Now
Available!
Dime's
Worth of Difference:
Beyond the
Lesser of Two Evils
Order Here!
Today's
Stories
October 15,
2004
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
October 15, 2004
A Retail Mall
at Teotihuacan?
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
By
LAURA CARLSEN
The showdown is rife with symbolism.
Wal-Mart's expansion plans in Mexico have brought about a modern-day
clash of passions and principles on the site of one the earth's
first great civilizations.
Several months ago Wal-Mart,
the world's largest retail chain, quietly began construction
on a new store north of Mexico City. To many, it's just another
step in the phenomenal takeover of Mexico's retail sector. But
to others, it's stepping on the cultural foundations of the country.
Excavation for the new store started just several thousand meters
from the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, the crowning structures
of the ancient city of Teotihuacan.
The Teotihuacan empire is thought
to have begun as early as 200 B.C. It grew into a thriving city
estimated at over 200,000 inhabitants at its peak. Its streets
and sacred buildings are a marvel in urban planning, organized
geometrically along the Avenue of the Dead and punctuated by
the massive pyramids. The placement of each structure is believed
to have a cosmological and social significance that researchers
are only beginning to decipher.
The dominion of Teotihuacan
stretched deep into the heart of Mayan country in Guatemala and
throughout present-day Mexico. Its major symbol and guiding principle
of governance was the plumed serpent, Quetzalcoatl. The civilization
fell in 700 A.D., under circumstances still shrouded in mystery.
Since then, other tribes and
civilizations, including the Aztecs and contemporary Mexican
society, have claimed the "City of the Gods" as their
heritage. The grand-scale human accomplishment it represents
and the power of its architectural, historical, and spiritual
legacy is central to Mexico's history and culture. Indigenous
leaders, New Age seekers, sightseers, and archaeologists make
up a steady flow of pilgrimages to the site.
While little is known for certain
about the rise and fall of Teotihuacan, much is known about the
rise of the Wal-Mart empire. From a store in Rogers, Arkansas
founded by the Walton brothers in 1962, the enterprise ballooned
into the world's largest company.
Wal-Mart's driving symbol and
governing principle is the dollar sign. The company has revolutionized
the labor and business world by working cheap and growing big.
Labor costs are held down through anti-union policies, the hiring
of undocumented workers, alleged discrimination against women
and persons with disabilities, and cutbacks in benefits. Prices
paid suppliers are driven down by outsourcing competition.
In Mexico, Wal-Mart's conquest
of the supermarket sector began by buying up the nation's extensive
chain, Aurrerá, beginning in 1992, and from there building
new stores across the country. Today, with 657 stores, Mexico
is home to more Wal-Marts and their affiliates than any other
country outside the United States. Buoyed by $244.5 billion dollars
in annual net sales, the chain can afford to make ever deeper
incursions into the country's retail sector.
Proponents of pyramid Wal-Mart
argue that it will create jobs and serve consumers cheaply-the
hallmark of the store's reputation. The chain has already become
Mexico's largest private employer, with over 100,000 employees.
But recent studies in the United States, where resistance to
the megastores has been growing, show that job creation is often
job displacement, as Wal-Marts put local stores out of business,
leading to net job losses.
Opposition to the store is
led by a diverse group of local merchants, artists, actors, academics,
and indigenous organizations that protest damage to Mexico's
rich cultural heritage. Through ceremonies, hunger strikes, demonstrations,
and press coverage the movement to defend the site has kept the
conflict in the public eye and heightened the public-opinion
costs to the transnational. Opponents have taken their concerns
to the Mexican Congress and UNESCO.
Excavation on the site has
revealed archaeological relics from the layers of civilizations
that have populated Teotihuacan. Wal-Mart construction workers
told the national daily, La Jornada, they had orders to
hide any pieces they find. The presence of relics often requires
that further excavation be carried out painstakingly or halted
altogether. These are processes that the booming Wal-Mart clearly
has no time for.
Wal-Mart's economic power as
an employer and investor, however, is a force to be reckoned
with-especially considering Mexico's high unemployment and the
chronic need for foreign currency. Mexico State Governor Arturo
Montiel had announced an effort to relocate the planned store,
but that initiative inexplicably dissolved only days later. Wal-Mart
refuses to relocate, claiming it obtained legal permits and has
complied with all formal requirements.
The dispute in Teotihuacan
today is not a battle between the past and the future. It is
a struggle over a nation's right to define itself. For defenders
of the site, gathered behind banners that read "Don't ruin
our ruins," the pyramids symbolize the nation's cultural
heritage - but they also constitute part of contemporary integrity.
Mexico in the modern age is still a country that defines itself
by legends, and whose collective identity-unlike its neophyte
northern neighbor-reaches back thousands of years.
In this context, Wal-Mart is
a symbol of the cultural insensitivity of rampant economic integration.
Although its actions may be technically legal, in the end it
could pay a high price for them.
And if there's anything Wal-Mart
hates, it's high prices.
Laura Carlsen is Director of the Americas Program
for Interhemispheric Resource Center. She holds a BA in Social
Thought and Institutions (1980) from Stanford University and
an MA in Latin American Studies (1986) from Stanford. She received
a Fulbright Scholarship to study the impact of the Mexican economic
crisis on women in 1986 and has since lived in Mexico City. She
can be reached at: laura@irc-online.org
TAKE ACTION!
Write Wal-Mart Chief Executive
Officer H. Lee. Scott to request relocation of the store:
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
702 S.W. 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716
Phone: 1-800-WALMART (1-800-925-6278)
Web: http://www.walmart.com
Also Mexico State Governor
Arturo Montiel: gob@gubernatura.gem.gob.mx
Weekend
Edition Features for September 18 / 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
/
|