Shopping In The New Year
Not meaning to go all Mother Jones on you, but this is pretty rotten. And you want to know what's pretty rotten about it? Here's what's rotten: I spent a decent amount of time and a few dollars at WalMart and Target over the holidays.
That means, for example, that I'm going to have to go home and take a look at the tags on those comfy (if rather shapeless) $7 sweatpants I bought on Saturday and I will probably have to absorb the fact that the couple bucks I saved were paid for with the stolen minutes and hours of human lives.
And this is going to be uncomfortable. And I will probably try to forget it as quickly as possible, mumbling something vaguely comforting to myself ("5 cents an hour is REALLY GOOD MONEY in that country.") I'll try to think of other things I needed that money for, like an alternator for the car and rent and some new DVDs to watch on my new DVD player. And I'll probably succeed in distracting myself, because I am distractable and because responsibility is often uncomfortable.
So that's why I'm writing this: to remind myself. It's a new year, after all, and what are you gonna do about it, that's what I'd like to know.
4 Comments:
Much of what you post shows that you are an astute citizen of the world. There is quie a bit of sadness and despair all over the planet, even here at home. Life is not fair. Never forget these things and never stop trying to make the world better. But.....lighten the F* up!
Sounds to me like somebody needs a nap...
P.
actually, zippy's quite a cheerful fellow.
Could we have found a place where I am more liberal than you? Wal Mart is brutal for the world market... because of their pull to essentially manage foreign labor. My love for Clarence Darrow comes out at these times. There should be unionizing which demands a global labor policy that matches American labor rules. We may pay less for the convenience but the keeping down of those third world countries and their workforce results in other problems which we have to pay for later. Advancement of good labor laws and control always results in a more fruitful society methinks. We've done it here and it needs to be done elsewhere.
I'm also curiously worried about coffee prices. They're too low and depress vital economies while encouraging more growth of illicit crops.
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