Lasting Footprints
SUMMER JUSTICE SERIES
Part 5: Reduce Your Waste
A couple of weeks back, Paul Lawrence saw an air conditioner sitting on a sidewalk in Queens, New York. He decided to grab it since the thing had been left for trash. As Lawrence placed the unit in his car, borrowed from an aunt, a city official from the Department of Sanitation approached him, slapped a $2,000 fine on him, and impounded the car. His 73-year-old aunt was also slapped with a $2,000 fine for allowing him to use the vehicle for such a heinous crime.
One of my childhood heroes actually LIVES in garbage.
This is normally the part where I fight back an aneurysm over civilization-dooming government control but not today. We’re past the halfway post of a series on social justice issues, and this week is about how much waste we create, whether or not it matters, and what should be done about it.
Apparently trash on a city sidewalk is city property, and recycling is a major source of revenueso we’ll leave Mr. Lawrence to the court battle he no doubt has coming. Call me naive, but I never realized how massive the business of garbage is in our country. Government controls are just the tip of a trashy heap of problems connected to our waste.
***
We live in a disposable world. According to Julie Clawson–whose book Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of our Daily Choices inspired this series–the average American creates a few pounds of trash everyday. She continues by saying:
“…for every 100 pounds of product we acquire, 3,200 pounds of waste were created in the manufacturing process. This waste adds up…”
I agree that waste adds up (check out the video below), but the impact of that waste is being debated by many different voices.
The first argument against waste is usually the claim that we are filling landfills and running out of space. Then I read articles with statistics saying we have way too much space to even come close to filling it all.
Before long recycling enters the debate. I always thought recycling was a fairly positive thing and had no idea how many problems exist worldwide as a result of saving plastics, metals, and more for reuse. I never thought of recycling as an expensive government venture that costs states millions of dollars. The UK found this out not long ago as entire warehouses were filled with discarded products that were supposed to be used as raw materials for future production. That production isn’t always there so governments have to pay to store garbage. But read a few more articles and you’ll hear how recycling creates jobs while saving the planet!
Finally, I’ve heard that the real problem of disposable things is the pollution it creates in our rivers and oceans while harmful toxins are released into the air. So I’m hearing a lot, but what is true? Read more »
Are Sweatshops A Necessary Evil?
SUMMER JUSTICE SERIES
Part 4: Sweatshop-Free Goods
What do you think of when you hear the word sweatshop? What images enter your mind? Maybe you’re picturing a dark room somewhere on the other side of the world. What type of people are there? What are these individuals doing? Have you formed some kind of scene in your mind?
The ideas that inform our perspective come from many different places. Depending on your personal view you could have envisioned women in Asia, children in Africa, illegal immigrants in the United States, or even poor white folks somewhere in Alabama. Regardless of your view, most people immediately think of negative, perhaps evil, things. Sweatshops are violative places where laws, rights, and sometimes even workers are abused. You don’t need me to tell you what’s wrong with such pratices.
Like the previous issues in this Summer Justice series, most of us would never support systems that promote injustice if we knew what they were and how to disconnect. The problem is that the line we seek is often blurry and gray. That’s why we’re examining the most common ways people around the world are exploited. The existence of sweatshops gets people passionate in a hurry, but the debate includes prominent voices from all sides.
***
Sweatshops are most easily defined as places that produce goods while violating labor laws. They are most common in developing countries but still exist in the most powerful nations on the earth. These facilities exist in the largest cities of the world, and that includes New York and Los Angeles. Common violations include child labor, low pay, long hours, and poor working conditions.
One common misconception is that sweatshops have only existed in recent years. They’ve acutally been around since the Industrial Revolution early in the 19th century. Governments have been instituting labor laws since the 1820s and 30s. Some groups (abolitionists) of those times fought to eliminate slavery. Once they accomplished that objective they turned their attention to abusive labor practices. America finally changed laws to end some of the worst of these practices in the early 20th century.
In the past century companies have continued to receive goods, finished and raw, from facilities where the overhead is low enough to increase profits. Everybody talks about “made in China” but you’ll find goods made in Honduras, Bangladesh, Jordan, Taiwan, and beyond. I just saw hacky sacks at the mall made in Guatemala. In America we swim through millions of products made cheaply in a variety of ways in countries all over the world.
The system is not going to change. Globalization is not going to end. So what are we to do? Some people tell us to stop buying clothing and goods made in sweatshops, but that’s easier said than done when you consider the confusion over the origins of our products and the amount of cheap labor involved in our national marketplace. We’ve already established that we consume too much, but that doesn’t mean we will never consume.
