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An Unreasonable Woman is Diane Wilson's autobiography about her fight to protect the Texas shrimp bays from hazardous pollution from the Formosa company. As a relative newbie to Texas (I'll have been here 10 years this summer), I wasn't aware of the environmental struggles that happened in the mid-80s.
Speaking of films about big, unethical corporations, The Huffington Post has a note today about a filmmaker working on a documentary about Walmart. He was launched into action after hearing a friend who worked there say he was given explicit instructions by the company about how to apply for Medicaid coverage since Walmart wasn't paying him enough to be able to buy health insurance.
Doesn't it strike you that a major argument for single-payer health care would be that the country's largest employer is pushing their employees into a government plan to avoid paying for medical costs.
I look forward to them completing their work. I'd already seen several pieces on the company. Both Frontline and NOW on PBS had fairly long stories. Frontline's program focused on Walmart's trade relations with China, while NOW's story dealt with employee relations.
There is a superb and thorough essay on Wal-Mart and a slate of current works on the subject over at the New York Review of Books. Check out "Inside the Leviathan," by Simon Head.
Robert Reich has an editorial in the NYTimes about why we should like (some) regulations instead of blaming WallMart.
Not totally "value-based" yet, but heading in the right direction.