I hope that you all excuse me for starting another post as a reply to the previous one; however, gs´ post set me on to a lot of thinking, considering that I am currently living in an area of the world (Central America) that´s deeply affected by international labor and trade issues, and that I´m reading two books right now* that address these issues in completely different ways.

What gs´ post really got me thinking about is the need for anybody interested in social change to attempt to understand the world, and especially problems and movements that are seen as single issues, as whole, interconnected, and possessing relevant histories.

I think it is especially necessary to contextualize the points that gs made about the potential effects of opposing sweatshop labor. While it is true that when viewed as a particular instance, the arrival of sweatshop factories in impoverished regions often brings jobs that improve the standard of living for many of the workers, I would say that seeing this as positive is somewhat short-sighted. Leaving alone any potential arguments about trickle-down economics, which in my (admittedly limited) understanding of economics has been mostly discredited as any kind of main route to aid poverty, we should probably look at the historical background against which most sweatshop factories hire their impoverished workforces.

Let´s take, for example, Indonesia. This is a country with a history of intense colonial subjugation on the part of the Dutch, with a postcolonial history similar to many others: A national independence movement that eventually turned into right-wing dictatorship, followed by a slow movement for democracy after years of oppression. On top of the poverty caused by the colonial power and the dictatorship left in its vacuum, Indonesia was more or less forced to accept unfavorable economic policies in exchange for loans from the IMF**. So if we look at this hypothetical factory as moving into Indonesia after a massive economic crash mostly caused by the wayward policies of the IMF (as occurred in the late 90´s), which is arguably heavily influenced by the interests of North American corporations, it seems a little different.

Which is not to say that it necessarily changes the simple fact that divestment from sweatshops might cut off income from people who severely need it. But it does mean a few things. The first is that that divestment will hopefully be accompanied by investment into unionized, sustainable purchasing from factories in area where that income is also badly needed (because, let´s be honest, it´s not like Stanford kids are going to ever stop buying hoodies from the bookstore). It also should be a cause for suspicion when unequitable labor situations are hailed as necessary development just because the workers were previously living under worse conditions. To me, many of the anecdotal arguments concerning sweatshop workers who support the existence of foreign factories in their towns aren´t too far a cry from antebellum myths of slaves who just love to work.*** The choice between death from starvation and a life of near-starvation isn´t much of a choice at all. We should stop to ask what caused those conditions, and what role our own government and corporations, and the governments and corporations directly benefiting from this ¨development¨, have had in causing those conditions. And finally, we should ask how we benefit from this, and have been complicit partners in both the ¨pre-development¨poverty and the working poverty of the sweatshops.

Which brings me to my next main point, which somewhat ties into the arguments gs was making about the motivations and tactics of the sweatshop movement at his university. As admirable as it may be to change your own consumption habits to support more equitable practices, you also need to acknowledge the damage even that choice makes, as well as the fact that even the buying patterns of large universities may not necessarily effect lasting change in the world. The responsibility of those who are seriously concerned about fair labor practices is to examine the wider system of oppression that allows sweatshop labor to persist, and ask how they can change that, or more important, act to support those who are suffering from and struggling against it. Although I agree with ablackone’s comment that we need to eliminate hypocrisy in our own lives, I don´t think that should limit our ability to critique and work against the larger forces of hypocrisy in this world. Because as much as you may try to live as a saint, every North American is the beneficiary of the toil of many who support our way of life. One sweatshirt that costs five dollars less because of sweatshop labor may not make a big difference in your standard of living, but every sweatshirt, every sock, every agricultural product or toy or little crap piece of plastic does. And to start thinking about systematic change means you need to start thinking about whether some stranger getting paid more is worth a significant change in how you live.

Which is why I think so many of gs’ points about the people behind the university sweatshop movement are so valid. Obviously, I don´t know the two people he specifically mentioned. But I found his indictment of self-glorifying activists who are involved in single-issue politics to ring true. It´s depressing when those who are ostensibly committed to social change can´t even make the connection between the economic oppression in one part of the world and military oppression in others. However, I don´t think the blatant hypocrisy of some activists should be a discouragement from being involved in political work, I think it should be a challenge to people who can work in a better way (and who can consistently question their own hypocrisy and privilege while doing it). I don´t know if it´s necessarily better to be aware of injustice and not work against it than to be working against injustice and also contributing to it; and whether you want to identify as an activist or not, I think that the simple awareness of these issues brings with it a responsibility to try to do something about it.