The average person can’t always afford to buy from companies offering a sweatshop-free guarantee. In some ways, you’ll do just as much good buying your goods second-hand. March with me fellow thrift-shoppers and we’ll change the world! Read more »
Blood Chocolate?
SUMMER JUSTICE SERIES
Part 3: Slave-Free Chocolate
How many of us really think about child slavery when we grab a candy bar? Most of us just don’t; that doesn’t make us bad people. What is slave chocolate? I set out to learn if any of my snack money could possibly be going to companies that are operating a business on the backs of children falling victims to human trafficking.
To be honest, I didn’t know very much about the exploitation of people to produce one of our favorite treats, but I’ve been eager to learn more for some time. This issue is one of the main reasons I chose to focus on what is often called social justice for these few short weeks.
In case you’re not sure how this works, chocolate comes from cocoa beans. Most of the world’s chocolate originates from the Cote d’Ivoire or Ivory Coast in Africa. Chocolate became all the rage in Europe by the 1600s after the Spaniards discovered it as a favored treat of Aztec royalty. Moctezuma was a huge fan, a total chocoholic by modern standards.
Although centuries have passed, reports indicate that our basest cruelty instincts persist. Let’s establish two straight-forward aspects here. First, what kind of abuse is reportedly taking place in pursuit of “brown gold” as it’s called around the globe? Secondly, are we supporting companies that offer products tainted by these terrible practices?
“The Bitter Truth”
The involvement of slave labor in chocolate production became a major issue about a decade ago. Since then, international community leaders including the U.S. Congress have been setting threatening deadlines warning the global chocolate industry to avoid all involvement with child slavery.
Nothing pierces the heart like some of the first-hand accounts of young people who have escaped or been rescued from these farms. A recent entry on Tropic Post details a small bit of the experiences of these children, usually boys but sometimes girls between ages 11-16.
“The children work under inhumane conditions and extreme abuse, working with sharp machetes and poisonous sprays, from 6 in the morning, till 6 at night…One ex-child slave said 18 children were locked into a 24 X 20 foot room, sleeping on a wooden plank. A small hole was just big enough to let in some air, but they were forced to urinate in a can.”
The article goes onto say the kids were too afraid to attempt escape after others were caught and brutally beaten for attempting to do so.
At this point, slave chocolate gets a lot more attention in other parts of the world than here in the states. BBC News produced this short video on child cocoa workers in 2007. More recently, Paul Kenyon went undercover for a BBC Panorama investigation called Chocolate: The Bitter Truth. He discovered plenty of injustices still occuring in West Africa. Read more »
Is Fair Trade A Farce?
SUMMER JUSTICE SERIES
Part 2: Coffee and Commies and Nazis, Oh My!
When Adolf Hitler’s name is dropped, you probably don’t immediately think of Starbucks. Don’t worry latte lovers, I don’t have any secret demons to reveal about the top coffee establishment in the world. You may be surprised, however, to learn the interesting tale that bridges the gap between Nazi Germany and your favorite Frappuccino.
We’re in part 2 of a series and following some ideas by Julie Clawson, author of last year’s Everyday Justice (IVP), a book about the impact our decisions can have on folks all over the world.
You might not think of coffee as a world changer, but individuals all over the planet believe this hot commodity to actually be a consistent cause of injustice. After pouring over some facts, I’m not so sure about that. Regardless, we should examine what we know with open minds.
Many right-leaning folks assume that topics like fair trade and social justice are simply machinations of the left. Many lefties just want to find injustice everywhere they turn, so they have an excuse to tell rich people why they’re so terrible. Either way, this issue warrants investigation. After oil, coffee is the world’s second most valuable traded commodity.
***
Many of you have probably seen the Fair Trade label on coffee products. The stated goal of that movement is to provide coffee farmers with a decent income for their work. Most of these poor farmers toil in Latin America, but they didn’t always struggle to earn a decent wage.
For most of the 20th century, Western nations abided by agreements to ensure good wages for coffee farmers. An International American Coffee Agreement (IACA) was established way back during World War II. The fear was that if poor people weren’t paid they might turn to Nazi Germany or some other fascist group for help. The IACA was dead by 1948, and coffee prices declined into the 1950s.
Cold War fears of communism became all too real by 1959 when Fidel Castro took power in nearby Cuba. By that time, African nations were also pressuring the international community for help. JFK took office and America began backing the International Coffee Agreement (ICA), another attempt to fix prices in order to prevent instability in Third World nations that could turn to communist powers if they got desperate enough.
The ICA had a sorted history and plenty of problems to go around yet kept prices up enough until 1989 when communism proved to be one of the worst failures in human history and the Soviet Union fell apart. That was great news for Eastern Europeans and freedom lovers, but without any type of agreement coffee prices soon took another swan dive. Those poor coffee farmers again faced the challenge of getting paid a fair price for their labor.
