This is a brilliant little QuickTime film. It is both simple enough for kids and profound enough for thoughtful adults. Follow the link for a new way of seeing your familiar world.
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The Story of Stuff
With Annie Leonard
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The Salt Lake City Tribune published a six part series recently about what the embrace of unencumbered Capitalism in China has meant for the workers there. This should be a wake up call for all of those who think that if Capitalism is unleashed, all our problems will be solved.
Their core idea that Libertarian Capitalism will solve everything because every time a problem arises, an entrepreneur will also arise to provide a solution – is deeply flawed. The only problems that get addressed are the ones that provide someone with a significant profit on the other end of the sequence. And the pell-mell rush to profit by the strong, using the weak as fodder, produces many problems of its own.
No, the political and governmental systems we devise must take the good of their people as their highest goal and limit Capitalism whenever its activities begin to impinge on that good. Capitalism is the engine of creation and advance but as an engine, it must be throttled and controlled so that it benefits all people and not just the rich and powerful.
Read the following to see just how very wrong things can go.
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By Loretta Tofani
Special to the Tribune
GUANGZHOU, China — The patients arrive every day in Chinese hospitals with disabling and fatal diseases, acquired while making products for America.
On the sixth floor of the Guangzhou Occupational Disease and Prevention Hospital, Wei Chaihua, 44, sits on his iron-rail bed, tethered to an oxygen tank. He is dying of the lung disease silicosis, a result of making Char-Broil gas stoves sold in Utah and throughout the U.S.
Down the hall, He Yuyun, 36, who for years brushed America’s furniture with paint containing benzene and other solvents, receives treatment for myelodysplastic anemia, a precursor to leukemia.
In another room rests Xiang Zhiqing, 39, her hair falling out and her kidneys beginning to fail from prolonged exposure to cadmium that she placed in batteries sent to the U.S.
“Do people in your country handle cadmium while they make batteries?” Xiang asks. “Do they also die from this?”
‘Big problem for Americans’
With each new report of lead detected on a made-in-China toy, Americans express outrage: These toys could poison children. But Chinese workers making the toys — and countless other products for America — touch and inhale carcinogenic materials every day, all day long: Benzene. Lead. Cadmium. Toluene. Nickel. Mercury.
Many are dying. They have fatal occupational diseases.
Mostly they are young, in their 20s and 30s and 40s. But they are dying, slow difficult deaths, caused by the hazardous substances they use to make products for the world — and for America. Some say these workers are paying the real price for America’s cheap goods from China.
“In terms of responsibility to Chinese society, this is a big problem for Americans,” said Zhou Litai, a lawyer from the city of Chongqing who has represented tens of thousands of dying workers in Chinese courts.
The toxins and hazards exist in virtually every industry, including furniture, shoes, car parts, electronic items, jewelry, clothes, toys and batteries interviews with workers confirm. The interviews were corroborated by legal documents, medical journal articles, medical records, import documents and official Chinese reports.
And although these products are being made for America most Chinese workers lack the health protections that for nearly half a century have protected U.S. workers, such as correct protective masks, booths that limit the spread of sprayed chemicals, proper ventilation systems and enforcement to ensure that their exposure to toxins will be limited to permissible doses measured in micrograms or milligrams.
Chinese workers also routinely lose fingers or arms while making American furniture, appliances and other metal goods. Their machines are too old to function properly or they lack safety guards required in the U.S.
In most cases, U.S. companies do not own these factories . American and multinational companies pay the factories to make products for America. From tiny A to Z Mining Tools in St. George to multinational corporations such as Reebok and IKEA, companies compete in the global marketplace by reducing costs — and that usually means outsourcing manufacturing to China. Last year, the U.S. imported $287.8 billion in goods from China, up from $51.5 billion a decade ago, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Those imports are expected only to increase.
Never even visit the factories
Worker health and safety are considered basic human rights. But in the global economy, responsibility to workers often gets lost amid vast distances and international boundaries.
“This is a big-picture problem,” said Garrett Brown, an industrial hygienist from California who has inspected Chinese factories that export to America. “Big-picture problems don’t have quick or easy solutions.”
The International Labor Organization (ILO) publishes international standards for workplaces. China agreed to many of those standards and also enacted a 2002 law setting its own rigorous standards. Under Chinese law, workers have the legal right to remain safe from fatal diseases and amputations at work.