*Globalization and It´s Discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz, and Upside Down by Eduardo Galleano

**Stiglitz describes in his book a photo taken at an opportune moment in this process: “The IMF´s managing director… is standing with a stern face and crossed arms over the seated and humiliated president of Indonesia. The hapless president was being forced, in effect, to turn over the economic sovereignty of his country to the IMF in return for the aid his country needed. In the end, ironically, much of the money went not to help Indonesia but to bail out the ¨colonial power´s¨private sector creditors.” (p. 41)

***It´s also important to recognize that for every community that decides it needs to work in foreign factories, there´s one that resists it. Last Saturday I was working with a small reforestation project in the mountains outside of Quetzeltenango when somebody asked the man leading the project why there was a ditch dug around the side of the mountain. He explained that in the 80´s the military government wanted to move a factory owned by an American corporation into the area. The community objected, as they didn´t want to work in the factory and were worried that the factory would draw too much from the town´s water sources and pollute the area. The ditch we were looking at was dug to be able to place artillery around the town- the community was given the choice of accepting the factory or being shelled to the ground by their own country´s army. The choice was averted after the town agreed to pay a ¨fine¨which included selling off most of the land owned by the campesinos in the area.

It seems like everyone is joining the sweat-free labor movement at my west coast campus. The momentum has noticeably picked up on the movement, and proper acknowledgements to the people who have made succeeded in bringing their cause to the forefront of people’s attention.

The underlying issue is tricky. I think most economists would probably lean against movements like these, citing issues like the decreased production incentives for companies which have a trickle-down effect on the local economies that are supposedly being raped.

They point to the past: before Phil Knight and Sam Walton came to a tiny village outside Shenzhen or Guadalajara, the people had no jobs and earned nothing. Now they work hard, have to put up with awful–borderline inhumane, in some instances–conditions, but they are making money and people are willing to wait in line in droves for these jobs. It’s simple supply and demand. Economists see people weighing factors and making decisions based on utility, and in this case, Cambodian workers feel like there is something to be gained from taking a job in awful conditions, so they decide it’s worth it for the money and they do it.

That argument is somewhat hard to justify when some corporations have significant profit margins. Why can’t they cut some of the profits to pay and treat their people better? American workers enjoy union privileges, standardized work environments, and so forth. Their counterparts in Indonesia are sitting in a tin shack with no lighting. The more the work conditions are described, the more it tugs at the heart. It’s an emotional appeal wrapped with a bow on top, it’s so easy to deliver. Yet the local workers often consider the Western companies are a godsend. Why?

There are people who understand this issue better, and I hope they could contribute their thoughts and inform us of the arguments and counter-arguments.

What about the people behind the movement?

The interesting thing is, last night I received an email from someone I know who is awfully “active”…she likes picking up causes. Maybe it’s because her family is so filthy rich that she feels guilty about it, who knows. The point is, it was a mass email updating students on what’s happening and encouraging them to participate in a sit-in, and the subject line contained “*ARRESTS LIKELY*”.

Hey join us; get arrested for free.99! Subsequent boasts to your friends not included.

A few hours later, as I was toiling away trying to meet deadline on two stories, someone sent another email over a list with the subject line: ELEVEN STUDENTS ARRESTED. They’re having a vigil for the sweatshop laborers and the students who, frankly, got themselves arrested.

Now I understand the feeling of wanting some street cred. 50 got shot 9 times and went platinum. The interlude from Harlem World, when the guy threatens Ma$e: “I aint scared of you, I been to jail and I wanna go back”. I had a dream about being jailed by the Chinese government for unfavorable expose journalism, and being interrogated and forced to swallow my New York Times press pass in a dank police bureau in Guangzhou, Cairo, Tehran, or Pyongyang. I ain’t gonna lie…I really hopes it goes down. Being kicked out of a country is the ultimate badge of honor for a foreign correspondent. “I wish you would,” as Ice liked to say.

