News is trickling in slowly, as slowly as dusk settles in on the parking lot of a big-box store in a suburb where most of the kids play soccer.
They're standing up at Wal-Mart.
Just a little noise, just a little murmur of two employees talking in the break room, going quiet when the supervisor comes into the room.
Just a little anger. Just a little convo over by the three-for-$10 CD bin. Just a little tired. Just a little tired of making somebody else rich.
Just little people. Just the people who shot the British from behind stone walls. Just the people who whipped Hitler. Just America, the America that was supposed to be "lucky to have a job" in these hard times.
In some places, there's no union leading them, but they're starting to walk out of the big stores, starting to complain, refusing to shut up.
They're breaking the rules of the employee handbook, the document that, in America today, is more sacred and has more force than the Constitution.
There are men among them who kissed death's scaly mouth in Afghanistan, women who got a free gun when they joined the Army and a part-time cashier's job after they were spit out of the hero machine.
They're walking out of Wal-Mart stores, talking dissatisfaction, talking anger, talking union, talking by God America.
Some guy with a neck tattoo. Some woman with a fake diamond stud in her nose.
Somebody fed up with the boss.
Mitt Romney isn't with them, and neither is Obama. Maybe nobody's with them, and that's all right. They can stand up alone, just like they can find and keep a job all by themselves and pay the bills alone and cry alone and stand, alone, and listen to the doctor say the baby was born with a hole in his heart.
And the press doesn't know how to cover a real rising of the people. It's been so long since they've seen one.
And they'll be shoved around, shoved by lawyers and politicians and people who like them to stay poor. And they will be fired and threatened.
In America, where we print the job very high up in the obituary, what takes more strength than to walk off the job, to risk falling from the world of work?
When your car doesn't run that good. When all you have is high school. When your English is rough.
When there's a baby at home. And in the face of those things, of rent and the electric bill, in the face of that, to stand up and say, "I won't shut up," or, "I don't like the way they treat me," or, "They can pay us more," that isn't socialism. That's heroism.
The man who puts his jacket on and walks out the door under his supervisor's hard look is Thomas Jefferson. The woman who tells her husband she'll strike even though they both know they need her pay, that woman is John Hancock. They are the founders of this America.
Stand up, Wal-Mart! Stand up!
To learn more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicatewriters and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2012 BY CREATORS.COM
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Comments
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3 Comments | Post Comment
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Sir;... Some of my hillbilly kin in North Carolina worked for Wallmart... One told me they could see some one stealing stuff, and be unable to stop them because Walmart did not want anyone on the payroll doing witness duty, or even take the time to fill out a report, but they would hold those employees responsible for what was taken... What are they supposed to do??? Go and make the moral argument to some one without any kind of job that it was wrong to steal from some big corporation like Wallmart??? If the moral argument would work on a thief, then it may have worked on the Waltons...
As a union man I shared a dislike for the likes of Mr. Sam Walton... I'd bet real money if I had any that he wears napalm underpants in hell right now, and for the rest of eternity... He invariably built non union... A neighbor from my childhood did some grading work at a Walmart in Florida... They just never paid him... He did what they asked, but it was all one of those verbal contracts that used to mean something... Never mind that they are not worth the paper they are written on... If the honor of a man is worth nothing to him, it is unlikely to be worth more to any others... And Wallmart is a nest of dishonorables so far as I can tell...
Those stories you hear about working people with low wages, and telling them to suppliment their wages with food stamps we all pay for is all too common... Where the government support poverty they encourage poverty...
My relatives had their work that had to be done, and if that piece work was not done, they had to punch out and do it on their own time... Are these people who run these corporations even human beings??? Certainly, a meat grinder would have more heart...
The less we charge them for our time the less they think we are worth, and granted, as far as net worth goes we are small change... But even Lincoln in his days as a child recognized that an ant's life has as much value to him as yours has to you... Life is time, and time is life, and true, it equates to many other things like meaning so that what takes much life has much meaning....But jobs that are such complete slavery, that no one has any alternative but to accept, or starve, take meaning out of life rather than return meaning to it... How can a slave be called happy only because he lives???...Meaning is value and if his life, his time, and his happiness has no value what meaning has it???
I do not understand why it is that in this land people are forced to organize into unions to have fair wages and human rights... Our constitution was created to achieve perfect union, and really, to achieve all that every union ever formed was created to achieve...Yet, our government does not protect us, but protects property against us though that was no part of the reason for which it was written...
Not one of the effective tools of organized labor has been allowed to stand and each was found contrary to property rights... And we have that dynamic in this country that when ever property rights have grown stronger that civil rights have suffered, and when ever civil rights have been supported it has been at the expense of property rights... Still; where is the honest effort of those who enforce the contstitution to fulfill the purpose for which it was written???
We cannot wait to have every Sam Walton wannabee die and go to hell... These people are not human... They want to squeeze the life out of humanity and transform it into money... If money means so much to them, then bury them in money, but allow this people, and this nation their lives...
Union though I am, it was something that was forced upon me... Why should I pay dues for what I have already paid taxes to have??? The object is not to have another level of bureaucracy playing politics that you must make move to have what you need when the relationship you have with your boss and any other in society ought to be just and honorable from the start...If you cannot get your government to give you justice in your work place, how will you get the government to give you justice in your union???..
I will tell you and everybody the same: Justice is not a set of rules like law that may serve to point out excess, and neither are morals, generally... Just because justice is impossible to define in every circumstance we may encounter does not mean people do not know it when they see it... I do not need to pre define justice to seek it and neither do you, or anyone else in America... But we should all recognize that we are done, doomed and total shet if we cannot find it, and will not seek it...And the absolute enemy of justice is God... If we must wait on God to deliver justice as so many of our churches demand that we do- so they can be the champions of injustice on this earth, then they should lose their charters, and stand in the cold like the poor...
If we believe in God, and in a just God, then we may hope that such people who profit on the misery of their workers should go to hell... That is no reason to suffer them on this earth... Justice has no meaning to the dead, and neither does profit... Life is meaning, and all that make for life has meaning...So long as the living suffer injustice it should be they who seek it, and all the days of their lives... Do not wait for God to deliver us... The rich and the powerful hold God hostage as we speak, and if we want him, we must rescue him.
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sat Oct 13, 2012 4:23 PM
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"And the press doesn't know how to cover a real rising of the people. It's been so long since they've seen one."
Elections represent the voice of the people. Let's see who listens to the legitimate voice of the people.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Tom
Tue Oct 16, 2012 8:54 AM
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Re: Tom
Yes, Tom...let the people express their voice through elections. The people who whine for term limits - completely ignoring the fact that the legislators they re-elect are the only ones who can legislate term limits. Doh!! The people who cry for "smaller government" - so that the corporate crooks (formerly known as "robber barons" last century) can continue their plunder with less oversight. The people who wouldn't acknowledge a fact if it bit them on their butt - "all you gotta do is believe". The people who gladly listen to the campaign adds funded by cubic dollars, while they chomp down more Cheetos as they wait to see the latest on "reality TV". Yes, let those with comatose brains vote without having to exercise a single brain cell. They admittedly have a right to. But is that really a voice or a continuous echo of the ignorant?
Comment: #3
Posted by: RonniB
Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:00 PM
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