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This is an e-mail I got a few days ago that I think is worth passing on:

Dear Down With Tyranny,

Whatever happened to good corporate citizenship?

In America today, a business you might know pays such poor wages its workers have to turn to taxpayers to pay for their health care. The same firm has made China, a totalitarian dictatorship that holds wages down by outlawing unions, its supplier of choice -- the source of 70 percent of its inventory.

And the family that owns this company and has become wildly wealthy? They make sure to invest their money in the Republican Party -- where they know their investment will pay off with tax cuts for the richest few.

What company is this? Wal-Mart -- the largest, richest corporation in the world.

Major organizations we work with -- groups such as the Service Employees International Union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers -- believe America's largest corporation should do better. To make that happen, they've launched a massive campaign to show Americans the massive scale of Wal-Mart's irresponsibility.

But those groups need allies. Should we join the fight? The choice is yours:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/walmartvote

Some competitors of Wal-Mart know the value of doing well by doing good. They pay living wages. They offer good benefits. And they earn steady profits -- in part because they attract, and hold onto, high-quality workers. These companies have helped make America the wealthiest nation in the world and they sustain our prosperity.

Wal-Mart takes a radically different approach. For it, every penny is profit -- it fights for every dollar, no matter how it gets it. The result? You pay to make Wal-Mart rich -- through tax benefits and infrastructure bestowed by state and local governments -- even if you never shop there.

Take Georgia, a state where Wal-Mart ranks as the largest private employer. In 2002, state officials there figured out that Wal-Mart employees had some 10,000 children on the rolls of PeachCare, the state's child health care program. No other company's employees had even a thousand children on the rolls -- but Wal-Mart had no qualms about dumping its costs onto Georgia taxpayers.

Wal-Mart used to make a point of keeping jobs in the United States by buying American. Today, though, the company single-handedly accounts for nearly 10 percent of all Chinese goods sold in the United States. Wal-Mart keeps prices low by stocking as much as 70 percent of its products from Chinese suppliers -- suppliers who pay wages kept low by a dictatorial government.

Those policies helped Wal-Mart's owners, the Walton family, build a fortune worth tens of billions. That money makes the company a major force in Washington. And the family uses its wealth to bankroll the radical right -- it spent millions last year to elect candidates devoted to eliminating the estate tax, which affects only the wealthiest of the wealthy. Wal-Mart wealth is also behind Progress for America -- a Republican front group the Waltons have financed to the tune of millions of dollars.

America needs better corporate citizens, and Wal-Mart --the largest company in the world -- has the resources to stand on its own instead of exploiting people overseas and piggybacking on American taxpayers and working families. But making it live up to its responsibilities poses a huge challenge -- because taking on Wal-Mart means going up against the biggest corporation on Earth.

With an undertaking that massive, we need everyone on board. So you make the call:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/walmartvote

We know that America works best when we honor those who work hard and play by the rules.

It's time to decide: shouldn't we teach Wal-Mart to do the same?

Sincerely,
Tom Hughes
Executive Director, Democracy for America

P.S. -- Please forward this message to anyone you know who might be interested in the issue.