality” will disappoint those who considers themselves free-market capitalists, but they would do well to listen to the message. Francis gives form to the emotion and injustice of post-financial-crisis outrage in a way that has been rare since Occupy Wall Street disbanded. There has been a growing chorus of financial insiders – from the late Merrill Lynch executive Herb Allison to organizations like Better Markets – it’s time for a change in how we approach capitalism. It’s not about discarding capitalism, or hating money or profit; it’s about pursuing profits ethically, and rejecting the premise that exploitation is at the center of profit. When 53% of financial executives say they can’t get ahead without some cheating, even though they want to work for ethical organizations, there’s a real problem.
Unlike Occupy, which turned its rage outward, Pope Francis bolstered his anger with two inward-facing emotions familiar to any Catholic-school graduate: shame and guilt, to make the economy a matter of personal responsibility.
Ralph Nader: Can Right and Left Rally Against Walmart?
One of the most profitable corporations in America is having a holiday food drive. Sounds good-it’s the least Corporate America can do for those struggling to make ends meet while big companies rake in record profits and give so little back. But wait… there’s a catch. The food drive is for the company’s own underpaid, poverty-stricken workers. You really can’t make this stuff up. [..]
Earlier this week, it was reported that a Walmart store in Canton, Ohio is asking for food donations for its own employees. Photos of the food donation bins circulated online showing signs that read: “Please donate food items here so associates in need can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.” (That’s if they even have a chance to-Walmart stores are open on Thanksgiving and are beginning their “Black Friday” deals at 6 PM on Thanksgiving Day to get a jump on the holiday shopping madness.)
Walmart is America’s largest employer with a workforce consisting of 1.3 million “associates.” The company made nearly $17 billion in profit last year. So why can’t Walmart afford to pay its own store workers enough for them to enjoy a holiday meal with their families? The answer is Walmart doesn’t really care about its workers.
Jim Hightower: This Thanksgiving, Let’s Celebrate AgriCULTURE, Not AgriBUSINESS
In December 1972, I was part of a nationwide campaign that came tantalizingly close to getting the U.S. Senate to reject Earl Butz, Richard Nixon’s choice for secretary of agriculture. [..]
The 51 to 44 Senate vote was so close because we were able to expose Butz as … well, as butt-ugly – a shameless flack for big food corporations that gouge farmers and consumers alike. We brought the abusive power of corporate agribusiness into the public consciousness for the first time, but we had won only a moral victory, since there he was – ensconced in the seat of power. It horrified us that Nixon had been able to squeeze Butz into that seat, yet it turned out to be a blessing. [..]
The whirling horror of Butz, however, spun off a blessing, which is that innovative, freethinking, populist-minded and rebellious small farmers and food artisans practically threw up at the resulting Twinkieization of America’s food.
Jared Berstein: Pesky Brother-in-Law: Thanksgiving 2013
Another Thanksgiving. Family, friends, food, and hopefully some time off to sleep off your turkey-induced tryptophan daze.
And yes, that pesky brother-in-law who’s especially revved up this year for an aggressive incoming attack well before the gravy boat reaches you. So, let’s see if I can once again come to your aid with a bit of Q&A. [Links to earlier versions below.]
Now remember, he (or she — there’s lots of pesky aunts, sisters, even spouses) is loaded for bear coming off of the ugly healthcare.gov rollout, and the whole way up the interstate he’s been getting increasingly excited about batting you about with this one.
But you know my methods: we stroke, we kick. We concede the truth and provide the context. We are fact based. We never get nasty. We love our misguided bros et al — while we may get a touch acerbic, our goal is never to humiliate nor put down. It is to guide them back to the enlightened path, no matter how far they’ve strayed.
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