Miners, Wal-Mart and Takin' What They're Givin'

Those who know me--and many who don't--know that I'm writing a book partially set in Wales. There are a lot of miners in Wales. There are a lot of families who came to America to get out of the mines, or to get away from the memories of loved ones pulled dead from the bowels of the earth. If you are a Williams, a Jones, a Phillips or a Pritchard chances are that you are at least distantly related to someone who served time in the deeper parts of the British Isles. This week's tragedy is a ghost of our collective past and a stern reminder that not so long ago a day at work literally meant you were taking your life into your hands. What happened as a freakish occurance in West Virginia used to be a regular part of a lot of people's lives. Brothers and dads went out of the blue and into the black and never came back.

So that's why I got more than a little ticked off watching Frontline's Is Wal-Mart Good For America?. I'm no huge fan of Wal-Mart, by any stretch of the imagination. I've littered various comment sections on other blogs with my detailed reasons for the huge grudge I hold against The Bully of Bentonville. The fact remains, however, that the vast numbers of jobs in America are good jobs. They don't always pay what they should, but for the most part we've moved away from the types of work which routinely place lives in jeopardy. Whether you work in an electronics plant or ring up sales as a Wal-Mart Associate you have it far better than your great-grandpa did in Scotland and Wales and your quality of living is much better than the North-Sino human grist in Guangdong who have stolen American blue-collar jobs. We may not earn what we think we're worth, but at least we don't live in communal housing on the factory premises and make thirty cents an hour.

Don't get me wrong. There are real problems with Wal-Mart's way of doing business, and a grave growing trade deficit. But a little gratitude for the blessings we do have is probably not out of line.