commodification of condemnation

nice alliteration. i appreciate it and other elements of style.

politics is the art of the possible. consider what would happen if you cut off trade with china. i don’t know how much oz imports from there, but here’s what would happen in lithuania: no more dollar stores, employees left unemployed, 99% less low price clothing at maxima (our top supermarket chain), 75% less clothing available at other stores, basically at least half of clothing retailers are going out of business or shutting down temporarily, employees left unemployed, 80% less electronics, including no mice for your computer and no mp3 players that i’ve been able to find, no furniture that anybody making minimum wage can afford, and no more codfish.

eventually these products would be replaced with non-chinese products that would be higher quality, less poisonous, and not support a dictatorship. but the interim period while little is available, and the inevitability of sky rocketing prices, makes the whole situation a little bit far fetched. people’s standard of living will go down with the mean price of things going up; additionally, people’s wages will decrease as employers costs of operation increase. oh, and don’t forget your taxes are going up to cover the unemployed masses welfare benefits of course.

i’ve mentioned in my comments before that i don’t buy chinese except when i have no other choice for essential goods, such as a mouse for my computer, a collapsible closet, and an mp3 player that my wife desperately wants for xmas; the closet i couldn’t afford to get from any other country, and the electronics simply aren’t made anywhere else and sold in lithuania; i actually bought a mouse that said on the box it was made elsewhere, but when i got home and opened it the mouse said right on it made in china.

ergo, i don’t mind the truly revolutionary act of boycotting china until they stop abusing human rights and clean up their product standards. but are you sure you don’t mind, considering what might happen to your standard of living? any politician who backed something like that could say goodbye to reelection, but he couldn’t wave goodbye with his thumb stuck so far up his ass.

But yeah… China sucks in various ways, even with the little tiny somewhat democratic tics they have displayed.

I know! Let’s drop some massive sanctions on Fiji!!! Maybe they’ve even got WMDs! Let’s invade!