"WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE" (2005)

Directed by Robert Greenwald

Polly Staffle Rating: ****

Wal-Mart personifies all that is great about our country, but at the same time is the epitome of America at its evilest. I don't know that I will be able to boycott Wal-Mart and their empire, but I feel it's something I need to strive to do. These thoughts didn't happen over night, but the straw that broke the camel's back was seeing it all laid out before me in Robert Greenwald's "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price." This documentary is more disturbing than "Super Size Me" or "Fahrenheit 9/11." It is life changing. It doesn't have a Michael Moore or a Morgan Spurlock to make us laugh, so when it is over all we feel is betrayed. In the words of Malcolm X, I felt "bamboozled," 'hood winked" and "run amok." He of course was talking about the "white devil" government in the 1960s, but it's the same sentiment I now have for Wal-Mart. That's how serious and strong my feelings against this corporation are.

It really is a shame. Sam Walton built the company out of nothing. He started with a dream and went from a poor family that struggled during the depression to the richest man in the world before his death. His story is a very inspiring one. My grandmother's second husband, who we referred to as Papa Phil, claimed he knew Sam Walton. "Yeah, Sam asked me one time, 'What do you think I should do with my life?' So I told him, 'Sam, open a store that sells everything. You do that; you'll become rich and make life better for everyone.' That's exactly what he did," Papa Phil said. Papa Phil was from Arkansas, which is where Walton's early years as a store owner can be traced back to, but I don't know how creditable his story is. Especially since Papa Phil taught my brother and I how to play poker when we were in elementary school and would get mad when we would beat him. Regardless, that is what Sam Walton did and now you can purchase a box of condoms, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, a Big Mac, fried chicken, roasted chicken, raw chicken, exclusive Garth Brooks CDs, a "Grease 2" DVD for $5.50, video games, a plant, a gold fish, office furniture, jogging pants, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen products, and get an oil change all in one location. You can also buy duct tape, a gun, garbage bags, gloves, a shovel, a mop and bleach in the middle of the night. Okay, you get my point. Any of that crap can be returned as well. Wal-Mart is what America is all about - freedom, choices, reliability, excess and usually all at an affordable price.

I've always been a strong supporter of Wal-Mart. Growing up in a small Southeast Texas area, Wal-Mart and Sam's Club seemed to be a godsend. As a child I can remember my parents going out of our way to visit one of their stores. I wore their clothes and Winner's Choice shoes (or as everyone called them "Weiner's Choice"). Sam's Club is also to blame for a football and basketball card addiction my brother and I have. All it took was for my dad to buy us a box of Topps wax packs in 1986 and we were hooked. Sam's dosen't even sell boxes of cards anymore, but that's probably a good thing. 

Slowly more and more Wal-Mart locations popped up everywhere in our quiet little area. Then a Wal-Mart Supercenter opened its doors in the early 90's. I thought I was in retail heaven. I can remember driving for almost an hour at three in the morning to check out the hyped-up place that not only had clothes and electronics, but also food. I became fond of their many Sam's Choice drinks, especially their Mountain Dew rip-off Green Lightning (now called Mountain Lightning). "Super Wal-Mart" became the only place I shopped.

When I moved to Las Vegas in the late 90's I was saddened to see there were no "Super Wal-Marts." I had to grocery shop at Albertsons, Smith's or Vons. To show you my commitment to Wal-Mart, I actually worked as one of those dorks that asks for you to sign a petition in order for a Super Center to break ground. I was to be paid one dollar per signature. I stood in front of a Wal-Mart for a couple of hours and was unable to collect a single signature, so I never received a penny and can't be blamed that the "Super Walmarts" came to Vegas. But I will admit I was extremely happy when they came. I felt like Tucker (John C. Reilly) in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" when Burger Barn finally came to town.

More recently, the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets began to appear every where. If these have not invaded your community yet, they are like mini-super centers. They are mostly grocery stores, but they still have a pharmacy and a small number of new DVDs and CDs. The "Hood Mart" has become my new favorite place to shop because I started to notice the "Super Walmarts" that were nice five years ago when they first opened have become dingy. As my girlfriend has pointed out, Wal-Mart doesn't seem to clean their parking lots and you have to wade through knee-high trash to get to the front door. Their idea of maintenance is also the same as apartments and condo conversions. They will put up a new sign to make the place presentable on the outside, but the inside is trashed. I've always wondered what was up with the protesters standing out front from time to time and just assumed they were pissed off former employees. Those are actually people paid six dollars an hour by the union to protest. I feel like making my own signs and hanging out there with them now or at least getting a part time gig.