But the law has not been enforced, Chinese and international experts agree. Economic growth has been a more important goal to China than worker safety.
Even the World Trade Organization, which maintains some barriers to trade to protect consumers’ health, does not concern itself with issues of workers’ health. As a result, enforcement of health and safety standards has been left to the governments of developing countries and the companies that outsource to those countries.
Often, smaller companies never even visit the factories where their products are made. Larger companies try with only limited success to audit operations, often complaining that their efforts are failing. Records are falsified and unsafe machines are used after audits. Safety guards are removed so workers can produce faster.
“Through auditing tours, we can make good improvements and changes, but those changes are not sustainable,” complained Wang Lin, a manager for IKEA based in Shanghai. “Chinese government law enforcement is greatly needed,” added Wang. “Without that, companies cannot sustain a good compliance program.”
More: ➡
China has indefinitely postponed the release of an environmental report on the costs of economic development.
Several local governments are reported to have objected to the release of “sensitive” information about the pollution they cause.
Government officials from different departments also appear to disagree on how to calculate the figures.
But despite the setback, the man in charge of the scheme says the research should continue.
The project – to calculate how much money pollution costs China each year, the so-called “green gross domestic product” – was launched in 2004.
But the scheme seems never to have progressed smoothly.
Rare insight
Figures for 2004 – which revealed pollution cost China about 511bn yuan ($68bn, £33bn) or 3% of GDP – were not released until late last year.
Although officials have promised on a number of occasions to release the results for 2005, these figures have yet to materialise.
Now Wang Jinnan, the technical head of the project, has told the Beijing News that the release will be “postponed indefinitely”.
“Some local governments are quite sensitive about the research and calculations for their provinces,” he said.
“Separate trial provinces and municipalities have formally issued a request not to publish the calculation results, and have exerted pressure.”
Mr Wang added that despite the difficulties, the research should continue.
There also appears to be a difference of opinion between the State Environmental Protection Administration and the National Bureau of Statistics.
Earlier this month, NBS head Xie Fuzhan seemed to cast doubt on whether a figure for the “green GDP” could even be calculated.
Wang’s comments give a rare insight into the arguments going on within the government about how to achieve sustainable development.
They also show that even admitting how much damage pollution causes in China is a sensitive topic.
Last month, the Financial Times said the Chinese government had successfully removed controversial figures from a forthcoming World Bank report.
It said China had objected to statistics that revealed some 760,000 people died prematurely from air and water pollution each year.
To the original… ➡
– I’ve written on this sort of thing before. I like to think I’m an open-minded liberal but this kind of cultural practice completely crosses the line with me. No amount of hand-wringling over cultural relativism is going to make me accept that women are not the equal of men and that they do not deserve every right and freedom men have across the board. Women are not cows or goats to be sexually altered to please the whims and insecurities of men.
– Previous posts on closely related topics are here: ➡ & ➡ & ➡ & ➡ & ➡.
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The Metropolitan Police is offering a £20,000 reward for information which would bring to justice anyone involved in female genital mutilation.
The campaign is being launched at the start of the summer holidays, during which young girls – mainly from African communities – are thought most at risk.
Mutilation involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia for cultural reasons.
Up to 7,000 girls in the UK are seen as at risk of this form of circumcision.
The long summer holiday is seen as the most likely time for parents to seek the procedure for their daughter as she has time to recover from what is usually a brutal ordeal before returning to school.
She can be sent abroad for the treatment, but police say they know it is also being carried out within the UK itself.
A new law was introduced in 2003, which not only repeated 1985 legislation banning the procedure, but also criminalised those who took a child outside the country for mutilation to be performed.
No-one has been prosecuted under the new legislation.
“It’s a hidden act,” said Alastair Jeffrey, head of the Child Abuse Investigation Command, as he announced the reward. “And that’s why it’s so hard to uncover.
“This is child abuse. It is not an attack on anyone’s culture, it is an attack on anyone who commits this horrendous abuse of children.”
More… ➡
– the author of the following, Wang Feng, is a Beijing-based journalist.
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I awoke this morning to the headline in the Chinese newspapers: “China bans diethylene glycol in toothpaste.” My first reaction: Finally, the bureaucrats have given in to international pressure. It seems China can use all the international humiliation it can get.
