Some rhetoric is 'just too much'

Editor,

I hold no particular brief for or against Wal-Mart. I do agree with Chuck Ripley and others that just maybe there are more important issues to concern us in our community.

However, some of the inflammatory, defamatory, whining, emotion-besotted rhetoric of some of your contributors has become just too much. For heaven's sake, this is a replay of what we used to hear frequently 50 years ago: "The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming! Duck and cover. Hide. There be dragons!"

Sam Walton was neither the first nor the last American to successfully pursue "The Dream" and make a gazillion dollars. Yes, his heirs who now control his company, are listed as being worth just about 30 billion bucks apiece. That does not, by definition, make them evil, as some would have us embrace, but simply the lucky inheritors of their daddy's vision.

In teaching business classes at SKC, I refer to Wal-Mart many times in many different aspects. I venture to guess I probably know, from studying it mind you, as much about this company as anyone locally. Guess what? It does not scare me one bit.

If you don't like Wal-Mart, don't shop there. That's not so difficult is it? But stop telling other people what's bad for them — this highly suspect, quasi-religious fervor over a major economic entity coming to town rings about as true as a tin bell.

Yes, Wal-Mart is a major importer of goods from other parts of the world. That's called the world marketplace and that's how the word is today. Try reading Thomas Friedman's latest book, The World Is Flat. You will quickly forget about Wal-Mart, I assure you. Wal-Mart is not alone responsible for the $69 billion U.S. trade deficit for October.

Take the time to read what numerous other American companies are doing in China: It will make you queasy in terms of what some of them (such as Microsoft and McDonald's) are doing to play along with the Chinese government's multiple attacks on human rights — all in the name of making money in China. Wal-Mart sells here, not there.

It's still a free country and people can write what they want, but fairness suggests they also be held accountable for it. Referring to some elements of a recent letter: The new highway work is just a deplorable, sinister plot, and it's all "their" fault? MDOT is a Wal-Mart subsidiary, I guess. (Is it just possible the long-standing 93/35 problems are better now?)

Those "many small commercial buildings" that "(have) since filled in" near the junction: Are they also Wal-Mart subs, or are at least some of them locally owned? Has anyone asked those business people to what extent Wal-Mart has "damaged" them?

Gosh, maybe the folks putting together the new Tribal banking enterprise out there should sell out quick and run?

Terminology like "neutron bomb" and "town losing its heart and soul" simply cause one to be embarrassed for the writer, and head-shaking puzzlement over that kind of hysteria. Not to mention some pithy commentary at the Thursday night poker game.

Meanwhile, in our own back yard, ask the single mom with three kids what she thinks about her ability to stretch her few dollars by having a large discount store available. Some Wal-Mart employees have written about working there, and I don't recall any that were negative.

Thanks, Mr. Editor, for publishing all sides, because more thoughtful and less emotional people like Chuck Ripley and Ken Donovan are much easier to take. And maybe people in Ronan should get up in arms when the Waltons come to steal their souls, yes?

An incidental bit of information: It is a stated goal of Wal-Mart's business plan to build, in any metro area with sufficient popular densities, a Superstore every five miles. They are at this very moment gearing up for a second Superstore in Great Falls. That should give you something to lose sleep over. Perhaps Great Falls needs some of the strident, pessimistic, fact-stretching wisdom to which we've been subjected, because so far I haven't seen anything in the Tribune that comes close to the woe-is-us breastbeating going on here.

I think Chuck was right — we really do have more important things to be worrying about, folks. (Oh, did you hear the rumor out of Whitefish? One of those filthy rich Arkansans is building a $35 million estate on the lake).

Don Dubay

Polson