$38/mo

"Well, at least I don't make 38 bucks a month and work in a building that could collapse." This was my reply to one of the umpteen dozen people who said, "How are you?" to me today. Was it insensative? Was it a commentary on how lucky I am to be in Canada? Was it a guilty condemnation of Canada because we buy a portion of the clothes that were sweated over in that death trap in Bangladesh? Was it just my way of trying to raise consciousness about a news story that REALLY matters to us all? Or was I just being a smartass? Hard to say really what happens when words go from my brain to my mouth and bypass any editing for political correctness. That happens from time to time.

The cause was just pure disgust over this story out of Savar, a suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh. It's not newsworthy when some jagoff capitalist buys a five story building and illegally, (because it's unsafe), adds three more floors to it. Did he even pay a fine for that or just grease a local politician? Oh, wait a minute, he IS a local politician! It's not a headline when some jagoff capitalist pays his workers $38/mo., and I'm sure this ain't 9-5 Mon-Fri. I've read the average textile worker in Bangladesh puts in a 14-hour day. IF they get weekends off that works out to 13.5 cents an hour! But they don't. Friday, the Muslim holiday, is the one day off every week workers must receive by law. But often they don't. 11.3 cents an hour IF they get every Friday off!

It's not interesting to us when some jagoff capitalist subjects his workers to horrible working conditions for their $38/mo. It's not journalistically viable that these sweatshop owners were only able to start their enterprises at the behest of wealthy corporations who, let's face it, can't afford to pay anyone much more than a dollar a day to make their product. It's not news that half a year earlier a fire at a textiles factory in another suburb of Dhaka in Bangladesh killed 112 workers and there were promises made, (but not kept), throughout the industry to improve working conditions. We don't read about the factories like this that are reportedly monitored for environmental and labour laws regularly outsourcing half of their work to the "shadow factories" that aren't. None of this makes the news until over 300 people are crushed in a building that was condemned the day before it collapsed, and the owner was informed, but chose to let all the slaves work in all the factories in his building anyway.

And because this was capitalism, not terrorism, this jagoff building owner, (and probably the jagoff factory owners too), is watching his big screen plasma right now saying, "That poor Boston bomber boy! HE's in deeep shit!" They should give every dime they have to the families of the victims but they'll probably receive a little fine and never see the inside of a jail cell.

Bangladesh reportedly has the lowest labour costs in the world and a minimum wage of, you guessed it, $38/month. Even in a poor country where things are cheap like, (fake well), Bangladesh, I'm sure it's not going to be easy to pay the bills on that salary. So we should buy a lot of Bangladesh-produced goods so that conditions can improve! Right? Or are we supposed to just boycott anything with a "Made in Bangladesh" label on it? But then more and more people in Bangladesh will lose the crappy jobs they have now, won't they?

Folks, don't listen to the people who say it is partially our fault for buying a cheap, Bangladesh-made shirt at Walmart. We're only human. Hey, we're not making $38/mo. but we are gonna buy the $10 shirt, not the $50 one. Even if the quality is a bit lower, we're pretty sure it's not 5 times worse than the other shirt, aren't we? And it really doesn't matter how we adjust our spending when we hear this story, the people who buy the shirts and the slaves who make the shirts are the only people who will absorb any losses. If we buy more the factory workers will still get $38/mo. and the factory owners, distributors, shop owners etc. will make more dough. If we boycott products made in Bangladesh, they'll put "Made in Somewhere Else" tickets on the shirts or the eventual retailers will stop dealing with Bangladesh and move on to the country like China or Viet Nam with the next cheapest labour, AND RECEIVE A HERO'S WELCOME!

To be clear, if we boycott the companies who sell the shirts that were being made in the sweatshops in the building that collapsed in Bangladesh, those companies won't suffer, the slaves who work in the sweatshops will. Because even making 11.3 cents and hour is better than nothing. Walmart apparently wasn't connected in this instance but they are the largest customer for Bangladesh-manufactured textiles. And, talk about cheaply attained glory, they are revered for it.

But I read a little article at http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports?id=0042  It's about an NBC Dateline investigative report done in 2005 on the textile industry in Bangladesh with particular attention paid to Walmart. I urge you to read the whole thing. I will try to sum up what Walmart does in Bangladesh, or at least what they were doing in 2005. The article states that things will get worse in the future with wages going down as the cost of living goes up. The people at NBC Dateline knew what they were talking about.

