Don't sweat it

I am well dressed today. You wouldn’t think so to look at me. I am wearing faded jeans, a work shirt, a wool vest (waistcoat to you Commonwealth folks), and a shabby pair of running shoes. How does this count as well dressed? Well, none of these items was made in a sweatshop.

The running shoes are U.S. made by New Balance.
The jeans are made by Union Jean and Apparel in Ohio.
The shirt is made in the U.S. by Carrhart.
The vest is made by Johnson Woolen Mills here in Vermont.

I try to avoid sweatshop clothing, as do a number of my friends, but it isn’t easy. Most of the major retailers buy their clothes almost exclusively in third world countries with rotten labor practices. This is intentional. Some companies, when pressed, say that either they have codes of conduct or that they don’t know exactly how much the garment workers make.

In fact, if you read the codes of conduct, they generally refer to obeying local laws, local standards, and the local prevailing wage. Not the most reassuring guarantee. The standards are generally ignored, company auditors get prearranged tours of “Potemkin” factories, and the subcontractors suffer no penalties for their behavior. Also, retailers do know exactly how much the garment workers make. A garment buyer would be fired for incompetence if he or she didn’t know the exact labor costs for each item and how that translated into worker income.

This is the most aggravating thing about the whole situation: It is so unnecessary. Third world labor costs in the garment industry are around ½ to 1 percent of the retail garment price. In other words, perhaps a nickel on a $20 sweatshirt or fifty cents on a $100 pair of running shoes.

An anti-sweatshop group obtained the pay slips from a teenaged garment worker in Southeast Asia. This young woman worked seven days a week and earned the equivalent of about $2.50 a day making children’s clothing emblazoned with the world’s most famous mouse. Her six cents per $20 garment got her two bowls of plain noodles a day and bus fare. Period. This is absolutely typical for the industry, from Indonesia to Bangladesh.

What if the contractors had a sudden fit of humanity and multiplied her wages by ten? At $25 a day she could afford a decent life, wouldn’t have to work seven days a week and we would pay $20.54 instead of $20.00 for the kid’s sweatshirt. It would be a pass-through expense for the wholesaler and retailer. Oh, but then they’d have to break through that $19.99 price point. Horrors.

So where can you get “clean” clothes? I have provided some online shopping opportunities below.

Clothing

No Sweat Apparel Casual clothing
American Apparel Made in downtown L.A. for the young and hip. Or the not-so young and hip.
Filson Expensive, but incredibly well made work clothes.
Shudde Brothers Where the real rodeo cowboys get their hats.
Sweatx Athletic clothes and a bit more.
King Louie Basic stuff.
Union Jean Just what it says, plus khakis, shirts, and outerwear.
Justice Clothing A little bit of everything.

Shoes and boots

Chaco Sandals Comfortable, durable, and re-soleable.
Cape Shoe Work shoes and boots.
Chippewa They have an American made line.
Weinbrenner They also have an American made line.
West Coast Shoe Serious work boots.
New Balance Some styles made in U.S.A.
Red Wing Shoes Made in Red Wing Minnesota, ya, fer sure.

In General
Buy American Mart
New Dream

Here’s an idea: A 7% tariff on clothing made in countries where labor standards are lax and sweatshops are allowed. It wouldn’t empty our wallets, but it would eliminate the profits gained by squeezing the workers. It would be cheaper for the retailers to force the subcontractors to pay decent wages.

Oh yes, I almost forgot: This blog is written on a laptop that was union built in the U.S.A. by Union Built PC.

Happy shopping.

Death as a side effect

Geneva Conventions (Article 48, 1977 addition to, Part IV):
“The Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.”

“Collateral damage” is more than a euphemism; it’s a lie. Since the development of long-range artillery and aerial bombing in the First World War, the killing zone of wars has expanded and the involvement of civilians in battle has become commonplace.

John Keegan, a military historian, wrote an interesting book called The Face of Battle. In it he looks at the concept of a battle from the individual soldier’s point of view, as a social and psychological experience. He uses the battle of Agincourt in 1415, the battle of Waterloo in 1814, and the First Battle of the Somme in 1916 as examples. One of the striking differences about these battles is the extent of the killing zone. At Agincourt there were archers who could kill at distances up to a hundred yards or more, but most of the bloody work was done at arm’s length. Armored men hacked and slashed at each other face to face, while people from the nearby villages watched from the adjacent woods. Waterloo was fought with muskets and cannon, and the killing zone was extended to a mile. Even so, some troops sat out the battle on the back slopes of hills or in dense woods within a short walk of the carnage. The First World War was different. Modern artillery extended the killing zone to seven miles, and the soldiers of each side reached the front through a maze of well-policed trenches. There was little opportunity for refusal or escape. Keegan doesn’t cover this, but at the same time, the Germans were beginning to make aerial forays over Britain with dirigibles, dropping bombs on industrial areas and their surrounding cities. Shells fell on French villages. Civilians were now part of the battle. Keegan’s final point is that in our era of intercontinental ballistic missiles the killing zone has become global. We are all on the battlefield.

