I just watched Robert Greenwald’s new documentary Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price. Greenwald also did Outfoxed a great documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s attack on American journalism. Now Greenwald skewers the world’s largest retailer with a relentless mix of very individual stories of family businesses that were ruined, workers who were intimidated and harassed, and abuses and violations that were covered up by one of the most powerful corporations in the world. He ties those stories together with facts and stats on how this highly profitable company underpays its employees and exploits the government assistance to the tune of billions of dollars every year. He also shows the abhorrent conditions of workers in the sweatshops in China, Bangladesh and Central America that make the cheap stuff that Wal-Mart hawks in its concrete boxes.

This is a great documentary, very focused on the story, very focused on documenting Wal-Mart’s impact on individual families and communities. Greenwald is no Michael Moore – he doesn’t try to corner Lee Scott or any of the Walton billionaires to get them to say something stupid or revealing. He stays behind the camera and lets the people tell the story: community organizers, former employees, judges, folks put out of business by Wal-Mart, and workers at the Wal-Mart sweatshops. And he contrasts their stories with the ads, the corporate PR BS and Lee Scott’s pronouncements. All these facts and stories bring anyone with half a brain to an inescapable conclusion: Wal-Mart is bad for your community and bad for this country. Wal-Mart is bad for you!

Boycott Wal-Mart!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 19th, 2005 at 11:03 pm and is filed under Misc, Take Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.