Here's an idea: Let's build a shopping mall on the National Mal in Washington, or even better, how about a McDonalds on Half Dome in Yosemite Park? Don't these sound like good ideas? Well if you're saying NO, then you probably agree that they make about as much sense as the proposal to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter on the grounds of the Wilderness Civil War Battlefield. Robert Duvall agrees also and spoke out earlier this year:
Just last week, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, and six nearby residents filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Orange County. The suit challenges the August 2009 approval of Walmart's proposal to plant a massive super center unacceptably close to the historic battlefield.
For those of you who don't know about the Wilderness, it was a famous Civil War battle near Chancellorsville, Virginia. 3,700 Americans died there. To put that in perspective, about 2,000 Americans died on the shores on Normandy. The Civil War was certainly a grisly chapter in our history, but we owe it to our ancestors to not allow Wal-Mart to build a chapel to cheap Chinese crap on their graves.
I'm doing some work with Wake Up Wal-Mart to make sure that this store is never built, at least not here. You may not have a problem with Wal-Mart (although if you're like me, you might have an issue with degrading worker treatment), but it's high time that we set our priorities straight in this nation and stand up against GOP-allied mega-corporations treading on us.
Please join in me in fighting the Wilderness Wal-Mart and visit wakeupwalmart.com for the latest on the fight.