Enter Fair Trade Certified Coffee.
***
The goal of Fair Trade Coffee is to ensure a good living wage by assuring a floor for coffee prices. Think of it as coffee insurance. The program involves other things like access to credit and more. In the past decade, a lot of big money has gotten behind the fair trade label. Retailers such as Starbucks, Sam’s Club, Green Mountain, McDonald’s and many more include coffee products with the guarantee to assist struggling farmers.
The alleged moral dilemma comes in when someone tells you that if you drink coffee without a fair trade label you are actually endorsing evil practices of big companies who cheat laborers out of their profits. If we want to alleviate the pain of some 25 million bean growers worldwide, they say, be sure to purchase the Fair Trade label.
That might be true if we knew the system worked, but critics of Fair Trade have emerged from both sides of the political spectrum. Read more »
Doing “Small Things With Great Love”
SUMMER JUSTICE SERIES
PART 1: Do With Less
Can you do something today that will change the life of someone on the other side of the planet? The choices we make everyday impact people–many of them desperately poor–all over the world. We need to recognize the consequences that result from our decisions. We may be the land of the free, but as Uncle Ben told Peter Parker, ”With great power comes great responsibility.” 
The world is changed one decision at a time. Our focus here is often how to impact lives around us, but what about thousands in far away lands? Many of us in the West see pictures and hear stories of poverty and hunger around the globe but feel helpless to do anything about it. Throughout the summer, this site will look at ways we can help improve the lives of needy men, women, and children across the Earth.
And we can start right now.
***
Earlier this year, Relevant Magazine ran a piece by Texan author Julie Clawson which is based on her 2009 book Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices. She has highlighted ways our lifestyles and purchases impact our neighbors around the world.
The focus of this summer series is often called social justice, although I would call it The Golden Rule globalized. Most of us decry suffering when we see it, but it’s easy to feel distanced from far away problems. We may not be directly doing anything wrong or hurting anybody, but we’re often unaware of the price that’s paid elsewhere so that we can have great items at a low-cost. As we’ll see, the cost is often higher than we’ve ever known.
Clawson covers some important issues. Each week I’m going to expand on one of these. If we can change the lives of people who are hurting by simply altering our daily habits yet don’t, do we become complicit in the suffering of others? Knowledge is power but must be unleashed through action. What can you do for “the least of these?” There’s only one place to begin. Read more »
Young America, Job Hunting, & Desperation
ARE COLLEGE DEGREES WORTHLESS?
Hey there college crowd, raise your hand if you’ve earned a bachelor’s degree. Now put your hand down if you’ve found a position in the career you were shooting for. According to an article on Bloomberg Businessweek yesterday, more and more of you still have your arm raised and may be throwing both hands up in total desperation.
What’s going on? I’m an optimist but also a realist, and truthfulness demands taking a hard look at some tough facts lest we bury our heads like the ostrich who finally looked up only to see the rest of the pack had moved on.
THE SITUATION
The youth unemployment rate is nearing a whopping 20% these days. That’s the highest number since the Department of Labor began compiling the data in 1948. I said 1948! Let’s clear up two quick points here. First, the age bracket for youth unemployment is generally considered 16-24 years old. Second, the 20% figure is unemployment which means people trying to find work yet unable to do so. The number of 16-24 year olds without jobs is way higher, somewhere over 50% in recent weeks. We haven’t seen this many young Americans without jobs since World War II.
THE CAUSE
An estimated 7 million jobs worked by young people have disappeared during the current economic downturn. Basic economics explains much of this shortage of opportunities, but there’s another factor that can’t be ignored. We have never seen this type of competition for entry-level jobs between young and older workers in America.
Older Americans are themselves facing a jobs crisis. Pensions have been devastated, securities threatened. More folks over the age of 55 are working now than before the recession as spousal incomes and home values decline. When these workers get laid off they enter the same race for work already packed with so many young job seekers.
Another challenge is increasing competition among cohorts of recent graduating classes. The current class is competing with grads from ’09, ’08, and so on.
THE OUTLOOK
Let me submit to you three major impacts we’ll likely see from this trend.
1. Tougher future.
Future job and earning prospects are hurt by this current downturn. The Bloomberg article notes that two recessions in the early 80s created wage losses for the next 15 years for those who entered that bad job market. Their initial entry positions were lowered, their wages less, their skills slower developing. We are hovering around that same unemployment level now, so the future may not be as bright for new workers as it was 5 or 10 years ago.
Put simply, the quicker you get out of the gate the better, and right now the gate is jammed for a lot of entry-level seekers.