I always knew deep in my heart Wal-Mart was bad news. They come into small towns and wipe out the "Mom and Pop" stores just like when Mega-Lo Mart started selling propane and put Strickland's out of business on "King of the Hill." I have a big spot in my heart for small businesses. I always loved independently owned video stores and despise Blockbuster for single-handedly eliminating most of them. I also love small CD shops, which are also becoming rarer. I was actually telling my girlfriend the other day that I would be extremely sad if my favorite place to get Mexican food went out of business. Dima's Tacos used to have two locations and to my knowledge now only has one. (Their "Super Nachos" can't be beat.) I also knew Wal-Mart was a nonbeliever in freedom of speech. They will not carry CDs of artists like Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson and Cradle of Filth, will only carry censored Eminem albums, will not shelve magazines like Maxim, FHM and Playboy, and will not stock most of my favorite director's films. I guarantee you will not find the "High Cost of Low Prices" DVD at Wal-Mart. That's why I buy my CDs and DVDs from Amazon.com or Fry's Electronics. (Fry's has any filth you want. Something Weird, Sub Rosa Extreme, Seduction Cinema, Larry Clark, Todd Solondz - name your poison. They even have hardcore porn). I've noticed little games Wal-Mart loves to play as well. They get you used to a product at a low price and then increase their "every day low price" by a dollar and never look back. This is something they did too me with a certain ice cream. Just like a good drug dealer, they got me hooked and then proceeded to gauge me. They also come out with a Great Value version of items, sell their copy for more than the name brand was selling for and discontinue or jack up the original item's price. I also knew Wal-Mart was non union, but I never held that against them. I always felt there was nothing wrong with that as long as they were taking care of their people.

So what was it that made me turn against my good buddy Wal-Mart? I am able to overlook small little glitches like I've mentioned. That is just how life is. Nothing is perfect. A little bit of bad doesn't contaminate the whole existence of something or someone. When the whole is nothing but bad, however, that's when I start looking to eliminate it from my life. After watching this film, I now know Wal-Mart is worse than I ever could have imagined. They present this wholesome image about how they give back to communities, they employee the handicapped, seniors and minorities, they sell American made products, but it's all propaganda. Yeah, that's right, I used the word propaganda before anyone could use that one against me in tearing down "High Cost." Wal-Mart doesn't care about its customers and they don't care about their workers. They don't care about anything except money.

Wal-Mart exploits their workers. Most of the people employed by Wal-Mart can not afford their medical insurance plans. Robert Greenwald, who directed the 1980 Olivia Newton-John musical "Xanadu," got the idea for this documentary when a neighbor of his working at Wal-Mart said the insurance was so expensive and had so many requirements he couldn't qualify or afford it. Worst than that, most of Wal-Mart's employees are on some type of welfare. They are even told and shown how to get on federal aid. The cost to taxpayers is $1.5 billion. According to the film's website (www.walmartmovie.com), "The total figure is based on the average $420,750 per-store figure, multiplied by 3,700 (the approximate number of stores currently in the United States)." The average poverty level of a family four is around $17,000. The average Wal-Mart employee makes $13,000. Your talking about a company whose CEO is a multi-millionaire. A company that is owned by a family with five members in Forbes "Richest Americans" top ten with a net worth of just under $100 billion. The richest person on that Forbes list is of course Bill Gates, who has given almost 60 percent of his money to charity, while the Waltons have given one percent. Wal-Mart has a critical need fund that the company contributes to and lets workers donate to out of their paychecks. In 2004, workers gave over five million dollars to the cause and the Waltons chipped in six thousand dollars. Not only are you told these facts, figures and more, you get to meet some of the workers of Wal-Mart and get to hear their stories.

Wal-Mart doesn't care about their shoppers either. Not only are most of their parking lots not patrolled by security, there's usually no one watching their security cameras. This goes on despite the high number of crimes that occur in their parking lots and the fact Wal-Mart knows from a study they conducted internally that the wrong-doings would go down if they patrolled all their stores. You get to see clips of news broadcasts from around the country and even meet victims.

