Wal-Mart's immoral policies revealed

When it comes to comedy, Wal-Mart never disappoints. As far as I'm able to tell, it is the only indoor location on this planet that sports more mullets than my family reunions and is close in the running for sheer number of pick-up trucks in one parking lot. Even more humorous is customer willingness to waste hours of their time waiting in Wal-Mart's incredibly long check-out lines just to purchase cheap junk that's bound to fall apart in less than a week. Wal-Mart is proof-positive that people will buy anything as long as it is cheap. If you can stand the crowds, hang out for a while and see how many lawn flamingos you can spot moving through the doors.

It would be pointless to go on a tirade about the quality of Wal-Mart's goods. Logic suggests that if the goods are cheap, then they're crap. Instead, I think it would be a better idea to discuss the most humorous aspect of the Wal-Mart franchise: its self-appointed status as society's moral hall monitor.

Wal-Mart claims it will not be swayed by popular trends and will keep "offensive" material out of their stores. It pressures record labels into releasing "clean" albums, in which all nasty are words blanked out. First, Wal-Mart declared it would not carry Marilyn Manson albums, but over the years it has extended its boycott to all albums with explicit lyrics and magazines with "racy" covers. Now, Wal-Mart has announced it will not carry The Daily Show's "America (The Book)" because there is a page their customers might find offensive. The page in question has the faces of the Supreme Court Justices pasted onto nude bodies and readers are tasked with "restoring the justices' dignity" by pairing them with the correct robe. While the book won't be available at Wal-Mart locations, it is available on its web site.

Intrigued by Wal-Mart's "it is too offensive to sell in our stores, but we'll hawk it on our web site" position on America "(The Book)," I figured I'd give their online shop a visit and see if they took a similar approach to other offensive material. For all the noise Wal-Mart made about Manson not being worthy of space in their stores, they proudly sell his live DVD, "Guns, God, and Government" as if Manson live is somehow less controversial than his albums. Furthermore, they take no issue with selling the albums of Manson's forerunner, Nine Inch Nails. Wal-Mart won't sell magazines with "racy covers," but apparently it takes no issue with selling CDs produced by Playboy and Maxim, all of which display scantily clad females on their covers. Clearly, Wal-Mart's morals aren't as strict in the online realm as they are in its stores.

Wal-Mart's moral inconsistency doesn't stop with the items being sold in its online shop. While you may not be able to purchase an album with explicit lyrics in a Wal-Mart store, you can find hundreds of rated R films. Are Manson's lyrics any more explicit than the dialogue in Quentin Tarantino films? Wal-Mart's definition of "offensive" doesn't include violence, either. "America (The Book)" shows nine nude bodies, none of which are in sexually suggestive positions, and while that's enough for Wal-Mart to pull it off the shelves, they celebrate Jerry Bruckheimer's entire collection of mindless, shoot 'em up action flicks. While you're in the movie department picking up various depictions of sex and violence, you might want to take a walk over the sporting goods department where you may easily purchase a rifle or a shotgun and corresponding ammunition at a reasonable price. Remember kids, guns don't kill people - Marilyn Manson does.

Just the mere mention of a corporation portraying itself as some sort of moral crusader is enough to send me to the floor laughing hysterically. As a business, Wal-Mart's priority is making money, not defending its customers against "offensive" media. If Wal-Mart were half as moral as it would like the public to think it is, it wouldn't hire illegal immigrants over American workers, it wouldn't force their employees to work unpaid overtime, it wouldn't discriminate against women and it wouldn't attack workers who want to unionize. Instead, it would pay their one million workers a living wage, provide affordable health insurance and stop pressuring suppliers to lower labor costs. Wal-Mart is the Jerry Falwell of the corporate world, pretentiously claiming moral high ground while lying and cheating every chance it gets.