"My husband and I are the ONLY parents I know raising our children without any religion or even religious identity (as in claiming to be part of a culture without studying its practices). We are both devout atheists. We don't believe in any gods, or even the possibility of one. We are not agnostic. We believe awareness begins at conception and ends at death. There is no such thing as a soul. No heaven or hell, no rebirth, second chances or higher plains await us. Life is all there is."
---------
Working fine here too. He's got more ethical concerns than any believer of his age around. Vegetarian and wouldn't step on an ant or hurt a fly! Shows concern that the Nikes we might purchase for him were manufactured in sweatshops in Benbladesh! Hates the idea of competition and doesn't want to do sports where it's involved!!! Perfect?!! Hell no!! He hates the idea of inheriting my collection of high quality, Trad/classical(eventually hand made) shoes and prefer comfy and cheap shit-squashers!!!
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Bangladeshis want to produce shoes in sweatshops because sweatshop jobs pay several times as much as other jobs. Western wackos who oppose "sweatshop labor" are really anti poor.
ReplyDeleteTGIA, you are lucky to have your sun. Part of why he is so well balanced is because of your upbringing. But part of it is intrinsic to your son. You don't get to keep all the credit. ;)
Western wackos who oppose "sweatshop labor" are really anti poor.
ReplyDelete--------------
Yeah?? How many working hours for those poor people? What are the conditions? What are their rights? How many days rest? Etc..
Just because I would earn much less if I worked somewhere else doesn't mean I should accept being underpaid at my current job!
"Bangladeshis want to produce shoes in sweatshops because sweatshop jobs pay several times as much as other jobs."
ReplyDeleteWhich other jobs, Dr. Pangloss? How many off these jobs are there, and where are they to be found. Would these jobs be offered to uneducated Nichi children whose welfare is a matter of indifference to caste-ridden legislators?
You have surpassed yourself this time in your defense of the indefensible. You are either a satirist of the calibre of Jonathan Swift, or a callous bahin chot.
bahin chot.
ReplyDelete--------
Qu'est que ca veut dire, Monsieur s'il vous plait?
TGIA, you just don't get how poor Bangladesh is. The poor in Bangladesh dream of a sweatshop job.
ReplyDeleteI think that Bangladesh should get billions of dollars worth of foreign grants (from the US, Japan, China, India, Korea, Europe etc.) But Bangladeshi exports should also be encouraged as much as possible.
The more "sweatshop" labor camps there are in Bangladesh, the more demand for labor there will be. Increased demand for labor is the only way to drive up real incomes in Bangladesh. Poor people have cell phones and quickly find out when another sweatshop is willing to pay them more than their current one.
Do you realise that by the same token using the same argument you could justify prostitution in poor countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Bengladesh?
ReplyDeleteBTW, the sweatshops I was reffering to employ mainly CHILDREN!!!
ReplyDeleteThat is a common line and misunderstanding Joe, you can find the same arguments out of Anand. A cure to ignorance is knowledge understanding - that is why he latches on so swiftly to what you said (unless you are being really satirical).
ReplyDeleteMany times this poverty is CREATED by the destruction of entire villages that used to be gainfully employed. Fishing villages and farming areas that were in existence for centuries are plowed under, and people are herded into the "new industrialism" which is just meant to enrich the few exploiters. It is similar to the ignorance regarding charities, which are not intrinsically bad, but are a scant remedy to what is really ailing the people - war for power over a region regarding natural and human resources. So rather than answers which cover the entire gamut of what causes the commiseration of the people, they get hand-outs and economic servitude and pauperism, may are thrown into beggary, prostitution, and drugs - but as you say, they might "survive." Tiny groups of people are "employed" while the rest starve, and this is held up as the panacea for the exploited region and deftly displayed before the ignorant eyes of the exploiting participant nations.
Essentially, what we are looking at is a system of exploitation, which has helped to bring us to this current global debacle - and it is now spreading to the "developed" nations. Poverty is not merely just so many people over there not connected to so many people somewhere else, it is a dynamic relationship (both domestic and global) where the wealth of the few destroys the many -
THE NEW RULERS OF THE WORLD
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14517.htm
THE SYSTEM?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hdt87rhgSc
Now, if you want to discuss what qualifies me to post on this subject I will be glad to share.
Un type qui nique sa soeur. Peutetre que je serai interdit maintenant.
ReplyDeleteMy first inclination when I read of the sweatshops years ago, was to stop buying anything from the companies involved. But then I read articles like this and it is not so simple as that is it? What is the best thing to do?
ReplyDelete"Yet all the women I spoke to told me not to stop buying. Akhi, and hundreds of thousands more across Dhaka, are the first women in conservative, rural Bangladesh to have any sort of freedoms beyond those allowed by their husbands in the villages.
