What's Wrong With the USA? Wal-Mart Offers a Clue.

A lot of people in the USA (myself included) are asking these days, "What's wrong with our country?"

I have the answer: a company worth well over $90 billion spends millions on lawyers to recoup far less than that, from a brain damaged woman whose son was killed in Iraq. What the hell am I talking about? What demented nightmare scenario am I referring to? Is this the latest horror flick? The plot from a suspense thriller?

No, it's just your local Wal-Mart.

Check out this story on CNN's website: Brain-damaged woman at center of Wal-Mart suit. Here's a synopsis: Woman works for Wal-Mart. Woman gets hit by truck. Wal-Mart pays out $470,000 as part of their health plan. Woman sues truck company, wins one million, gets $417,000 (rest goes to legal fees.) Wal-Mart health policy says they have the right to sue for money paid out when an employee wins damages. Wal-Mart sues to take back the $470,000 they spent. They win. Later, woman's son dies in Iraq.

So, my fellow Americans, are you still wondering what's wrong with our country? I'm not. It's the people who pursued this suit for Wal-Mart.

According to the article, Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley takes a shot at justification: "this is done out of fairness to all associates who contribute to, and benefit from, the plan." So is he saying every Wal-Mart employee racks up $470,000 in health expenses? Or is he saying every Wal-Mart employee is brain-damaged? Wasn't this woman, as an employee, paying into the plan on her own? Didn't she cover her own expenses?

The CNN article also states Wal-Mart "has the right to recoup medical expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit." Fine, they have the RIGHT, but not the OBLIGATION. Just because you have the right doesn't make it right. Did anyone along the way say "Wait a minute, do we really need to do this? Does Wal-Mart really need this money? Can't we let this one go?" Did anyone resign in protest? Did anyone protest at all? It doesn't seem like it, and that's the problem.

The comments supporting Wal-Mart on the CNN message board for this story came in the predictable two flavors.

There's the "corporations don't owe us anything" crowd. I don't know when the reason for people's existence was to support corporations instead of the other way around, but I'll take them at their word. So they'll understand when I laugh as Wal-Mart builds a twenty-four hour super-center in their backyard. When Blackwater sets up a firing range near their kids' playground, I'll crack up. When Exxon spills oil in their drinking water and refuses to pay for it, I'm going to repeat their words: "Hey, corporations don't owe you anything!" You want corporations to be unregulated? Then you'll understand my laughter as they run you down.

The other flavor of negative input? "OMG! What a sense of entitlement!" The injured woman did pay into Wal-Mart's plan, so shouldn't she be entitled? I really have to think you're missing a conscience if you're accusing a brain-damaged woman, who can't remember her son is dead and relives the pain every time she's told, of having a "sense of entitlement." How dare she believe she deserves the health-care she paid for!

We should ALL feel entitled to some basic human decency. Why? Do I really need to explain WHY? Do you want to live in a world where people are not entitled to respect? Anyway, as Americans, we pay taxes. The roads that trucks drive on to ship Wal-Mart crap, we paid for. The police forces that throw people in jail for stealing Wal-Mart crap, we paid for. I'm not paying taxes for kicks. I'm paying them to support the infrastructure of a nation. You and I paid for that infrastructure so Wal-Mart could make money selling crap.

Corporations DO owe us something.

As long as the USA allows corporations to trample people, this country will remain a place prone to viciousness of the most absurd variety, like this case.

Even from a solely business standpoint, pursuing this case was totally asinine. The only way Wal-Mart could have scored more negative publicity points is if they resurrected Jack the Ripper and made him their spokesperson: "We're slashing prices!"

I can see their public relations team now, nodding their heads. "Hey, that's not a bad idea!"


SOURCE: Brain-damaged woman at center of Wal-Mart suit. By Randi Kaye. CNN website, March 25, 2008.


p.s. I've sent Wal-Mart the following letter and copied Michael Moore and Robert Greenwald:

Your website (Wal-Mart Facts and News-How We Help-Military Support) makes many claims about supporting the troops. I am wondering how these noble commitments to U.S. troops are reconciled with suing a severely injured former employee of yours whose son died in Iraq? Reference this story on CNN's website: Brain-damaged woman at center of Wal-Mart suit. March 25, 2008. I challenge you to live up the image you're so desperately trying to manufacture, and help this woman. Thank you.


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Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at http://www.larrynocella.com/.

March 19 is Iraq's September 11

What else can March 19 be but Iraq's September 11, when an innocent people were made to suffer for the sinister actions of their so-called leaders?

