Wal-Mart 22

Here at TBV we spend a lot of time beating up on the GOP, but it's important to remind ourselves of something that Ralph Nader has hammered away at again and again: the two party system has disintegrated into a duopoly with Republicans, on the one hand, and Republican Lights on the other hand. Few things illustrate this better than the way both the Dems and Repubs cozy up to Wal-Mart. This was the topic of a recent post at Working Life, a great blog I've recently found that focuses on the labor movement. In the latest entry the author coins the term the "Wal-Mart 22":

Let's start by looking at what I call the Wal-Mart 22: The 22 Democrats who, on June 24th, voted against an amendment to the 2006 fiscal year Labor appropriations bill (offered by Rosa DeLauro (Connecticut) that would have barred any spending of money by the Department of Labor to implement the part of the deal the department had made with Wal-Mart calling for advance notice of inspections any time the DOL planned to investigate Wal-Mart. This is the deal that was heavily criticized by the Department's Inspector General.

That point bears repeating--the federal government, the people who are supposed to protect citizens from corporate abuse, said to perhaps the most notorious corporate law breaker in recent years, "when we come looking for wrong-doing in your company, we're going to tell you ahead of time." I wonder if the orders for paper shredders skyrocketed in Bentonville after that little deal was made.

Anyway, so who were the Wal-Mart 22? Marion Berry (AR) Sanford Bishop (GA) Dan Boren (OK) G. K. Butterfield (NC) James Clyburn (SC) Bud Cramer (AL) Henry Cuellar (TX) Artur Davis (AL) Diana DeGette (CO) Harold Ford (TN) Charles Gonzalez (TX) Ron Kind (WI) Jim Matheson (UT) Dennis Moore (KS) Mike Ross (AR) John Salazar (CO) Vic Snyder (AR) John Tanner (TN) Mike Thompson (CA) Bennie Thompson (MS) Ed Towns (NY) and Al Wynn (MD).

For anyone concerned about the labor movement this should be disturbing news. We live in a country where there is essentially one party and that party primarily caters to corporate America, leaving the rest of us out in the cold. Send your democratic representative some spine, it appears they are in short supply.

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