"The garments industry has created a revolution in women's economic empowerment," says Mashuda Khatun Shefali, who runs an NGO that supports women garment workers and tries to improve their conditions.
Another campaigner, Nazma Akter, said that, poor as most were, "women are becoming an economic force here. This is the first time they have had jobs. They are independent now. They can come and go; nobody stops them. Don't take that away from them."
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/04/freds-footprint-jeans-from-dhaka.html
"So what do you do? Buy only impeccable eco-labels, like Ali Hewson’s Edun, which are expensive and probably won’t suit you? (Why are all eco-clothes “floaty” and in muted shades of biscuit? Why don’t eco-labels do trash disco?) Boycott sweatshop goods? This risks destroying the economy of poor countries – after NBC aired footage of a sweatshop in Bangladesh, Americans stopped buying Bangladeshi clothes, with the result that jobless children flooded Dhaka and NGOs protested."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0204/1232923385076.html
WAR ON THE HELPLESS
ReplyDeletehttp://notinhisname.blogdrive.com/archive/cm-4_cy-2006_m-4_d-23_y-2006_o-0.html
Above a few words on poverty and world starvation, causation.
VOICE FROM THE PAST
http://notinhisname.blogdrive.com/archive/cm-10_cy-2008_m-10_d-15_y-2008_o-0.html
Domestically, Huey Long (by the way, Huey Newton of the Black Panther party was named after Huey Long) and even our own government studies understood what was taking place in this country. It is the height of effrontery to believe that there is no connection between this same system and what is taking place globally. Although Huey was far from perfect, he did hit the nail on the head in this instance, and because of his direction and actions was murdered for the effort by the very elite that plague us and the world today -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIMi7fBA6e4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hMFykL6pko
From a very interesting web site, ETHICAL STYLE, on this topic.
ReplyDeleteNicholas D. Kristof’s op-ed in The New York Times this week provoked a lot of thought. Is it possible that sweatshop factory jobs in poor countries are actually more desirable than the alternatives?
http://ethicalstyle.com/2009/01/a-counterpoint-view-are-sweatshops-beneficial/
Although you guys like to beat up on anand, I really do not think he is defending the treatment of the workers, He was trying to explain that this whole issue is just not that SIMPLE!
It is like clockwork isn't it? The same voices and the same bullshit are guaranteed to rise every time. You find out who they are after a while, they group together - every ideological and political animal gives off a pattern, and these result in the same end every time, the ultimate destruction of the people.
ReplyDeletevza I leave simplicity to the simple minded, of which you are chief. You keep giving this "simple" explanation and than decrying simplicity. Indeed, it is complicated, it is going to require the entire re-work of the global economic structure, which will not sustain robber barons on a local or international (global) scale any longer. However, I will leave you to your simple bark for the staus quo whch has delievered this debacle whch is by no means over.
ReplyDeleteSome families used to be better off during the reign of the Shah in Iran - and because a handful of exploiters have made this global debacle we see today, this must be the way to go, look, it works for some. If I could name one philosophy which arises out of the USA it is pragmatism (it works so it must be right, even if it is just for a handful and enriches a few), and it is the mother of every current miserable condition and atrocity that is foisted upon the world.
ReplyDeleteRather than talking about "Kristof" I'll let Angry say something -
ReplyDelete<span style="font-weight: bold;">"You know what? Nicholas D. Kristof is just, how do I put it nicely, not very bright.</span> I mean, look at this today: "Arabs have often argued that Americans have a double standard in the Middle East: We are more solicitous of casualties in Israel than in Gaza or Lebanon. I think they’re right, for a variety of reasons. (One is that terror attacks are particularly newsworthy; another is that journalists are more likely to live in Jerusalem than Gaza.)" First of all, notice that when he makes the point of "terror attacks are particularly newsworthy" he falls in the same racism that he thinks that he is analyzing, without even noticing. That is how not-very-bright he is. He basically implies that Arabs are not, and can't be, victims of terrorism. That was his point: that Israelis are victims of terrorism but not Arabs, and that is why Israelis get more sympathy. But then he makes the point: "journalists are more likely to live in Jerusalem than Gaza." But then again, Mr. Kristoff that really begs the question. It really does, does it not? Why, WHY, do they prefer to live in Jerusalem, o New York Times columnist. (By the way, today he also returns to his vocation: turning the victims of Darfur into kitsch.)"