September 11 surely taught Americans a lot about the world, but March 19 taught the world a lot about Americans. Hell, I am an American and March 19 taught me a lot about America. In no particular order:

Lesson 1: Victory doesn't need a description. It's fine just as a word. Of the many questions on my mind the biggest one is, what exactly does victory look like? When will the war pigs be satisfied? Stupid question, I know; war pigs are never satisfied. Yet they keep talking about victory without ever describing it. What is it to them? Every Iraqi fled or dead? An oil pipeline direct from Baghdad to the Bush Ranch? A democracy in Iraq that miraculously votes to sell oil only to the United States? This ongoing atrocity is the first and biggest clue they're not thinking endgame. (Just as this entry was going into the blogosphere, I ran across this. At least someone besides myself is wondering about how to make the Iraq War end. Too bad few if any in control are.)

Lesson 2: Our media isn't a check or a balance. It's an echo, or at best a very delayed check. Look at this severely promptness-challenged article in the Washington Post. It's been five years since the beginning of the Iraq war, and they finally get around to asking, "Golly, do you think this war by an oil baron for control of a nation with lots of oil wealth has anything to do with oil?" I can't wait to see The Washington Post's piece next week: "Should America get out of Vietnam?"

Lesson 3: Middle names are a great substitute for real political critiques. Barack Hussein Obama. Barack Hussein Obama. Oh my god, the dude's MIDDLE name is Hussein, which is the same collection of letters of the LAST NAME as the dictator of Iraq that the Bush junta assassinated. Therefore, he must be evil.

Lesson 4: Credit cards rule! Who cares if you can't pay now? Just rack up the debt and pay it later! John Sidney McCain (isn't Sidney a girl's name?) says if we must, the US will stay 100 years in Iraq as long as Americans are not being injured or killed. What a disclaimer for a land that's already taken 4,000 American lives! Only ninety-five more years (or 76,000 more American lives) to go! Bring it on you terrorist bastards! Our credit card has no limit so we can afford anything! We'll just keep pushing that debt into the future. Get to work, grandkids, because Uncle Sidney is paying it forward big time!

Lesson 5: Experience does not guarantee wisdom. Legend says that John Sidney McCain was tortured for five and a half years in Vietnam. It's stunning that someone so affected by war would be fine with prolonging it. Who could forget his Bomb Iran ditty? If that's someone who doesn't appreciate the gravity of war, someone who doesn't understand that bombs kill civilians as much as "bad guys," I don't know who is.

Lesson 6: Those of us tangled up in thinking, facts, consciences and humanity can over-think things. We brainstorm rationales: maybe controlling Iraq's oil made sense. Maybe they felt the USA had to secure the Iraqi oil supply before China or Russia could. That's probably the strongest part of the dozens of arguments tossed about to justify the Iraq war. If that was the reason, why didn't they just say that? Because people are squeamish about learning where their possessions come from? That's true, but this is a war here. If you're going to ask someone to die for a cause, can you at least have the courtesy to explain to them exactly what cause they're dying for? I guess not. It must be greed, plain and simple. Lesson learned.

Lesson 7: You can't critique the war. The minute you corner someone about all the corruption and contradiction the Iraq war has unleashed, they drop into a defensive stance reflexive as a turtle. "Oh yeah? Well I respect the troops." Somehow pushing someone in front of live bullets is a way of respecting them more than pulling them to safety. I hope I never run into a doctor who feels the same! Witness Lie-Master Karl Rove. (Video) Rove was a big part of helping the Iraq War happen and when he's called to account, he gets righteous, claiming our soldiers have suffered and he has witnessed it. Hey Rove! They suffered because of you, asshole! I'm sure they totally appreciate you using their pain as a backdrop to your "I Care So Much" drama, starring you.

Lesson 8: A turd in the hand is worth as much as Bush. A lot of whack-jobs are concerned that Barack Hussein Obama is a sleeper terrorist candidate ready to tank the USA once he gets in the highest office. They don't even notice someone fits that description and is in the white house: George W. "The Recessionator" Bush.

Lesson 9: Some Americans are as ignorant as the terrorists they claim to be against. They don't know anything about foreign countries, they don't try to learn, they just want to kill (no, they want SOMEONE ELSE to kill) anyone who looks different. They're basically Taliban but living in America and wearing American flags, and yet they embody none of the ideals of America.

So everything's a mess.