Diethylene glycol, a toxic industrial solvent, is often used in China to replace the similar but more expensive glycerine, a harmless food additive. Chinese-made toothpaste containing diethylene glycol has been discovered and recalled all over the world. But until this morning, Chinese officials had insisted that a small amount of diethylene glycol in toothpaste was harmless to the human body. Never mind that a Chinese shipment of it was blamed for the deaths of over 100 Panamanians after a drug maker there put it into a cough syrup, believing it was glycerine. Chinese officials maintained that it was a safe additive in toothpaste even in the very statement that later banned such a use: “There is no known case of direct human poisoning by toothpaste with diethylene glycol,” the statement said. Yeah, right. Pardon me if I would still rather do without it in mine.
I am happy with the outcome now – that is, if China can really enforce this ban effectively. Good luck with that. Our government has, under mounting U.S. pressure, vowed more than a few times to root out pirated DVDs of Hollywood blockbusters. But guess how much I paid for a copy of “Spiderman III” at my neighborhood store?
The toothpaste saga is a textbook case of a public health and food safety crisis that wouldn’t have even raised eyebrows inside China, much less been addressed and resolved on a national level, if it hadn’t escalated into an international scandal. And the toothpaste issue is a relatively minor case in a string of serious crises that have continuously tarnished the “Made in China” label. Among those are the recent American pet food scare and the Panamanian cough syrup deaths (although I’ve never quite figured out why the deaths of 17 U.S. cats got so much more worldwide news coverage than the deaths of more than 100 Panamanians.)
Even when domestic scandals do break, they aren’t usually handled in a way that instills public confidence. When a fake medicine killed dozens of patients in China a year ago, it triggered a national outcry and a subsequent government investigation. In the end, officials announced only that they had fined the factory, and suspended its license “pending further inspection and improvement.” The public was told nothing else — why the Chinese FDA had approved the drug in the first place, or why regulators hadn’t found the problem until the patients were dying in agony.
The final revelation came earlier this year when Zheng Xiaoyu, then head of the Chinese FDA, was sacked, investigated for corruption and swiftly sentenced to death. He lost his appeal six weeks later and was executed this past Monday. In the media storm surrounding Zheng’s downfall, we learned that the man had almost single-handedly approved tens of thousands of drug licenses without following due procedure, pocketing millions in bribes from pharmaceutical firms. His corrupt administration was also blamed for some of the international crises, including the Panamanian poisoning case. Zheng’s execution was no surprise to observers. Many believe he was made into a scapegoat, a convenient target for focusing public wrath.
So, transparency at last? Not according to Zheng’s lawyers. They tried hard to spare his life, citing the amount of money involved (much less in comparison to many other convicted corrupt officials sentenced only to life in prison), and his cooperation with investigators. But Zheng’s trial was also one of the most secretive and least publicized in recent years. The government never released the details of its case against him, and no one knew which companies had bribed him until his lawyers defied a government gag order and posted court documents on the Internet. They did so in a desperate protest against the shroud of secrecy under which the case was handled.
More… ➡
– Does it sound like I’m picking on China? Well, I don’t mean to. They just happen to be the biggest example on the planet of how badly wrong things can go for people when governments, corporations and cultures put profits above people.
– The US certainly has nothing to smirk about in this regard. Among a thousand other stories, I remember one in particular about our own rapacious Capitalism. After the FDA decided that the levels of tar and nicotine in American cigarettes were too high and thus unhealthy for smokers and forced them to lower the levels in this country, the tobacco companies simply took their high tar and nicotine versions over to the Philippines and other countries which, because of their naivety and immaturity, hadn’t yet passed laws to protect their own people and we sold the hell out of them there. Cancer deaths? No problem – just look at those great profits! And then there was the baby formula we sold into South America and the pesticides we sell worldwide.
– And besides China, India can’t be far behind. Where as China has decided to supply the world’s cravings for ultra-cheap junk of every description, India has focused more on high tech. But, there are stories lurking in the sub continent as well. I recall a story on TV within the last year about the ship-breaking industry India runs along its Eastern Coast in Alang. It wasn’t pretty.
