Surviving Capitalism (Not) : True cost of the Christmas toys we buy from China’s factories

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, December 24, 2011

True cost of the Christmas toys we buy from China’s factories

Click here to access article by Gethin Chamberlain from SACOM.

In case it is still a little unclear to you why so much American industry has left American workers behind to re-locate elsewhere, this video and article should enlighten you a bit. Back in 1999 we in the Seattle area protested globalization policies at the WTO meetings as best we could. Now, 12 years later, we are seeing the results of the abandonment of American workers by the One Percent who, in pursuit of more profits, decided to outsource production and our jobs to cheap labor areas all over the world. We simply cannot lose more of these battles. This video from 2004 provides a good introduction. The article suggests that little has changed since then.