In fact, as the reach and power of our weapons has increased, so has the ratio of civilian war related deaths to military battle casualties. During American military operations in the Middle East since 1991, the ratio of civilian deaths to U.S. military deaths has varied from 13:1 to 20:1 by the most conservative counts. The ratio of civilian deaths to tons of bombs dropped has varied since the introduction of aerial bombing, but nobody denies that there is a ratio. Even the use of so-called “precision guided munitions” hasn’t reduced the number of civilian deaths.

The arsenal of a modern army includes bombs that can be (and are) dropped from miles in the air, destroying entire city blocks. Artillery can reach out to 14 miles, delivering high explosives, shrapnel, and burning chemical agents such as phosphorus. Individual soldiers with handheld weapons can send multiple projectiles far beyond their own visual range, or blanket an area with a hail of bullets. Combine this technological prowess with the limitations of human perception, communication, cognition, and moral judgment and there is an inescapable conclusion: It is literally impossible to conduct modern warfare without killing significant numbers of innocent civilians. This conclusion is amply corroborated by our experience from the Second World War to this day.

This stark fact puts a moral burden on those in positions of political power who propose the use of military force. The argument of collateral damage, i.e., “We didn’t mean to kill civilians - it was an unfortunate error,” is one of negligence. The inevitability of civilian casualties in modern warfare disallows the plea of negligence.

What if someone were to visit a crowded shopping mall with a paper target and a handgun, paste the target on a wall, back off through the throng, put on a blindfold, and start blasting away in the general direction of the target? Would that person be able to say that he never intended to kill or injure anyone? It wouldn’t stand up in court. Foreknowledge of the certain consequences of your actions places the moral responsibility for those consequences squarely on you.

I’d like to propose a formal statement to be signed by members of Congress and the President whenever they decide to fund or execute an act of war, aside from defending the country from a direct attack upon our territory.

STATEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

I, ________________, in my official capacity as ___________________, am authorizing or funding military action in foreign territory by the United States of America.

I understand and fully acknowledge the following:

Due to the power and range of existing weaponry and the limits of human perception and judgment, the prosecution of modern mechanized warfare inevitably results in the injury and deaths of innocent children, women, and men.

My foreknowledge of these unavoidable injuries and deaths of innocent civilians as a consequence of my actions makes me personally morally responsible for them.

Therefore, I swear (or affirm) that I have diligently, patiently, and in good faith exhausted all other possibilities for the resolution of the relevant conflict. I swear (or affirm) that I have, to the best of my ability, investigated the probable number of direct and indirect casualties resulting from this military action and found that this military action would prevent greater injury and loss of life.

In the event of a war crimes prosecution resulting from this military action, I agree to submit myself to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court or other United Nations sanctioned tribunal set up for the purpose.

Signed, this ____ day of ____________, 20__

X_____________________________________

Human beings show an almost unlimited capacity for the rationalization of evil acts, so this document would be no guarantee of ethical decision making. It would, however, force those in power to contemplate, at least momentarily, the effects of their actions on the lives of ordinary people. Perhaps they should be required to read the statement aloud, in public. The initiators and supporters of war should have to acknowledge that they know the human cost of what they are doing. Parallel to this, the expression “collateral damage” should be expunged from the military and journalistic vocabulary.

Learning the ways of their fathers

Sometimes the irony is so thick that it ceases to be irony. One might call it a case of single entendre. The University of Vermont College Republicans club has been shut down by the Student Government Association for defaulting on a loan.

Fiscal irresponsibility by Republicans….hmmm.

It gets better. The young conservatives borrowed $7,000 to pay for an appearance by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, but attendance at the event was far less than they expected. They were left with a balance of $6,548. Apparently there were few people willing to pony up real money to hear Mr. Family Values talk about how he cheated on his wife while pursuing the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The real irony about this, however, is that Gingrich was one of the advocates of an amendment to the Constitution requiring a balanced federal budget. Of course, the Bush administration has been swiping the national credit card in a frenzy that exceeds even the Reagan years.

