All this praise for Wal-Mart sickens me.
Especially since it's being generated by one's ability to quickly get their feverish hands on a copy of a science fiction book.
With well over 2,000 stores worldwide, Wal-Mart has yet to have a single location that's staffed by any kind of unionized employees. It is well known for using brutal and illegal methods of keeping its employees from being able to organize for better pay, benefits, and working conditions.
It is America's chief driver for compelling businesses to ship their good manufacturing jobs overseas, primarily to the human rights abusing China. The workforce there is routinely kept under tight control by a police state, so workers' wages/benefits can be kept low, and conditions can be even more inhumane than they already are in the U.S.
The irony is most rich, the supposedly "communist" China is the PERFECT place for allowing capitalism to run rampant.
Wal-Mart simply does not want democracy in the workplace in its own country, and is willing to ensure that it doesn't exist in foreign countries as well (would one care to guess what it gives and to WHOM it gives political donations to? Does one think that Wal-Mart gives money to a politician who supports human rights, or to those who are against such rights?).
So yes, "God love Wal-Mart," as it sure needs a LOT of love/prayers to become an instituiton that is even remotely democratic. Better yet, do something even more effective than praying, and write a letter to their multi-million dollar executives, and ask them to change their evil, greedy, money grubbing, and misery inducing ways.
I just hope that the fast delivery of science fiction books and the fact that their items there tend to be a little bit cheaper than elsewhere won't keep people from doing the right thing.
Our country is in the corporate toilet as it is.