MoveOn.org is going after Wal-Mart

[Robin]

I didn't know anything much about Wal*Mart until I moved to Texas about 18 months ago. But I have seen the devastation they have wreaked. When they came to Kingsville, TX, within about 2 years the entire Downtown area, with the exception of about two stores was deserted and boarded up. Next the roads surrounding Downtown started having more and more boarded up businesses. Then Sears left, then JC Penney left. Now we have a huge Wal*Mart on the outskirts of the city and the center is dead (except, that is, some entrepreneurs are trying to start businesses that Wal*Mart can't compete with, souvenirs, restaurants and so on).

The next city along, Alice, had their Downtown devastated too! And the smaller towns around actually have lost nearly all their shops and look like ghost towns. I estimate probably 200 plus retail businesses locally were put out of business. If each business had 3 employees that's 600 people. Which is way MORE than Wal*Mart employ.

I don't blame Wal*Mart, they discovered a superb business strategy and milked it all the way. But... there *is* another side to the story. Maybe it's worse in poorer areas like South Texas - but it's there.