2. Deeper Debt.
There’s no end in sight to our skyrocketing debt (personal and national) in an age of continued consumption. The average college debt is now over $23,ooo up from around $18,000 in the mid-late 90s. Incomes are down, living and education costs are up, and financial discipline disappeared somewhere back there behind that broken starting gate.
Overall credit card debt in the United States increased around 18% in 2009 with some states seeing a rise as much as 30%! The plastic cards are double-edged swords indeed. Plenty of those charges go towards living expenses, but you know many of the purchases are for non-essential items. Too often being broke and out of work is no longer an excuse to deprive ourselves of what we just gotta have. After all, we deserve it right? Read more »
Food, Inc. Wow.
I eat animals just about everyday. I believe we have dominion over animals but cruelty isn’t included in that responsibility. I think we should be good stewards of the earth but a lot of environmentalists are out and out liars. I also feel revulsion when I se
e those reports about how animals are mistreated for bigtime agribusiness. What’s an omnivore to do?
I’m challenged to consider how I feel about these things because I just finished watching Food, Inc., one of the best documentaries I’ve ever watched. [Note: Link to view the film can be found at the end of this post]. I won’t be joining any causes anytime soon, and director Robert Kenner didn’t set out to create a propaganda piece for some organization. The film attempts to answer one main question: Where does our food come from?
I skip most of these projects when I know I’m going to be bombarded with punishing images of sick cows and chicken massacres only to be told in the end that I’m a horrible person. Food, Inc. is not about that. As a matter of fact, one of the main scenes that hooked me was a brief interview early in the film with Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation).
I expected the preaching to begin, but Schlosser (who I know very little about) was seated at a diner trying to decide what he wanted to eat. He chose a hamburger with fries and took a healthy bite. At once I knew I was going to hear from investigative journalists rather than preachy hypocrites. The experts in this film are not kooks like the jokers that spend their lives getting people to hate them so they can feel good about caged animals or dying trees.
This movie is about the veil between us and where our food comes from. That veil is heavily guarded by massive corporations and the American government. Surprise, surprise, Democrats and Republicans are guilty. The animals that suffer because of a few companies, and I mean a select group dominating everything, are only part of the story. People are hurt by this corrupt system as well. Read more »
Marvel Vs. Disney
Disney got bored last weekend and had $4 billion dollars sitting around, so the mammoth company bought Marvel. The move is sure to shake up the international entertainment industry for years to come. DC Comics maintains a healthy level of irrelevance and simply pointed to a Dark Knight movie poster when asked
for comment.
Disney artists and developers suddenly find themselves with 5,000 new characters to play with. Get your creativity hats on because the crossover possibilities are swirling. Marvel holds onto a healthy level of autonomy, but their shareholders will be cashing in. The price tag isn’t as hefty as some might expect. This year’s Ice Age film made $600 million outside of the U.S. alone. Nevertheless, I don’t care about business ramifications.
This story’s mostly interesting for all the fun mashups floating around the internet. Since it’s a holiday weekend I’m gonna go ahead and let random strangers be witty for me.
Super Punch has a ton of these artistic interpretations over at his blog. You’ll also get a kick out of The Little Amazing Spiderman by Jeremy Bernstein.
Maybe we’ve just been jaded for too long. After Joe Pesci made the jump from Goodfellas to Home Alone, everything else was just child’s play.
Leave your thoughts below. You can also Subscribe to my feed or click here to receive posts via email.
Comcast and NFL Network Delay Divorce
With only a few hou
rs to go on an expiring contract, the NFL Network and Comcast have agreed to not allow the football network to go off the air tonight at midnight. The two sides have been battling for the past couple years. The Philadelphia Inquirer just printed this statement online:
“Comcast and the NFL are engaged in productive discussions toward a new agreement for NFL Network carriage on Comcast. NFL Network will continue to be carried on Comcast systems past tonight’s scheduled expiration of the current contract while both sides continue these productive discussions. We are both working to find a solution that works for NFL fans and Comcast’s customers.”
The NFL had been contesting Comcast’s extra monthly charge for a “sports package” that includes NHL, NBA, and more channels. The League, and this subscriber, felt that the cable giant should include the programming in it’s already excessive (my opinion) rates. Read more »
Welcome To Here
In The Matrix, Morpheus tells Neo he can take the blue pill and go on believing whatever he wants to believe. Or he can take the red pill to stay in Wonderland and find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.
This is a red pill type site with a weekly column (and some extras in between) that provides information in an entertaining way. It’s about clear thinking and good writing. It’s about truth.
I’m a writer/speaker who teaches history and political science at a local college by day. Where is local, you say? Well, that would be Wonderland of course.
From pop culture to pop politics, this is my column.
- __________________
-
EduClaytion RSS