What adds richness to the story (published by the Vermont Cynic) is the president of the College Republicans, Heather Baldyga, speaking in a feckless, no-fault, passive voice:

"We were not able to pay back SGA because there was little or no effort to fundraise in the past few semesters. It is also difficult to fundraise for a Republican organization around here, because we don't have many fans in this area," Baldyga said. (H. Note: Governor Jim Douglas managed somehow)

The derecognition did not come as a big surprise to Baldyga. "I was aware that we would more than likely be derecognized some point during the semester," she said.

"It is upsetting because alumni worked very hard to get this club started less than six years ago, and now it no longer exists due to a lack of funds. It is a shame that we were not able to repay the debt," Baldyga said.

Aw, gee, and whose fault was that? Apparently, nobody’s. As they say at the Attorney General’s Office, “Mistakes were made.”

And where will the defaulted $6,548, now in the pocket of Newt Gingrich, come from? It will be involuntarily extracted from the pockets of every student on campus, of course.

Let’s review the process:

1) Borrow money
2) Pay a wealthy Republican to perform a service for other Republicans
3) Let the debt slide
4) Ignore warnings
5) Deflect responsibility
6) Make everybody else pay for your mistake

The UVM College Republicans should get an “A” in Neoconservative Management Practices 101. Too bad for them that the market for that skill set is starting to diminish.

Just around the corner

I just visited an old friend who is a collector of odd things. On a shelf in his kitchen he has two boxes of Millennios, a commemorative version of Cheerios put out in 1999 for the popular millennium (As opposed to the calendar millennium, 2001, or the true millennium, 1997. I don’t want to get into it right now.). On the side panel of the box there is a set of fill-in-the-blanks predictions.

A brief selection:

By the year ____, scientists will have developed special suits that will allow people to fly.

The Boston Red Sox will win the World Series in ____.

We will be able to teleport people and objects in the year ____.

It was interesting to see that in 1999 the Red Sox winning the Series was as improbable as flying suits or Star Trek style teleportation. Five years later, on October 27, 2004, the Sox did it in a four game sweep against the St. Louis Cardinals.

On Monday, Ian Paisley, the hard-line leader of the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party, sat down with former IRA member Martin McGuinness to begin working out the details of power sharing in Northern Ireland between Sinn Fein and the DUP. Even a few years ago, who would have thought that “No surrender” Paisley would have a cordial face to face meeting with one of his sworn enemies? After much struggle and many setbacks, it looks as if Northern Ireland might have a lasting peace.

It reminds me of my visit to Berlin, both East and West, in 1988. I went from Austria to West Berlin through East Germany, watching machine gun toting guards patrolling around the train when it stopped. My friends and I went through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin for the day. It was a 40-year time warp from modern concrete, stainless and glass buildings to brick walls still showing bullet pockmarks and buildings left bombed out. An East German we met said goodbye some 300 yards from the wall, for fear of being shot if he strayed closer. It seemed as if the wall would be there for the next hundred years. It fell within a year.

I write about these events because I sense despair around me. George Bush looks impeachment-proof. The occupation of Iraq drags on and the death toll rises, while the Democrats put up a generally feeble opposition. The White House uses our constitution like so much toilet paper. Global warming inexorably advances as SUV’s drive past the brightly lit McMansions. And so on, and so on, with no letup.

Well, imagine being an East Berliner in 1988, a resident of Omagh in Northern Ireland in 1998, or a citizen of Red Sox Nation in 2003. That could be where we are in 2007. Chin up. Keep going.

Small town, big issue

I live in a small town in Vermont. Last night I went to Town Meeting, a yearly institution around here when all those interested voters show up at the town hall (or school gym, or wherever) to discuss and vote on the town budget, zoning rules, and other local business. Last night’s meeting was a special one – there was an item on the agenda to take all money issues out of town meeting and put them on the ballot. The advocates of this change insisted that it the ballot is more democratic that the meeting, because people can vote more easily than they can attend. Opponents objected that it would eliminate meaningful debate and our ability to adjust our policies. (This two sentence summary is an injustice to the actual debate.)

I should interject, for those of you who do not live in Vermont, that you have never seen a town meeting on TV, even though a journalist, elected official, or candidate may have called it that. I have seen the expression “national town meeting” used, which is as silly as the expression “national town.” A town meeting is not a candidate listening to random people expressing their opinions. It is the residents of an actual town assembling to discuss issues and make legally binding decisions about the policy, laws, and finances of the town.