Absolutely, vza! I (and colleagues who have been working the same topic for years) documented the same reactions by women employees in free trade zones (where the "sweatshops" are located) in the Caribbean Basin area. Furthermore, the pay and benefits are often even better in the ftzs that in the domestic sector. This is not to say that the companies aren't making a killing or that the garment and other assembly industries constitute a viable base for meaningful industrial development in the nations involved. So you are entirely correct to say that "it is not so simple as that".
ReplyDeleteI wrote a column criticizing the export "model" based on ftzs in our hemisphere. However, my criticism is couched in the capitalist orthodoxy of Ricardian & Smithian economics and free trade (which I teach, by the way).
ReplyDeleteThat is a good article Mara, I like how you showed the short term development. I guess the answer lies not in the fact that someone is trying to be magnanimous with "free trade," they are just trying to help themselves. Which of course, leads back to my original premise.
ReplyDeleteI hear that child prostitution is a viable career in South Asia, no shortage of vacancies or clientele. Perhaps Dr. Pangloss would care to defend that sector of the free market economy.
ReplyDeleteIncreased demand for labor is the only way to drive up real incomes in Bangladesh.
ReplyDeleteFrom an economic development standpoint, "sweatshops" should be a transitory phenomenon leading to higher value added and more worthwhile industries, as occured in Hong Kong and Korea. At least that is according to the capitalist orthodoxy. The whole Asian Tigers phenomenon supposedly gave support to that orthodoxy.
However, that has not occured in many other cases. Many developing countries remain mired in low value added sweatshop assembly type economies instead of making the transition to higher value added and more modern industries. The reason for this is complex, but one often ignored fact is the key role played by industrial policy in forcing the transition. The transition doesn't occur naturally. It takes planning and government intervantion (an anathema to the free market ideology of countries like the United States).
There is no transition Mara, and that is because what you propose in regard to the "Asian Tigers" is not the option of those under the free trade yoke. Do I have to go over this again? You have no protectionist options, it is not written in the "trade agreeements," the exact opposite is written. So why do I see this again?
ReplyDelete"...as occured in Hong Kong and Korea. At least that is according to the capitalist orthodoxy. The whole Asian Tigers phenomenon supposedly gave support to that orthodoxy."
Do you think there is some transition coming? Are there any plans to make this a reality in the exploited nations? No, why not? Becuase there is an enclave of elites in your countries that have basically sold you out. That is capitalism in its raw form.
Now, I can get down to specifics again, and we can rehash the history like I did with Anand - however, I think you were there and you participated. Did you forget?
Absolutely true guest, but don't you want to see this continue because it "works? (for whom we will not say for brevity)" :)
ReplyDeleteOne of the obvious ways to force a "transition," because there is none in the offings of the current course, is for the people to create a transition (for lack of a better term). This can be intiated by both producer and consumer, but must have certain ground rules. It must be a work of the people only in the producing country, and a consuming cooperative arising from the consumer nation. Chew on that
ReplyDeleteOur fault has always been using the means of the oppressor, tying ourselves down to their way, which merely enriches the few. You know what I mean when I say the entire process has to be revamped - if the powers that be do not like it, they can try and stop us. However, if what I am proposing (with borad brush strokes now) is embraced in concert, all over the world because we begin from the same page - the game is over.
ReplyDeleteGuest was me, i think I'll change my handle to Mr. X
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I am not saying that some current means cannot be used, I am just saying it must be exorcized first
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think consumers like me should do?
ReplyDeleteI liked this one also Mara -
ReplyDelete"It takes planning and government intervantion (an anathema to the free market ideology of countries like the United States)."
As you can see, by what is currently taking place in the USA, intervention is not anathema here - only for you. Actually, there would be little accomplished intially, even in foreign trade, unless the government of the USA made a path for its elites whom they serve. This is because they have made government a service for the moneyed and ruling class, not for the people - and they have transformed your governments into the same tools for the few.
So, intervention of any sort is not allowed unless you are in the "club," the narrowly defined club. This is why they had such a cow when the President of Honduras proposed a democratic peoples government, as an example.
Unfortunately, for the most part, government is nothing but a franchise of the elite, as I have said numerous times before - and foreign governments that want to "play the game" have to play by the "rules." None of this will cease until they are totally overthrown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cz4vcQKWfA
Yes, I am one of the most "dangerous" men on the planet to these murderous freaks
ReplyDeleteNot all sweatshops are "kosher". Some DO have very bad practices. If there were a way to separate the good from the bad from the standpoint of the consumer, but I don't know...
ReplyDeleteAn industrial policy is a set of actions executed by interventionist or mixed-economy countries in order to affect the way in which factors of production are being distributed across national industries. By the former definition, it's logical that industrial policies contain common elements with other types of interventionist practices such as trade policy and fiscal policy. An active intervention in industrial development is the policy of most if not all countries in the world. Even the United States, which prides itself as a "free-trading" nation, has implemented strong tax, tariff, and trade laws to protect itself from "dumping", the flooding of a market by a competing nation with goods or services below market prices in order to gain an advantage over domestic firms.
