Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Friday, May 05, 2006
Target makes a sweatshop bulls eye
Hey, was just thinking about this sort of thing. Am sitting here in my Gap underwear that I got with a gift card that my next door neighbors in queens always get me. I think I once had the nerve to tell them I don’t really shop at the gap, but now it feels like a lot of hassle for the $25. And I needed some underwear. I’m not a bad person, okay. I guess I could have given the gift card to a homeless person or something. But if not the Gap, then where? Is there any underwear available that does’t exploit someone somehow.
They’re camoflauge, by the way. Anyway, that article from the right-wingnut guy made just enough sense to be disturbing. Lots of activists really do mix messages and are vague and ineffecive. And that $25 notwithstanding, I know that sweatshops are terrible, but he poses a question I’ve rarely heard addressed-- if they weren’t there, what would take their place? Humanitarian aid donated by American corporations? I doubt it.
Man, life sucks. I’d better get some sleep before a dentist appt. I’m going to NYU dental school to be a guinea pig. Have you ever gone there? It’s great if you don’t have insurance. A third the cost of regular dentist. Wish me luck.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 05/05 at 06:38 AMYeah, “tar-zhay” has been receiving some attn as of late for sweathsop conditions, etc. I mean, why would anyone expect it follow a differnt biz model than Wal-Wart? But I think I read something at corpwatch about it last week - I’ll try to find the article.
As for my own personal shopping choices, its generally union-made, fair trade, or used (except for things like undergarments, of course; must avoid crabs)!
How bout you, MZ? No tar-zhay for you?
Posted by RT on from The Buyou City 05/05 at 07:08 AMJames...good luck to you today. Many people up here would envy you and wish that they had access to NYU dental school. The quality of the work there might be better than most up here have access to. Here, those without money are allowed only to get extractions. No real repair work unless you have the cash. The result is an epidemic of toothless people. Teeth have become a luxury in many parts of the USA.
About Wal-mart, Tar-jay, et al...the battle here seems to have been drawn on socio-economic lines. Our Wal-mart, which is one of the smallest in the country, wants to expand. Those who have the money to travel to the city boutiques are opposing the expansion. Those who are low income generally are in favor of the expansion. My position is that the battle lines and strategy are wrong. Instead of “targeting” specific stores and corporations, I favor working toward a global standard for labor rights and a livable wage for everyone. The sweater purchased in the expensive boutique has probably been made by the same abusive labor practices as the clothing from Wal-mart. As many low income people have said to me, “We also have the right to buy clothes for our kids and Wal-mart is the only store that we can afford.” Used clothing and hand-me-downs are a good option for some but they can be a psychological burden on some kids in this consumer based culture. I wish that I could say that I hate Wal-mart but for a while that was the only place that I could afford to purchase my prescription eye glasses. It is a complicated issue and I wish that everyone could look at it from the view of a family with children and very little money.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 05/05 at 08:21 AMI hear you James from Hell’s Kitchen, hello RT and RMJ…
I’ve been wearing the same clothes for about ten years...and I don’t wear underwear (gross, I know). But I think it is more due to laziness and an extreme hatred of shopping than for any cause.
I have been all over Asia...Mexico, other places where poor takes on it’s true definition. Us humans have made this world one fucked up place.
Posted by JOS on from Oak Park 05/05 at 09:13 AMOh man… maybe I should send you the gift card next year. Be carefull when zipping your fly, I guess. Off to that dentist now; I promise I’ll start flossing tonight, and this time, I mean it.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 05/05 at 09:27 AMHello Expendables. It’s great to have RT back here so regularly, huh?
As or my shopping habits, I’m not much of a shopper/spender anyway, so it’s not too hard. I’m not perfect (of course) and yes, I’ve been inside Target 2-3 times in my life. However, I avoid almost all chain stores as often as I can.
Like RMJ, I’m not 100% sure that such boycotts are effective but I just can’t walk around advertising companies like Nike, The Gap, etc. It’s quite telling that consumers pay for the right to be walking billboards. It’s pure genius.
Good luck at the dentist, James.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 05/05 at 09:32 AMP.S. Maybe we should start calling JOS “Big Country Commando.”
