Right you are, Kat.  There's also state-sanctioned slavery in the Sudan.  We
Americans don't realize what a luxury is our right to "piss and moan" about
our lot.

Here in Ohio, we had a shoe factory, Rocky Boots, in a small southeastern OH
town.  A year ago, the board voted to move the manufacturing operations from
this little burg to a veritable sweatshop overseas.  Many jobs were lost and
the town suffered bigtime.  The factory overseas pays children pennies per
day to make these high-price boots--on very dangerous equipment designed for
adult hands.

My dilemma is this:  Do I boycott the company and insist that they shutdown
the overseas plant?  If they do that, will these children be "out" the only
chance at subsistence living they may have?  Your thoughts?

-Kyle

(BTW--as far as I can tell, the "surprise attack" was cancelled--haven't
heard a thing since this morning.)

-----Original Message-----
From: Kathy Salkin [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2002 3:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: butt load of pocket change


Every time I think something's screwed up in my life, I stop and think of
the
children who work in silk sweatshops in India.  They are sold into slavery
by
their parents and are made to work under horrendous conditions.  It's very
rare that one can escape into a better life.  And the fashion industry looks
the other way.  Even the token clauses outlawing child labour in their
contracts are rendered moot for all practical purposes.

Kat


On Thu, 1 Aug 2002 13:02:22 -0400 "Cleveland, Kyle E."
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> With these stats in mind, I'm not sure how
> Bobby's remarks could be seen as
> offensive.  Our capitalist system favors brain
> over brawn.  If one is the
> least bit creative, it's not difficult in this
> country to find work.


> I do think, however, that our's is a "culture
> of complaint".  I'm as prone
> as anybody to the "victim mentality" so
> prevalent in our culture.  The sad
> truth for the chronic "victim" is that it's the
> same capitalist system that
> creates enough largess so that anyone can
> become a victim.
>
> If you want to see true "victimhood", take a
> trip sometime to South East
> Asia, where hundreds of thousands of Cambodian
> kids have an incredibly bleak
> future.  Why?  because they've had an arm or
> leg (or both) blown off by a
> landmine.  Their culture shuns the "defective",
> so they are outcasts in
> their own country, usually living at a
> below-subsistence level.
>
> I have a friend who has a prosthetics business
> in Pnom Penh.  He trains
> young people (amputees) to make prostheses and
> then sends them back to their
> own village to start "cottage industries",
> making prosthetics for others.
> Many of those kids go on to work for the
> original amputee, thereby growing
> the business.
>
> They do this with the most rudimentary of
> tools, often using hand tools as
> they have no electricity in many of the
> outlying villages.  We have so much
> more than they, yet they still have no sense
> that they are "victims".  It
> can be pretty humbling.
>
> Back to work...
>
> -Kyle
>
>