– So, read here, below, what it all comes to when profits are placed before people in food production industries. And ask yourself what the purpose of governments should be. To provide happy sandboxes for profit oriented corporations to play in this world or to look out for the health and welfare of their people? Then consider that the US is the only advanced industrialized western nation without national healthcare in spite of the fact that we are the world’s wealthiest nation – and ask yourself what’s going on.
– Now, on to fun with China and what you might be eating:
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In Four Months, FDA Refused 298 Shipments
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.
Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.
Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.
Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.
These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.
For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught — many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.
More… ➡
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– I’ve categorized this under Perfect Storm, Capitalism & Corporations and Culture – How not to do it because the preoccupation of Corporations for profit above all else is slowing mankind’s perceptions of the coming climatic dangers which contributes to the coming Perfect Storm. I’ve put it under Culture – How not to do it because cultures, like here in the US, which allow Capitalism and Corporations to free-run are cultures which are destructive to all of our futures.
– One of the factors that contributes to the coming Perfect Storm is the cultural marginalization of women. The limiting of their human rights, the limiting of their reproductive choices, and the limiting of their educations has all been positively correlated with higher birth rates and higher levels of poverty around the world.
– Beyond that, it is just flat wrong for anyone to be discriminated against because of their gender. Women should have the exact same rights as men across the board. The fact that they do not in most cultures in the world is an anachronism that we, humanity, need to leave behind us. Not only will we create a fairer and juster world, but we will also go a long ways towards reducing the human population pressures which are limiting all of our futures.
– I find that making commentary on other cultures is a great way to get into arguments with some of my friends. They feel that for one culture to judge another isn’t right. They want to know ‘who I think I am’ to be passing judgements on others. Well, I can sympathize with that POV quite a bit. But, I think there are limits. Cultural practices which negatively impact the survival of all of us on this planet are beyond the Pale for me. And when I say that, I certainly don’t exclude my own culture here in America consuming 25% of the world’s resources while comprising only 5% of its population.
– I also think that cultural practices that involve mutilation or oppression or other actions that degrade the quality of life for individuals or groups is inherently wrong. And I make no apologies for that.
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One was a shy, slender young woman who spoke no English when she was brought from Pakistan to enter an arranged marriage with a stranger in Virginia. The other was a self-confident professional, born in Turkey but raised in the United States, who thought she knew what she was doing when she married an educated Muslim man in Maryland.
Yet both women fell under the sway of the same powerful pressures that sometimes reach around the globe to keep Muslim wives in the Washington region imprisoned in abusive marriages, unable to fight the gossip and shame that come with defying their culture and religion, isolated from help that is just a three-digit phone number away.
“My husband beat. He show knife. I am scared for him, for all family,” said Shamim, 21, the Pakistani bride, who was rescued by police. She is being sheltered and tutored in English at a private home. “They say no money, no call mother at home. I cook for all, I not eat. I not know 911 what is. I think I go crazy.”
Shireen, the woman in Maryland, speaks with articulate chagrin about how the crushing weight of social expectation kept her in a relationship that soon turned violent. Both women’s last names are being withheld at their request.
“I was perfectly happy living alone, but the family kept pushing me to marry. I wanted to show them I was a good Muslim girl,” said Shireen, now 37 and divorced. When her husband became abusive, she said, relatives told her to be a better wife. When she took him to court, she said, “everyone abandoned me. I was the one who had done something wrong.”
Domestic abuse is hardly unique to Muslim immigrant communities; it is a sad fact of life in families of all backgrounds and origins. Yet, according to social workers, Islamic clerics and women’s advocates, women from Muslim-majority cultures face extra pressure to submit to violent husbands and intense social ostracism if they muster the courage to file charges or flee.
A major obstacle to recognizing and fighting abuse, experts said, can be Islam itself. The religion prizes female modesty and fidelity while allowing men to divorce at will and have several wives at once. Many Muslims also believe that men have the right to beat their wives. An often-quoted verse in the Koran says a husband may chastise a disobedient wife, but the phrasing in Arabic is open to several interpretations.
“Many batterers manipulate Islamic law or use its perceived authority to control their wives. A man who has the power to divorce can really twist the knife,” said Mazna Hussain, an attorney for abused women at the Tahirih Justice Center in Falls Church. “Muslim women want to be faithful to their religion, and the idea that you cannot disobey the word of God is very compelling, even if you are in an abusive relationship.”