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 05/05 at 09:33 AMI like that…
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 05/05 at 10:44 AMa girl and boy came up to me on Nou de la Rambla a while back asked me where I bought my clothes and I was stumped, I rarely buy them but accumulate them somehow. If I had to pick my favourite boutique, it´d be a wheelbarrow on the outskirts of a small town called Ceret in the south of France.
Posted by owen on from barcelona 05/05 at 10:51 AMHow do you make your shopping choices? Thrift shops or mall worship? Yard sales or Home Shopping Network? Mom-and-Pop or chain stores? Clothing swaps or conspicuous consumption?
“Support the local economy” is a general principle I try to live by, which generally means thrift shops, yard sales, mom-and-pop stores, etc. (all that apply in theory, though certainly not in my specific case).
Of course, I’m a horrible hypocrite, and am probably not the best example of a conscientious consumer (though still likely well above average).
Posted by Jeremy on from Taiwan 05/05 at 11:37 AMHey Owen and Jeremy. Here’s a shopping related link that fits in today.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 05/05 at 11:52 AM‘Some folks actually like sweat shops’ - good one, Mickey. And sad to say, some folks actually like torture as well - a member of my extended family being amongst them, as I discovered not so recently.
And hello, James, RT, Rosemarie, JOS,Owen (welcome back!) and Jeremy. I hope you all have a good weekend - part of the weekend in Daylesford might even be dry after 5 days of rain.
‘Courtier press’ nails it down, no:
http://consortiumnews.com/Print/2006/050406.htmlBye ..
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 05/05 at 01:29 PMYour favourite boutique sounds interesting, Owen! Like Mickey, I avoid chain stores but then I hardly buy any clothes - most of mine are at least 5 years old. No dress sense, but that’s a story for another year.
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 05/05 at 01:33 PMYeesh, trainee dentists? You have some balls, James. I take it those Gap undies were the XXL scrotum size? Kudos, mate. I’ve been to the dentists twice this week, which was of course a complete joy, and really don’t have the nerve to let anyone not qualified drill my dainty choppers.
Shopping? I like things with some ethos of ethical thought behind them, but who doesn’t? I admit I buy cheap clothes because I generally don’t spend much cash on things like that, so maybe I feed the sweatshop mill. Shame on me for that, I guess. But I never, NEVER, spend a fortune to advertise some fucker’s chain of stores. I think that is the ultimate in contempt for yourself.
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, odd wet lovely Manchester 05/05 at 01:36 PMI should probably add that I get given most of my clothes from relatives - shirts for Chris is their motto, it seems. Apart from the odd t-shirt or pair of jeans, that’s me done for clothes. For work I wear the cheapest smart stuff I can find. Ethical? No, sorry, just making ends meet. Sooner spend my cash on books, music & booze.
BTW, loved yesterday’s post on praying to end the petrol crisis. Ugh!
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, odd wet lovely Manchester 05/05 at 01:41 PMRMJ has a very good point in post 3. I pity so many of the families who struggle to make their kids well dressed. I see so many who are bitterly ungrateful for the old / cheap training shoes, and I hate to think how their parents feel.
Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, odd wet lovely Manchester 05/05 at 01:44 PMThere are only a few items of my wardrobe which I bought, mostly I rely on birthday and christmas gifts to stop me looking like a Dexy’s Midnight Runner. That means I have taken little responsibility for the morality of my wardrobe...but low consumption is good, right? I’m still wearing clothes I had when I was 17.
The Sultan’s Elephant show was unbelievably, wet-inside-legly fantastic. There’s this huuuuge mechanical wooden elephant, which is indescribably beautiful (apart from the big wheeled generator stuck into its bum.) It blinks, roars, and skirts the crowd with its trunk (very grateful, very warm in London today.)
Down The Mall walks a giant puppet girl. The elephant blows the little 20 foot girls hair, then she hikes up her skirt (this is french) and the elephant washes her feet. She jumps on a giant scooter, and wheels of towards Buckingham Palace. Class.
I’ve been cheered up for the next few years.Posted by Mew on from mew's snugglehouse 05/05 at 02:23 PMHi everyone...I have been thinking about JOS #4 all day. I think JOS has a plan there. If we all stop wearing underwear think of all of the natural resources that would be saved...no laundering of the undies would save on electricity, water, detergent, etc. JOS just might save the planet with his idea. Who knows, after we ditch the undies we can also get rid of the next layer. Sounds good to me.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 05/05 at 03:42 PMSorry, that was “squirts the crowd with its trunk”.