Not only that, you think you got yourself such a great deal on that toy truck you bought your son for his birthday? Yeah, you paid less than $20 for it. Guess how much it cost Wal-Mart? Less than twenty cents. Are they really passing on the savings? Couldn't an item that cheap be sold at an even lower price? But that's not the worst of it. The most depressing thing about this movie is when we get to hear the stories of factory workers in China. These workers make less than $3 a day and work seven days a week. Don't worry though, Wal-Mart trains them to lie when the inspectors come. We also get to meet a former employee Jim Bill Lynn, who was a global services operations manager. Lynn worked at the company for nine years and said that he basically bled Wal-Mart blue. His first trip to a factory brought him to tears. He thought by reporting problems Wal-Mart would correct them, but they never did. He eventually lost his job, but the details of it are not shared on camera.

In "High Cost" we also meet a Wal-Mart manager whose job was to travel from store to store profiling pro-union workers, so they could be forced out. The owners of a hardware store that had to close it's doors after being in business 40 years due to not being able to compete with Wal-Mart share their story here too. About half way through this film, you realize the whole entity is bad. This isn't an apple with a bad spot that can be cut off. This apple is rotten to the core. There is so much information on display it really is hard to take it all in.

I finally know how all those people that voted for George W. Bush in the presidential election against Al Gore feel. You know what I am talking about. Those crazed John Kerry fans like Howard Stern that are mad they voted for Bush four years earlier. They believed in someone that led them astray. I voted for Ralph Nader and opted to protest Bush's reelection by not voting at all. Anyway, I understand. I don't feel like Tucker in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" anymore. I feel more like Gilbert when his boss that owns a small convince store catches him shopping at Food Land. I'm ashamed.

Evil seems to be even more sinister when you don't see it coming. It's the same reason Alonzo Harris in "Training Day" is scarier than Darth Vader in "Star Wars." Vader isn't scary. He makes being evil seem cool. You know what to expect from him from the second he walks on screen. If you saw Darth Vader walking down the street and it wasn't Halloween, you would run. Alonzo Harris on the other hand, seems harmless. He's charismatic. He's good looking. He's a cop so you might see him as a productive part of society; a protector, someone who does good and stands for justice. Some may even think of him as a hero. If you saw him walking down the street, you would say, "Hi" to him. He could become your friend. He could become a part of your world. Then you find out how evil he is. What are you to do then?

Wal-Mart has betrayed us. They have betrayed me. I actually felt hurt inside after watching this movie. Wal-Mart is a money making machine that is exploiting individuals around the world. They're doing it in your backyard, they're doing it over seas and worst of all, doing it with a happy yellow smiling face and a friendly greeter at the door. You can tell yourself it doesn't affect you. But it does. Wal-Mart hurts all of us. Their wages drive down the pay at every grocery or retail store. The tax dollars their employees need to make ends meet could help better your child's education and put more cops on the streets. The jobs filled by foreigners in sweat shops could be a toy factory in your state providing employment. But worst of all, think of the future. What is going to happen when Wal-Mart steam rolls over everyone and there is no longer any competition? Do you think a business with billion dollar owners will keep their prices low when they are a monopoly? What is going to stop them from charging us $100 for a loaf of bread? Think about it. Do they have to charge us $15 for a toy that cost them less than twenty cents made by a worker making fewer dollars in a day than our minimum wage per hour?

It doesn't seem realistic for me to stop shopping at Wal-Mart altogether, but I am going to try. I'm going to be very limited to what I do buy there and hopefully eventually kick the habit completely. This will mean going to three or four stores in one night to grocery shop instead of one. Will it matter if I don't shop there? Does it hurt Wal-Mart in any way? No. I'm one person and my measly wages being spent else where will not knock the Waltons out of the Forbes list. It won't put an end to the company exploiting their workers either. But maybe it will help keep their competition in business and if enough people stop supporting Wal-Mart, maybe it will make a difference. I just know I can't support them with a clear conscience. This is something I have to do. I'd suggest you watch this film and decide if you need to as well.

- CCF, February 2006

"Mesmerize the simple minded. Propaganda leaves us blinded."
- System of a Down, Hypnotize