I should also note that I recently drove across a wide swath of America, about 2,000 miles, stopping in several major cities across the southeast. The contrast with Vermont was startling. It wasn’t just the absence of real town centers, or the staggering traffic jams, or even the blight of strip mall sprawl. It was the anonymity, the isolation, and the selfish behavior. People drove like rats fighting over the last scrap of food. People blocked out the world with tinted windows and earphones. Nobody seemed to give a damn.

Last night the town hall was packed and overheated. Some people greeted each other with smiles and laughter, while others spoke solemnly and quietly to each other. There was pent up emotion showing in many faces. I was expecting a verbal death match.

The issue that precipitated both the high attendance and the proposed change was our annual donation to the regional library. The library is located in the largest town in the area and serves a handful of towns around it as well. The library people ask for money based proportionally on how many books are checked out by the residents of each town. These requests had been ramping up sharply along with library activity. I missed last year’s meeting, but in a fit of generosity, those attending voted extra money on top of the already increased amount. This fiscal extravagance tipped the scales and brought out the Australian ballot advocates.

In the end, after drawn out and passionate debate, town meeting survived by a two to one margin. Several spending items were then axed, and the library got less than it asked for. Given the emotional levels, people were remarkably polite and patient, even when people rambled on or wandered from the subject. Most speakers were steady, although some choked up, some had nervous and wavering voices, and others were loud and angry. The discussion was punctuated with occasional side comments and laughter.

That sets the scene, but what I am really interested in is something that Alexis de Tocqueville witnessed and wrote about during his travels in 19th century America. That is our sense of community. The word community is one of those sacred words in American culture, but one that has had its meaning twisted and drained over the years. I saw evidence of both its strength and its decline in that sweaty town hall last night.

Community. People need it the way we need carbohydrates and protein. We respect it. We use the word reverently. More and more, we seem to prefer the concept to the actuality. We don’t want to work for it and we don’t want to pay for it. Maybe it is prosperity and mobility. Maybe it is declining prosperity and diminishing free time. Maybe it is the toxic myth of absolute individualism, the narcissistic lullaby that oozes soothingly from our media.

Over and over last night I heard people say things such as “I use the library all the time,” or, “I never use the library.” A couple spoke movingly in support of funding for the local home health service – it had helped them when the husband’s mother was dying. For many people it seemed as if their opinion depended on whether a service helped them personally.

I have no children, and it is extremely doubtful I ever will. Roughly two thirds of my local tax bill pays for schools. Even so, I am not going to ask that only townspeople with children foot the bill. I suppose I could make a pragmatic argument that if Johnny can’t read or Jane can’t do math, then someday they will be a drag on the local economy and social services. I won’t. I pay my school taxes, if not with a smile, then with a sense of satisfaction. Why? Because a community takes care of its children.

We voted money for the local home health agency. My parents live in another part of the state. They will never need home health care around here. I may or may not need it myself someday. That’s not the point. A community takes care of its old people.

I check out a few books from the library now and then. Some people use it daily, some never. This is irrelevant. A library is one of the building blocks of a community, just like the roads, the schools, the fire station, and the water mains. Our pipes need to hold water, but so do our ideas.

We don’t each live alone on a desert island that happens to be part of a town. We are as connected and contiguous as our parcels of land. Even more so, because our lives overlap. Last night I saw that connection in the sometimes-strained civility of an impassioned debate. I saw it in the good humored conversations afterward between those who “won” and those who “lost.” I saw it in the town officials who work what amounts to an extra part time job for almost no pay. I also saw it seeping away in the selfish assumptions of people’s arguments and the occasional knowing manipulation of emotion or process. I saw our community wounded by people’s need to identify themselves not only by name but also by years of residency, either proudly or apologetically, as if that had moral weight. I heard the code words of class distinctions and political factions.

We can discuss and define and redefine the boundary between the rights of the individual and the rights of the community. That discussion, however, establishes that the community exists and has rights and needs of its own, beyond the rights of the individuals within it. Newcomer. Old-timer. White collar, blue collar, no collar. Ultra-conservative to radical. Aging bachelor, young couple, large family. We need each other.

“I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means the inhabitants of the United States almost always manage to combine their own advantage with that of their fellow citizens; my present purpose is to point out the general rule that enables them to do so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue, but they maintain that virtue is useful and prove it every day. The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices, but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book II, Chapter 8