But come on, anti-sweat-labor kids, don’t be so obvious! The hunger strike was a good move, it caused the president to cave in when you guys were sent to the hospital. Why not keep pressing on that front? Advertising your campaign by promising the chance to be arrested seems a bit questionable.

The origin of the email was a fellow I interviewed a while ago, one of the artistic types who is extremely long-winded, considers himself a social mover of sorts, and liked me because I cast his anti-war play as an “ambitious undertaking” in a news article I wrote. I was suggesting his work was a bit of all smoke and no substance that was out of his depth; he read it like I was praising him for daring to dream.

The person who forwarded the email, I later found out, had interned for Raytheon and was a Management Science and Engineering major. MS&E is the interdisciplinary brother of Econ here–it’s the major all the money grubbing hyper ambitious future CEOs pre-business kids join. It has “management science” in its name, honestly. This is the Raytheon, the “defense” contractor who got $5 billion along with Halliburton and Bechtel from the Pentagon, with tons of connections to the CIA. Bush Sr. was head of the CIA during the Ford administration, by the way.

So this kid from Raytheon sends out this email, and I know I’m mixing up my causes, but I’m here thinking: you feel that it’s unconscientious to pay workers in China very low but it’s OK to work for a company that makes weapons to blow up Iraqis? I’d be willing to shake hands with anyone from Exxon Mobil below the mid-level management, and I’d be willing to shake hands with anyone from Raytheon bar the execs–I don’t have a problem with people that work there, but as someone who has a choice of where to go as a student from a top college, you can’t choose to work for Raytheon and then pretend to be an activist liberal. I know I’m mixing up my causes but please, come on, think about it.

True, he didn’t organize the rally, he just forwarded it. But it just typifies the kind of bullshit that goes on.

I’m going to have to agree with a lot of what Chex said in Vol. 2. Yes, politicians are mostly all cunts, no matter what their ideological leanings are. They are for the most part in ‘the game’ for the advancement of their own agenda, and of course to lend support to those people who are willing to support them. Some politicians may be more unashamedly obvious about this blatant friend backscratching (thinking of Bush’s support for incompetent fools like Rumsfeld, Gonzales, ‘Brownie), but for the most part ALL politicians just have to get really good at sucking dick and pleasing a bunch of people in order to fulfill their OWN personal agenda.
Adressing, Chex’s genuine beef with Al Gore that seemed to seethe from every word in the post’s second half, I have to say I’m less willing to agree with you. I’m not as willing to share your unbridled hatred for Al Gore, just because of all the people I see today who ‘fux’ with politics, he seems to be the most apolitical, probably because he’s not really so much in the game right now. I also doubt that he’s gonna jump back into the game in order to run for president in 2008, so I don’t think all this environmental stuff is a political points garnering scheme. Al Gore’s concern in this movie seems to be genuine, and although certain parts of it have been exposed as alarmist, most of the evidence used and arguments made in it are sound, if a bit cheesy at times. The fact that Gore’s house is a ridiculous plantation mansion that consumes exorbitant amounts of energy is just a reminder that he’s from an old gentried southern family, and a bitch ass politician, who naturally loves to talk a lot and point out the faults of others before truly giving himself a thorough self examination. Al Gore may be a bitch for doing this, undoubtedly, but the truly important issue to address is the message he’s espousing.
One thing that does alarm me about the ‘green phenomenon’ that Al Gore has created is how it’s being picked up by Hollywood celebrities, which pretty much automatically makes it lose credibility and seriousness. For some reason our society seems to think that what its celebrities think is important, hence GQ doing it’s main expose last month on how Leo is like, totally into this Green thing. I’m sure they failed to mention that despite having a hybrid and buying carbon taxes, he consumes more shit than 99.9% of the people on earth, therefore making him indirectly responsible for more pollution than almost anybody in the world. I think that people getting into being green because it’s ‘trendy’ are idiots. They are diluting the seriousness of the movement by making it into a pop cultural phenomenon, where it’s so simple to good for the environment, as opposed to treating it like the dire global problem that it is.

China is just a plain awful polluter, but it only FINALLY soon about to beat US as the world’s top polluter….

with 5x the US population.

