crossposted to Daily Kos and MyDD and Albany State Project

My friends at Wake-Up Wal-Mart and I have seen something remarkable:

In what we might presume to be the most bone-headed, most egregious iteration yet of the right-wing media's effort to convince us all itself that Wal-Mart = America, and that those who fault the company are in fact terrist sympathizers who no doubt also hate baseball and apple pie, this weekend the New York Post provided us with a nearly three thousand-word manifesto on Wal-Mart's unassailable decency, penned by intrepid regurgitator Charles Platt.  read more »

Well into his fourth decade of song-crafting prowess, and his third of life as a household name, Bruce Springsteen now stands at the pinnacle of singer-songwriter achievement: first sharing a stage with the Father of American Folk Music at the We Are One Concert on the National Mall, then rocking out a set of blue-collar anthems a scant two weeks later at the Super Bowl.

The Boss has earned it. From his rebuff of Reagan’s ham-fisted “Born in the U.S.A.” co-opt, to his protest of Amadou Diallo’s sanctioned murder by performing “41 Shots” in Madison Square Garden, Springsteen has made it clear that his is the music of the oppressed, the dissatisfied, the American underdog— making his misstep with Wal-Mart all the more confounding.  read more »

A lot of discussion has taken place on liberal blogs following the brutal death of Djimytai Damour at a New York store on Black Friday.

At MyDD, folks asked what the event meant about our culture, or pondered what Wal-Mart might have done to prevent the man's death, while over at Daily Kos there was a spirited debate over whether Wal-Mart was even responsible.

I do some work with Wake-Up Wal-Mart-- what they did was raise money to relieve Damour's family. We've been following this story pretty closely. Now it's taken another turn.

Now Leana Lockley, the pregnant woman whom Jdimytai Damour died saving, is telling her tale:

"There were so many people on top of me it just went silent," Lockley said. "I started hearing my teeth grinding in my mouth and my body being crushed. I really thought I lost my baby."  read more »