Preservationists oppose megastore near historic Civil War battlefield
The area close to Virginia’s Wilderness Battlefield, the site of the first clash between Confederate General Robert E. Lee and Federal General Ulysses S. Grant, is in the news, with a coalition of historians and preservationists battling Wal Mart plans to construct an enormous Supercenter near the site. A list of over 250 Civil War experts, among them documentarian Ken Burns and historian David McCullough, signed a letter urging Wal Mart to consider another location, saying that the proposed megastore will encroach on the historic landmark and blight the local landscape.
The Battle of the Wilderness, fought between May 5 and 7, 1864, saw soldiers of Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia outnumbered nearly two to one as Grant’s Army of the Potomac pressed towards the Confederacy’s Richmond capital. Approximately 10,000 men died on both sides.
In 1927, the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, containing parts of the Wilderness Battlefield, as well as portions of the battlefields of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania Court House, was set up, and a preservationist group, Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield, helps to maintain the site.
Wal Mart has been the focus of numerous campaigns because of what some feel are the corporation’s “predatory” policies. Wal Mart has been accused of corporate welfare abuse, globalization, exploitation of workers in America and abroad, and environmental crimes. The plan to construct a grotesque Supercenter near such an historic site as the Wilderness Battlefield is seen by many as an example of the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=6360.Wal Mart has a huge market share because of its low prices, but some see the real costs to consumers as hidden. Wal Mart is China’s eighth largest trading partner, and the AFL CIO, claims that “Wal-Mart is the single largest importer of foreign-produced goods in the United States.” According to one estimate, in 2004 Wal Mart’s relationship with the Red Chinese accounted for about 10% of the total US trade deficit with China. The Economic Policy Institute claims that Wal Mart’s Chinese dealings have cost the US 1.5 million jobs.
Because of its economy of scale, Wal Mart has been accused of driving competition out of the market and lowering the general wage scale. According to the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, the average salaries of Wal Mart’s non-unionized workforce come to “over $10,000 less than what the average two-person family needs.” Wal Mart is accused of masking it’s low costs by shifting many costs to the taxpayers, who often have to pay for healthcare, especially, for Wal Mart’s part time employees. One finding estimated that California taxpayers shell out an estimated $86 million a year to Walmart employees. A number of arrests have also been made of illegal aliens working on Wal Mart projects.
Some observers also claim that Wal Mart has played a role in the destruction of living downtowns, and increased reliance on cars, with the associated environmental dangers and public costs of road construction.
The Wilderness Battlefield is not the first historical conflict with Wal Mart. In 1998, Wal Mart prevailed in its attempt to build a megastore near a Civil War battlefield in the Nashville area, which also contained Indian burial grounds. It is a sign of Wal Mart’s power that it was able to defy prevailing practice on Indian sites. In 2004, Wal Mart constructed a Superstore less than two miles from the world historic Teotihuacan temple complex in Mexico. A small altar was found where the parking lot now stands. Poet Homero Aridjis spoke for many when he said the Wal Mart opening was “like planting the staff of globalization in the heart of ancient Mexico.”