Green Day lashes out at Wal-Mart policy

Green Day has the most popular CD in the country, but you won’t be able to find it at your local Wal-Mart.

The band says the giant superstore chain refused to stock its latest CD, “21st Century Breakdown,” because Wal-Mart wanted the album edited for language and content, and they refused… to read more

Green Day is one of the few bands I will spend money on. It’s not because the lead singer is cute as buttons, or that they are home boys from the Bay Area, but because the content of their songs have some meaning beyond “boy meets girl” “girl loses boy”. It is no accident that the album “American Idiot” charted in 26 countries and reached number one is 19 of them. The content of “American Idiot” stated the helplessness and frustration a lot of people felt about the Bush administration and the War in Iraq. The song (and video) of “Holiday” made me want to stand up and shout. It was the first rock anti-war song that had real content and was hard rocking.

“Holiday”

Say, hey!

Hear the sound of the falling rain
Coming down like an Armageddon flame (Hey!)
The shame
The ones who died without a name

Hear the dogs howling out of key
To a hymn called “Faith and Misery” (Hey!)
And bleed, the company lost the war today

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday

Hear the drum pounding out of time
Another protester has crossed the line (Hey!)
To find, the money’s on the other side

Can I get another Amen? (Amen!)
There’s a flag wrapped around a score of men (Hey!)
A gag, a plastic bag on a monument

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday

(Hey!)
(Say, hey!)

(3,4)

“The representative from California has the floor”

Sieg Heil to the president Gasman
Bombs away is your punishment
Pulverize the Eiffel towers
Who criticize your government
Bang bang goes the broken glass and
Kill all the fags that don’t agree
Trials by fire, setting fire
Is not a way that’s meant for me
Just cause, just cause, because we’re outlaws yeah!

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives

This is our lives on holiday

Thanks to azlyrics

What people need to understand is being anti-war isn’t anti-American. Our right to protest was seriously hampered in the last administration. To speak out against the war was to be perceived as being unpatriotic as if exercising our constitutional right of free speech was suddenly a crime. Green Day protesting Wal-Mart’s demand that they censor their lyrics in order to be sold at that franchise is another hit against free speech. It’s not like Wal-Mart isn’t going to make money selling Green Day. Wal-Mart wants to control content and that’s un-American.

From 2003 until today there are few anti-war songs and as a Boomer who grew up on anti-war songs it was amazing to me that musicians were so timid about speaking out against the war. Green Day got my attention by being not only brave but creative, irreverent, as well as sassy smart about their musical protest.

I have major issues with Wal-Mart in general. Wal-Mart’s practice of not giving health benefits to their workers has placed a severe burden on the local communities that host Wal-Mart stores:  

“$420,750: Annual cost to U.S. taxpayers of a single 200-employee Wal-Mart store, because of support required for underpaid workers — including subsidized school lunches, food stamps, housing credits, tax credits, energy assistance, and health care

“45%: Proportion of her entire annual wage that a single Wal-Mart employee might have to pay out-of-pocket before collecting any benefits from the company-sponsored health plan” How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World and What You Can Do About It

Local Mom and Pop stores are crushed when Wal-Mart opens a store in any location. Businesses move out and taxes are lost to the local economy, schools are hurt, churches are hurt, and Wal-Mart doesn’t contribute to the local economy in such a way that off sets the losses that are incurred with their presence.

We purchase our groceries from a local family owned supermarket. The prices are a little higher than at Wal-Mart or other box stores but we know them, they know us, we have a long standing relationship. If I’m sort a couple of bucks they just write it off because I’m a regular. Going to the store is like going to visit friends. They don’t discriminate against folks who work there so we have clerks that are skate boarders with tattoos, long hairs, a gal in the deli is a BBW, and there are a lot of accents from around the world in their staff. But the staff can afford to support their families. They have health benefits. I choose to pay a little extra at a local store to add my support to a family I’ve known for over 20 years.

The way Wal-Mart keeps the prices low is the impact is felt at the manufacturing end. The workers who make Wal-Mart items are underpaid and have no employee protection from abuse or pollution.

For several years, Wal-Mart has been the single largest U.S. importer of Chinese consumer goods, surpassing the trade volume of entire countries, such as Germany and Russia. Global sourcing is now fully integrated into the company’s operations — giving Wal-Mart enormous leverage worldwide. Foreign products account for nearly all of Wal-Mart’s trumpeted low opening price point goods. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/secrets/wmchina.html

In 2003, Head reports, the Korean owner of a plant in Pago Pago supplying garments to Wal-Mart was convicted of human trafficking and of holding more than 200 Vietnamese workers under “conditions of involuntary servitude.” The National Labor Committee has found that Wal-Mart suppliers in China, Bangladesh and Central America routinely withhold employees’ wages, enforce unpaid overtime, ignore restrictions on working hours, and deny employees health care and maternity benefits.

Wal-Mart is far worse in this regard than other retailers. In 2004, the National Labor Committee found that 90 percent of Bangladesh’s garment manufacturers violated their female employees’ right to maternity leave. A number of manufacturers—including Liz Claiborne, Costco, the Gap, Levi Strauss and Sears—pledged that any woman in Bangladesh sewing their garments must be guaranteed her legal right to maternity leave. Wal-Mart gave no such pledge.  http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A25541

The decision to control content in Wal-Mart starts from the top. Like the old saying goes, “the fish smells from the head”:

Know Thy Neighbor is reporting that Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke is among the 80,000 Arkansas residents that signed a petition to ban adoption for same-sex couples. His wife signed also. http://current.com/items/90019761_new-reason-to-boycott-walmart.htm

It’s not only the content of a dissident rock band that Wal-Mart wants to control it goes further than that.  The weight and power of Wal-Mart wants to change American into their image of the ultra-right conservative life style, which means if you’re gay you’re not in their plans. Wal-Mart doesn’t offer domestic partnership benefits.  As a mother of a gay son that gets my goat.

But I digress… I applaud Green Day’s refusal to censor their music for Wal-Mart.