Now that we are near John Sidney McCain's 1/20th mark of Iraq War completion, I've experienced a strange synchronicity. All this negativity caused by the war and I just finished a book about the most incredible and positive story. As typical with the best ideas, it's quiet, it's simple, and it's largely ignored and unknown. It also costs a fraction of a single bomb. What's the answer to fighting terrorism? Schools. Schools? Yes, schools.

Read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin. The story is about how Mortensen was trying to climb mountains in Pakistan, failed, was helped by the locals and promised to build them a school as thanks. After about fifteen years, he now runs the Central Asia Institute that helps build schools in areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan where terrorist recruitment is high. When children (especially young girls) can educate themselves, extremist recruitment loses traction.

If fighting terrorism was the real priority, helping people help themselves would be the answer, not bombing them. Either we learn the lessons of Three Cups of Tea, or we're going to need far more than another 100 years to solve anything.

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Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at http://www.larrynocella.com/.

The Prince Harry revealers: Tools in every sense of the word

Yes, I am paying attention, but I still can't help it. No matter how I try, I fail to be outraged. I know that's a totally inappropriate response when confronted with any news story the media instructs us to be outraged about, but that's where I am.

I refer to the events of recent weeks, when it was revealed in the media that the UK's Prince Harry was secretly in military service in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. This was a secret that had been kept by the UK's media for several weeks. However, once Prince Harry's location was publicized, it was deemed best that he be removed from the deadly front since he would be a primary target. The details of Harry's presence in a war-zone were first revealed by the Australian tabloid New Idea and picked up by other news outlets, including the boring-for-all-but-most-vapid-political-junkies website, the Drudge Report.(1)

Let's recap the official story: The British media agreed to keep Harry's location secret. Non-UK media acquired knowledge of Prince Harry's location and publicized it. Since Harry was undercover, this publicity was dangerous to him. Harry was therefore removed from the front line.

Here is a scenario I find much more plausible: Once the British media bought into keeping Harry's location secret, someone from the British secret service, assigned to protect the royals at all costs, purposely revealed Harry's location to select non-UK media, knowing they would publicize it. Harry was therefore removed from the front line.

I believe my scenario is much more likely. It's a win-win situation for all the parties involved: the British royal family has a way to extract Harry without raising questions of favoritism, the entire British populace gets to rage at the world rather than be furious at each other, and attention-whore tabloids like The Drudge Report and New Idea get more attention.

The only non-cynical part of this tale might be Harry himself. He could be causing trouble for those who prefer to think of him as a symbol and not a human being. His mother, the late Princess Diana, suffered a similar fate, and even so, she publicized the tragedy of unexploded landmines when she could have been buying expensive shoes. I'm not trying to insult Harry with my guessing at how the machine works. I'm trying to insult the people who ruin a young man's life by making him a "royal." If Harry really wanted to, he likely could have got out of going at all, so give him that. Keep in mind, my view on the events allows that the information may have been leaked without Harry's knowledge, without his consent, possibly even against his consent.

Now let's talk about tools.

To call someone a "tool" is an insult. Used in a general sense, it means the same as "asshole." Taken to be a synonym with asshole, then obviously Drudge and his tabloid kin can be referred to as tools.

However, Drudge, New Idea and company are also tools with the more common definition. That is, they are objects that are useful to accomplishing something, like a hammer is useful in pounding in a nail. Tabloids are convenient news release orifices for news items you want publicized but for some reason, you don't want to release yourself.

This is what makes a tool: you don't need to be told what to do, you just do it. Tabloids don't need to be fed sensitive information, told not to tell anyone, and then go tell everyone. That's what they do. The more you tell them not to scream it, the louder they'll scream it. They're very predictable, nearly robotic, as unthinking as a hammer in that way.

Just like whatever division of the UK's secret service that is assigned to protecting Harry's life does not need to be told to get him off the deadly front-line ASAP. They just did what they needed to, reflexively and without consulting many if any.

It would only take one person. Witness the power of the media.

So is this what really happened? I don't know. I'll never know. Neither will you. The brilliance of the plan is that because the entire British media bought into the secrecy, it could be blamed on any of them. I suppose if you could get New Idea to say who initially told them, you might be able to backtrack it sufficiently.

At this point, the effort out-paces the desire. Beyond my lazy theorizing here, I just don't care. Harry is a royal, he's going to get special treatment as much as he may struggle against it. In a way, it's disturbing. There could be a genuine person in that body that for some is just a symbol like a battlefield banner, or a living advertisement. The poor guy is likely to get corrupted the more that he's treated like that, but we'll see.

I wish him luck.


SOURCE: (1)Australian magazine broke Prince Harry story

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Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at www.LarryNocella.com.