AFS Cinema
Endeavor, Wal-Mart Listen to Your Conscience
RECEIVED Fri., Aug. 8, 2003
I don't have to inform you about the environmental impact of building the proposed Wal-Mart within a recharge zone. Austinites already know this. Nor do I have to go into detail about the impact of a 24-hour Supercenter, when it is built within the boundaries of a small neighborhood.
Rather, I'm writing to address the impact Endeavor and Wal-Mart have when they act without a conscience. Can they do what they want, absent of conscience and without regard to the will of the people?
The other day I read the profound statement, "If good people stand around and do nothing then evil will triumph." Unfortunately in this case and many cases, the good people are not standing around doing nothing. We've created lives so full of to-dos that we just do not have the extensive amount of time and energy it takes to fight these huge companies. Rather, we lie down and take it and say, "That's just the way that it is." Wal-Mart, Endeavor, and other companies are taking full advantage of this, raping us of our "American Dream" lives that we are working so very hard to create and to maintain. Are these companies becoming so huge that they don't have to listen to the pleas of citizens?
It makes no sense for Endeavor to build a Wal-Mart one block from my neighborhood pool, just like it makes no sense for someone to build a pool one block from any already existent Wal-Mart. The members of Southwest Austin should not have to accept that this is just the way that it is. Nor should they have to move from their homes, rearrange their lives, to accommodate for a bully with no conscience.
Endeavor, Wal-Mart, listen to your conscience and to the will of the people. Build your 24-hour Supercenter, but build on a main street, not on Sendera Mesa Drive. Build it outside the boundaries of a community and outside of a recharge zone.
Rather, I'm writing to address the impact Endeavor and Wal-Mart have when they act without a conscience. Can they do what they want, absent of conscience and without regard to the will of the people?
The other day I read the profound statement, "If good people stand around and do nothing then evil will triumph." Unfortunately in this case and many cases, the good people are not standing around doing nothing. We've created lives so full of to-dos that we just do not have the extensive amount of time and energy it takes to fight these huge companies. Rather, we lie down and take it and say, "That's just the way that it is." Wal-Mart, Endeavor, and other companies are taking full advantage of this, raping us of our "American Dream" lives that we are working so very hard to create and to maintain. Are these companies becoming so huge that they don't have to listen to the pleas of citizens?
It makes no sense for Endeavor to build a Wal-Mart one block from my neighborhood pool, just like it makes no sense for someone to build a pool one block from any already existent Wal-Mart. The members of Southwest Austin should not have to accept that this is just the way that it is. Nor should they have to move from their homes, rearrange their lives, to accommodate for a bully with no conscience.
Endeavor, Wal-Mart, listen to your conscience and to the will of the people. Build your 24-hour Supercenter, but build on a main street, not on Sendera Mesa Drive. Build it outside the boundaries of a community and outside of a recharge zone.
Laurie Hunter