ReplyDeleteThere was a project (I'll have to track it down) in the works to set up a sort of internet wiki-type page whereby the consumer could key in the product code of a specific good and thereby access the entire history of the product from its raw material and other suppliers, method of production, impact on the environment and treatment of workers. It sounded like a fabulous project but to my knowledge, it hasn't gotten off the ground yet.
ReplyDeleteGhettos can suddenly appear through the application of international trade agreements. Where there were once farms run by families agri-corps rise up in their place. Where there were fishing villages refineries suddenly appear, or coastal homes for the rich and famous. The people are introduced to a new means of survival - drugs, and prostitution.
ReplyDeleteGHETTOIZATION OF THE WORLD
http://notinhisname.blogdrive.com/archive/cm-4_cy-2007_m-4_d-25_y-2007_o-0.html
the "reward"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBXq0Q2fcFI
do you think they care for you?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-kwNNLmhd8&NR=1
It does sound like a great project but that would be a massive undertaking!
ReplyDeleteJe vois...Comme un "nique sa mere" mais avec la soeur..
ReplyDeletePar ailleurs, tu n'as JAMAIS ete banni et tu ne le seras JAMAIS!!!
My son pointed out to me this morning that sweatshops employ children as young as 10. He had researched it, he said, for a school project...
ReplyDeleteDoes your son know that Nkes are recyclable?
ReplyDeleteAre children who are exploited recyclable?
ReplyDeleteNike 'Resue a Shoe' turns old sneakers into new play surfaces
ReplyDeletehttp://www.examiner.com/x-3958-Atlanta-Northside-Family--Parenting-Examiner~y2009m5d20-Nike-Resue-a-Shoe-turns-old-sneakers-into-new-play-surfaces
I have to ask but personally I didn't know.Never owned any.
ReplyDeleteI'll have a look thanks.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Nike was involved in the devaluation of Indonesia's money, so they could get a discount on labor which represented about 25% of what they originally paid? At the same time food stuffs and items vital to life naturally rose in cost due to that devaluation. With the bastardization of the value of the money the Indonesian people grew pooer, while the elites who were aware of the coming act reinvested in currencies that kept their value hence maintaining their wealth? With a myriad of economic sleight of hand tricks the poor get poorer, while the rich both foreign and domestic exploded in wealth (this is just an example of legions of ways) -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qQX-jayixQ
I'm more into this type..Johdpurs and Chukkas..
ReplyDeleteBut I don't run wearing them. :)
Such fine examples of business ethics and environmental concern
ReplyDeleteUh Oh, a shoe aficianado. Do you like these?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.edwardgreen.com/flash/index.html
A slight variation on the theme..
ReplyDeleteI wish all of the lies to stop, all of the ideas that we are afoot in other countries to spread wealth and good cheer. The complete charade needs to cease, the image of good will to walk off in a brisk fashion. It is nothing but corruption both foreign and domestic, murderous theft, wholesale dishonesty and unfairness, causing the entire lot to crash, leaving essentially nothing but this in its wake -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hdt87rhgSc
??!!
ReplyDeleteWho on earth told you about Edward Green? I've been a fan since my student years but I could not afford them until I started in the advertising business as an illustrator! I still own a couple. They used to own another slightly cheaper brand, Grenson(Green and Son) independent now. Of this brand I have many...
Another favorite, Crockett&Jones...Boots dept.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.crockettandjones.co.uk/mensbootscollect.html
The best value for money in the business!! Ebay is where I go for them and get them for reasonable prices..
Their handgrade is amazing too.
http://www.crockettandjones.co.uk/handgrade-belgrb.html
A good friend, I called him, "Beau Brummel" This was one of his favorite web sites:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.filmnoirbuff.com/article/is-paris-burning
That's a nice one..Well in this case introduce him to this one..It's French but the best in the category. Translation available..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.souliers.net
And there's this one which he already knows I'm certain.
http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/
It's a classic.
A very interesting blog your friend has!
ReplyDeleteI found a post about Brooks Brothers (of old)...interesting.
I thought you would find something to interest you there!
ReplyDeleteThat is why it would be done in a "wiki" format (which, granted, isn't the best way, but is probably the only way such a massive undertaking could be accomplished).
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I found it! It is called the BARCODE WIKI.
Thanks! I like this idea.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking at some of the other project ideas. An interesting site!
Choukrane, TG.
ReplyDelete