[Peace] Tape prison specail tonight?

Tue May 10 09:45:51 CDT 2005

Can anyone actually program a VCR? Does anyone still have a VCR? I would 
love to
see this program (The New Asylums, 9pm, Tuesday, May 10 on WILL-TV) and 
don't imagine I'll be back from the media conference in time. pleease? I'll 
owe you one.

Sandra

See my art at www.spiritofsandra.com

>From: "Kranich, Kimberlie" <Kranich at WILL.uiuc.edu>
>To: "Peace Listerv (E-mail)" <peace at lists.groogroo.com>
>Subject: [Peace] Is Wal-Mart Good for America? on WILL-TV Wednesday night
>Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 09:18:32 -0500
>
>All,
>Two good episdoes of "Frontline" on WILL-TV tonight and tomorrow.  Tape 
>them
>if you're going to be at the Media Conference.
>Kimberlie
>The New Asylums, 9pm, Tuesday, May 10 on WILL-TV
>There are nearly half a million mentally ill people serving time in
>America's prisons and jails. As sheriffs and prison wardens become the
>unexpected and ill-equipped gatekeepers of this burgeoning population, they
>raise a troubling new concern: are jails and prisons America's new asylums?
>With exclusive and unprecedented access to prison therapy sessions, mental
>health treatment meetings, crisis wards, and prison disciplinary tribunals,
>FRONTLINE goes deep inside Ohio's state prison system to present a searing
>exploration of the complex and growing topic of mental health behind bars
>and a moving portrait of the individuals at the center of this issue.
>Is Wal-Mart Good for America?, 9pm, Wednesday, May 11 on WILL-TV
>In Circleville, Ohio, population 13,000, the local RCA
>television-manufacturing plant was once a source of good jobs with good pay
>and benefits. But in late 2003, RCA's owner, Thomson Consumer Electronics,
>lost a sizeable portion of its production orders and six months later shut
>the plant down, throwing 1,000 people out of work.
>Thomson's jobs have moved to China, where cheap labor manufactures what the
>American consumer desires -- from clothing to electronics -- and can buy at
>"everyday low prices" at the local Wal-Mart.
>FRONTLINE explores the relationship between U.S. job losses and the 
>American
>consumer's insatiable desire for bargains in "Is Wal-Mart Good for 
>America?"
>Through interviews <../interviews/> with retail executives, product
>manufacturers, economists, and trade experts, correspondent Hedrick Smith
>examines the growing controversy over the Wal-Mart way of doing business 
>and
>asks whether a single retail giant has changed the American economy.
>"Wal-Mart's power and influence are awesome," Smith says. "By figuring out
>how to exploit two powerful forces <../secrets/> that converged in the 
>1990s
>-- the rise of information technology and the explosion of the global
>economy -- Wal-Mart has dramatically changed the balance of power
><../secrets/shots.html> in the world of business. Retailers are now more
>powerful than manufacturers, and they are forcing the decision to move
>production offshore."
>"Wal-Mart has reversed a hundred-year history that had the retailer
>dependent on the manufacturer," explains Nelson Lichtenstein
><../interviews/lichtenstein.html>, a professor at the University of
>California Santa Barbara. "Now the retailer is the center, the power, and
>the manufacturer becomes the serf, the vassal, the underling who has to do
>the bidding of the retailer. That's a new thing."
>To understand the secret of Wal-Mart's success, Smith travels from the
>company's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., to their global procurement
>center in Shenzhen, China, where several hundred employees work to keep the
>company's import pipeline running smoothly. Of Wal-Mart's 6,000 global
>suppliers, experts estimate that as many as 80 percent are based in China.
>"Wal-Mart has a very close relationship with China," says Duke University
>Professor Gary Gereffi <../interviews/gereffi.html>. "China is the largest
>exporter to the U.S. economy in virtually all consumer goods categories.
>Wal-Mart is the leading retailer in the U.S. economy in virtually all
>consumer goods categories. Wal-Mart and China are a joint venture."
>When trade agreements were signed between the U.S. and China in the 1990s,
>bringing China into the World Trade Organization, American political and
>business leaders embraced the idea <../china/trade.html>. China's 1.2
>billion people were viewed as an enormous untapped market for American-made
>goods. The reality, experts say, is the opposite. China's exports to the
>U.S. have skyrocketed.
>At a salary of only 50 cents an hour or $100 a month, Chinese labor is an
>unbeatable bargain for international business. And the Chinese government 
>is
>doing everything it can to be sure the country's infrastructure supports 
>the
>export business. Ten years ago Shenzhen's main port did not exist. Today
>it's on the verge of becoming the third busiest port in the world.
>Wal-Mart estimates it imports $15 billion of Chinese goods every year and
>concedes that the figure could be higher -- some estimates range as high as
>$20 or $30 billion. Company executives are quick to point out they have
>always scoured the globe for low cost suppliers to benefit the American
>consumer.
>"We do depend on products from around the globe to draw our consumers into
>the stores," says Ray Bracy <../interviews/bracy.html>, Wal-Mart's vice
>president for federal and international public affairs. "We feel they need
>to have the best product, the best value, at the best price we can 
>achieve."
>Some experts contend Wal-Mart's "everyday low prices" are causing a clash
><../transform/isgood.html> between the interests of Americans as workers 
>and
>the desires of Americans as consumers.
>"If people were only consumers, buying things at lower prices would be just
>good. But people also are workers who need to earn a decent standard of
>living," says economist Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute. "The
>dynamics that create lower prices at Wal-Mart and other places are also
>undercutting the ability of many, many workers to earn decent wages and
>benefits and have a stable life."
>Economist Brink Lindsey <../interviews/lindsey.html> of the Cato Institute
>sees it another way. "I think Wal-Mart is good for America," he says.
>"Wal-Mart is doing what the American economy is all about, which is
>producing things consumers want to buy ... offering consumers a wide range
>of goods at rock-bottom prices. It is meeting the market test."
>This is little consolation to the unemployed workers back in Circleville,
>Ohio. Steve Ratcliff, a long-time worker at the Thomson plant puts it
>simply: "If you want these low prices, then you go buy your products from
>Wal-Mart. But what does that actually do for this country? It's putting
>people out of work. And it's lowering our standard of living. That's the
>bottom line."
>Ironically, for Ratcliff and his former colleagues, there are new jobs
>coming to town. In a patch of farmland right next to the vacant Thomson
>plant, Wal-Mart has broken ground on one of its new Supercenters. But the
>Wal-Mart jobs will represent a steep cut in pay from the $15 to $16 an hour
>workers made at Thomson, and a far cry from the pension, health care, and
>job security benefits that have long been the norm in manufacturing.
>  <<...OLE_Obj...>>
>
>
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