>Who knows, after we ditch the undies we can also get rid of the next layer. Sounds good to me.
I’m all for ditching the undies (though I’m reliably informed there are times when pre-menopausal women like wearing knickers especially - that’ll need some serious deprogramming Rosemarie, the effect of adverts featuring blue liquid is nigh-on incalculable), but, all the layers? In New England? Or Olde England for that matter. My beer-and-curry-gutted, hairy-man-boobed self is unwilling to make that leap (hey, has everyone had their dinner yet :D)
Posted by Mew on from mew's snugglehouse 05/05 at 04:00 PMOkay, just so you understand-- I’ve bought some underwear at the Gap. If anyone thinks that means I’m walking around doing a lot of advertising for them… then you all think I have a much more active um, social life that I really do.
I got three cavities filled. Wasn’t fun, no but I trusted these guys, they’re all about to graduate, and it’s not like NYU is some little hole in the wall.
Helga, sorry your extended family members think torture is okay. I kinda know what that’s like-- a few of my ex-girlfriends felt the same way. But mostly regarding me.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 05/05 at 05:11 PMA tangent, it struck me coming home on the bus from Luton (a crap town north of London, I just happened to be born there! Wahey for me! Incidentally that article is out of date and Luton is now Flint, Michigan as far as GM/Vauxhall is concerned) that most of the “rude boys” I automatically sneer at, black white and asian were all essentially wearing priced-up gym kits. That made me very sad. For them or for humanity I’m not sure; virtually all my school friends I’ve kept up with totally rejected that “whose got the best trainers” ethic before or when they left ‘education’, but these kids seem to have taken it on as the basis of their social identity. Talking to (the nice) former teachers of mine, they’re convinced there was a change in the kids during the eighties, which may be nostalgia or it might point to something else.
Most of the kids stupidly called “Thatchers children” (generation X over your way) actually grew up druing the early/mid seventies, and probably just about included all the regular Brits here. The overwhelmingly selfish, materialistic and willfully stupid teens and tweens roaming around now were the ones who grew up during Maggie’s glorious reign, and I can’t see that as coincidence. (Yeah yeah, old man Mew, tarring all the kids with the same brush - but trust me, wander round Luton for a while and tell me it isn’t so.)Another clothing related thing I heard, actually a few years ago, from one of my cousins who went to Africa, Kenya I think, he could buy far more with his dirty muddy Nike socks than with the sterling and dollars in his wallet. The kids there were crazy for them.
Posted by Mew on from mew's snugglehouse 05/05 at 05:14 PMIn other cool news, I’m going to see Public Enemy this Sunday night. Turn it up, bring the noise. It takes a nation of millions to hold this Danish kid back.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 05/05 at 05:37 PMHello again...and welcome Chris, Helga, Mew, et. al. Mew is in indeed in top form.
So the Expendables might find underwear to be expendable? I’m not sure if I’m signing on to this plan. Where’s Mudge when we need him?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 05/05 at 05:41 PMHey Cat Lady, here’s a little PE for you. Enjoy the show.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 05/05 at 05:44 PMOne of the 10-plus year old nudity preventers I wear is a Public Enemy T-shirt. Though you wouldn’t know it was a Public Enemy T-shirt by merely looking. You’d have to know.
Posted by Mew on from mew's snugglehouse 05/05 at 05:48 PMOh man, that’s right. It would be so damn cool if I could get my copy of 50AR signed by Chuck D.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 05/05 at 08:26 PMDoes Chuck still have a radio show?]
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 05/05 at 08:37 PMHe’s still on Air America:
http://www.airamericaradio.com/onthereal/I keep forgetting that station’s still out there, should check it out sometime. Won’t even go on about the frustration that they don’t have you on.
...friend convinced me to go to a midnight show of Mission Impossible 3. I’m sure it’ll be brilliant; I’ll let you know.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 05/05 at 09:09 PMMaybe we can start an Expendable write-in campaign to get me on Air America?
On a more realistic note: Enjoy the flick, James. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Bring a story to tell.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 05/05 at 09:27 PMChicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear...and when I do it’s usually something unusual.
- Bill Murray - Stripes.
Posted by JOS on from Oak Park 05/06 at 01:37 AM
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