The Opinionated Bastard

Umm, no way to say this w/o being a dick, but Berkeley is about an hour north of Silicon Valley. Between the two, there are at least two walmarts. Thank God.

But really, what kind of tard chooses Berkeley as a “Great Town?” It’s like a little San Francisco on crack. All the hippies and commies jammed into a smaller town with more homeless people. And now, with 5x the Holier-Than-Thou! New and Improved!

Yeah, I used to live there, and the local residents were always vauge on where “Silicon Valley” was, basically it meant the entire Bay Area, not just San Jose.

Considering that the whole area is one large urban sprawl, claiming that there’s no WalMart in Berekley proper is just inane.

I think it is really funny that mod3ern consumerist america just loves Wal-Mart as Wal-Mart procures cheap plastic junk through relations with oppressive regimes like China. then Wal-Mart underpays their employees, including the illegal labor, so these employees can be supported by local welfare tax dollars. I also like how the free market myth people think allowing a monopoly capitalist like Wal-Mart into small town consumer markets is good for local business. it is just great!

ernie

Yeah, fair enough (though its worth noting that WalMart, unlike Home Depot, doesn’t have any house brands, so its the manufacturers choice to go overseas). If the proposition hadn’t been so blatantly written to be specifically against, and only against Walmart, I wouldn’t have minded so much.

Given that our city fathers had already approved a 450,000 square foot addition to the mall, which included a 150,000 sq foot “big box store” it was basically only WalMart they were opposed to. Or specifically: stores > 75,000 square feet that have more then 8% devoted to non-taxable-food items. So you can sell all the cheap plastic chinese crap you want, but no wonton wrappers.

And 2 years ago, they were arguing FOR a Super-Walmart.

At any rate, the proposition got voted down, and Walmart submitted their proposal to the planning commission the next day.

No fan of the mall or big box stores in general here, so i agree that to exempt only wal-mart from monopolizing flagstaff consumption is nonsense, all big box entities should have their financial power checked by local govt.(even though NO on 100 people claim this is “anti-freedom”)

But the facts are wal-mart (and other big boxes) will close local businesses. The flag chamber of commerce claims to support the business environment for local business, when in truth this organization has been overrun by local real estate interests.

Also, the advertisements claiming that pro -100 lying hippies would keep the moral value people from praying and censoring their freedom like the nazis is beyond bad taste, but im near certain that the people who made these adds really didnt see the nuance or irony in their creation. Walmart is a self censoring entity. Walmart is monopoly capitalist whose desire is to increase market share,eliminating competition in the process. Thus walmart actually encourages a DECREASE IN CHOICE AND COMPTETION, facts in direct contradiction to NO on 100 claims.

In short, the cvhamber of commerce with the “free market” mythical ideology is selling out local business for the interests of outside monopoly capitalists….greed!

Think about it, 300,000+ dollars of outside money to manipulate a local democracy? The chamber allied themselves to this force against the 5-2 will of the local city council?

But again, walmart wins because sleaze rules this era, and people are being culturally bred to not be very bright. Winning to the new breed of capitalist is monarchist, a denial of republicanism and rule of law. It is now a no holds barred game to the monoploy capitalists..slander your opponents…saturate elections with capital accumulated by destroying the economies of small towns all over the nation…etc

at least many people are now catching on. the flag chamber of commerce should be ashamed of themselves.

ernie