Mathematically, every American is producing 5x the pollution that each Chinese produces.

Let Finland, New Zealand, Czech Republic, and those eco-friendly countries attack China and India all they want.
Americans need to shut the collective fat mouth for a second on this and first practice what we preach.

Also, think you hate Republicans? Screw Democratic politicians.

Al Gore has a huge fucking house that consumes 20x the energy of the average Nashville resident while it’s only four times bigger. Energy costs for maintaining his poolhouse alone costs $544 a month. The sources of this information I suspect has strong right-leanings but the data is still mostly there and Gore really has no way to defend himself.

Over spring break I also saw Jon Stewart make a complete fool out of John Kerry, who is promoting his new environment book “This Moment in Time.” A complete copy of “Truth.” Jon Stewart kept pestering Kerry about the obvious: Moment is exactly the same as Truth and called him out on writing it because of political motivations, and Kerry is just trying to conveniently tap into the huge popularity that Gore garnered from Truth. Kerry couldn’t really come up with a good response. Why? Because THAT’s the inconvenient truth and Jon Stewart is brilliant enough to pin him down on it with his astute, sharp questioning. Too bad Stewart is one of the handful on TV who can challenge political cunts and outsmart and expose them.

Kerry…What a New England aristocrat politician cunt.

College students who now suddenly love Gore…idiots biting the bait. If you guys have any evidence that Gore is real, please let me know but unless I see a lot of it, I’m going to keep thinking it’s a political advisor telling him that environment is a hot topic now and he can appeal to young people with this. I’ll save my judgment for the day Gore dies. If by that time he still has not run for president again, then I’ll take back everything I said and believe that he truly did it for good, and not for political gain.

Politicans left or right…all cunts. (I now probably pull for Nader if anyone; I don’t see him as either side)

Our country…mostly frustratingly hopeless.

“Aid should be conditional on environmentalism and we should give preferential treatment in terms of trade to greener countries.”

This may work well for developing countries like say, South Africa, or Latin American countries without oil or large populations, but there is no way this is going to work with China. The main reason that China is industrializing and polluting at the such unprecedentedly high levels is to satiate the West’s demand for SHIT. Americans in particular, but also Europeans and the more developed nations in general are too accustomed to their lifestyle of consuming easily and in vast quantities. The Chinese, on the other hand, are beginning to get a taste of this society, and are willing to do anything to become a part of it as quickly as possible. I’ll admit that they are doing this in extremely irresponsible ways; for example not giving a shit about worker’s rights despite proclaiming to be Communists, or having 28 of the 30 most polluted cities in the world. These blame for these indesgressions cannot be laid at the foot of the West. However, as long as the developed nations are uncontrollably addiced to Chinese manufacturing and labor, there is no way that anybody in the world can truly become serious about tackling the major issues of the day, in particular global warming and growing money gap between rich and poor. We can talk shit about being “green” and maybe even try to do something about it, but the truth is that as long as we are married to the unsustainable consumeristic economy of the present, we will not be able to prevent the forces we have so frightfully been discussing on this mailing list for the last few months from running their course.
I don’t see a way to implement the radical reforms needed to reverse the momentum of the global interconnected society we have created without abandoning it. So really everyone is to blame for buying into the notion that producing and consuming in ever increasing quantities is what makes living worthwhile.

Bush’s nicknames for his clique.

I personally like the pair of names “Ali” and “Frazier” for the junior and senior senator from California, respectively. I’m guessing “Ali” came to his brilliant mind first when he realized the clever wordplay made possible by Barbara Boxer’s last name, and then Frazier just kinda followed, because unless its an inside joke, Feinstein has nothing to do with “Frazier.”

When he came up with that one I’m sure he chuckled. Dude is ingenious.

I also really liked the nickname of “corndog” for Republican Senator from Texas John Cornyn, who, if you click on the link, once said regarding gay marriage:

“It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife.” [From a transcript of a speech to the American Heritage Foundation provided by Cornyn's office to the Washington Post]

We all knew that a complete cowboy buffoon was running our country, but I think these nicknames lend a great human interest angle to the story…you know, so we see once again that he’s just one of the “normal down-to-earth people”.