Mosques are a central focus of community life for Muslim immigrants, and the influence of their male clerics is enormous. Only a handful of these imams have spoken out on the problem of abuse, a source of shame and denial among their flocks.
More… ➡
The kidneys fail first. Then the central nervous system begins to misfire. Paralysis spreads, making breathing difficult, then often impossible without assistance. In the end, most victims die.
Many of them are children, poisoned at the hands of their unsuspecting parents.
The syrupy poison, diethylene glycol, is an indispensable part of the modern world, an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in some antifreeze.
It is also a killer. And the deaths, if not intentional, are often no accident.
Over the years, the poison has been loaded into all varieties of medicine — cough syrup, fever medication, injectable drugs — a result of counterfeiters who profit by substituting the sweet-tasting solvent for a safe, more expensive syrup, usually glycerin, commonly used in drugs, food, toothpaste and other products.
Toxic syrup has figured in at least eight mass poisonings around the world in the past two decades. Researchers estimate that thousands have died. In many cases, the precise origin of the poison has never been determined. But records and interviews show that in three of the last four cases it was made in China, a major source of counterfeit drugs.
Panama is the most recent victim. Last year, government officials there unwittingly mixed diethylene glycol into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine — with devastating results. Families have reported 365 deaths from the poison, 100 of which have been confirmed so far. With the onset of the rainy season, investigators are racing to exhume as many potential victims as possible before bodies decompose even more.
Panama’s death toll leads directly to Chinese companies that made and exported the poison as 99.5 percent pure glycerin.
More… ➡
– This article is from the NY Times and they insist that folks have an ID and a PW in order to read their stuff. You can get these for free just by signing up. However, recently, a friend of mine suggested the website bugmenot.com
as an alternative to having to do these annoying sign ups. Check it out. Thx Bruce S. for the tip.
– Not worried yet? Go back and read these earlier posts ➡ ➡ and see if you can squint and, perhaps, see a pattern beginning to emerge. The cause of problems like this is putting profit before all else including people. And the results of the problem may be your health or the health of someone you love.
– When people tell you that we should fully unleash the power of the market. When people tell you that the market can provide for any need that arises without the need or governmental intervention. When people tell you that we’ll all be better off if we give ourselves fully to the benefits of Globalization. When they tell you all of that, if it sounds reasonable to you, go back and read these articles again. Maybe you missed something.
– I’ve tagged this post with the categories of ‘Perfect Storm‘ and Culture – How not to do it‘ because any form of governance which sets profit before people is not in the best interest of the people so governed and governments and organizations with that orientation (read corporations) are contributing to the coming Perfect Storm by ignoring humanity’s peril for their profit (stupid and short-sighted as it might seem).
Iranian police have warned barbers not to give men western hair styles or use make up on them.
The move is part of an unusually fierce crackdown on what is known locally as bad hijab, or un-Islamic clothing, that this year is also targeting men.
Hair stylists have been warned that they could lose their licenses if they do not comply.
However, police have denied a report that they have ordered barbers not to serve customers wearing ties.
Wild
Police say that as well as avoiding western hairstyles and make up, barbers should not pluck customers’ eyebrows.
Some young boys in Iran sport very wild hair styles , using gel to make their long hair stand on end in a fashion not seen in other countries.
Meanwhile newspapers in Iran have quoted the police as saying that 16,000 women and 500 men have been cautioned in the last week over their improper clothing.
More… ➡
– The graph below speaks for itself. The United States, the most powerful nation in the world, a leader in science and technology for many many decades, the most forward thinking experiment in democracy in the world’s political history now stands on the brink of pissing it all away. We can and we will become a second rate nation at this rate. You cannot excel at science, technology and a vibrant democracy and think that religion should trump politics and science at the same time. It isn’t going to happen, folks. Read the chart – and then imagine the future.
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This chart depicts the public acceptance of evolution theory in 34 countries in 2005. Adults were asked to respond to the statement: “Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.” The percentage of respondents who believed this to be true is marked in blue; those who believed it to be false, in red; and those who were not sure, in yellow.
A study of several such surveys taken since 1985 has found that the United States ranks next to last in acceptance of evolution theory among nations polled. Researchers point out that the number of Americans who are uncertain about the theory’s validity has increased over the past 20 years.
To the original… ➡
Research Thx to the Sietch Blog
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