The video showed young women being forced to work 14-hour days sewing garments in Bangladesh factories for 13-17 cents an hour so they were right that wages would decrease. The premise of the report was interesting. Dateline got a long sleeve, large, denim shirt union made, (United Food and Commercial Workers), in Chicago. Materials cost $5, labour was $7.47, and laundry was an extra 75 cents. Total price: $13.22. I have read that the usual markup on clothing like this is 120%, (which I still think is outrageous), so that would make the retail price $31.72. Yet Walmart was able to sell a shirt of slightly lesser quality that had been made in Bangladesh for $11.67. How could they do this? That's what Dateline found out.

They went to Bangladesh and asked how much it would cost to get that same shirt made and got a quote of $4.70. With a 120% markup that's $11.28. Bingo! Um, right? Isn't that how Walmart does it? Well, not quite. That would almost be considered un-corportate-like.

The $4.70 was a quote based on an order of 25000 shirts. With sheer volume Walmart could easily get a quote of $3-$3.25. In that case their price represents a 260-290% markup. It boggles my mind trying to conceive of the kind of mentality that is behind such a markup. If I buy a bunch of chocolate bars for a buck each and a total douchbag who I can't stand wants to buy one from me I am not going to say, "Gimme tree fitty." And he is probably not going to pay.

If Walmart were to pay an extra 20 cents per shirt, their markup would still be an astronomical 238-265%, (that's $8.22-$8.47 per shirt!), and they gave that extra 20 cents to the workers, their salaries would rise to a whopping 39 cents an hour! This would get them out of squalor, starvation and misery and up to poverty! But Walmart NEEDS that extra 20 cents being the struggling company that they are.

The part where I grabbed the trash can in my office and threw up 6 bucks worth of fish and chips I had had for lunch was when I read this,

"We strongly believe that our business—and the wages and benefits we provide, have helped improve the lives of many thousands of workers in many parts of the world."

That's what Walmart "believes." That must be why they demanded exporters to cut prices 12% in 2005. They also demanded that Bangladeshi contractors, (like the sweatshop owners), pay for any duty costs imposed by importing nations. You, me and Walmart all KNOW this was deflected straight onto the workers in the sweatshops. Hence 2013 - 11.3 cents an hour instead of the lofty 13-17 cents in 2005.

But when you bargain with Walmart it's "take it or leave it." Otherwise they'll buy somewhere else, which unbelievably would be worse for the people of Bangladesh. To give you a better idea of the pure evil at work here the article includes the fact that while many other companies signed an agreement to allow 3 months of paid maternity leave for pregnant employees, Walmart flatly refused.

Remember this story the next time you walk into Walmart and see an 11 dollar shirt and think, "Wow! How can they sell it for that? It must be what they call one of them 'loss leaders' to bring folks into the store." I don't think Walmart EVER has loss leaders, or things they sell for a loss to attract customers. The Waltons probably don't know what that means. But this story is not about Walmart or Bangladesh. It's about the whole world. This is how things work. And it has to change. We need to institute global measures here like a minimum minimum wage that's a helluva lot more than 38 bucks a month. Any scumbag corporation that doesn't comply, how about corporate trade embargos. If it works on a country, it'll work on a company. And for the love of God and humanity, we need strictly enforced human rights laws for the entire world!

When I lived in a small town in Korea called Yangju, I met two Bangladeshi men. We just chatted briefly as we met on the street. I ended up seeing one, the other or both quite a lot while I lived in Yangju and I remember two things about these guys: they were extremely freindly and happy, and they always called me "brother." I don't know if it was because I forgot their names or if I kind of liked it but I started calling them "brother" too when I saw them. If only we could truly act like brothers to everyone!

I mentioned last post that we live in a fear-based world. Our greed-based global economy is part of that. Greed is fear. "I am scared that someone else might get what I believe I am entitled to." Master Yoda said, "The fear of loss is a path to the dark side." He also said, "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." And my favourite, "Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed that is. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose." More than anything else it is the greed-based, corporate thinking that is the dark side of our world force and it is the cause of most, if not ALL of our suffering.

Leastaways, that's what Yoda and I reckon.

The Back Page Stories

There are those who would call me a conspiracy theorist. And it's partially true. I try not to just go with the popular ideas without trying to investigate the unpopular ones. I admit to relishing non-conformity more than accuracy on occasion. But I think if more people did ANY investigating or questioning of popular "thinking", they'd find it might not be as popular as we are told it is. I just enjoy alternate points of view. Especially when they involve some controversy. And where there's smoke, there's almost always fire. Maybe not a raging inferno but fire nonetheless.

One of the coincidences I have seen over and over again is apparent diversionary media events when the banks, opinion makers, government, filthy rich, or as George Carlin calls them, "our owners", are trying to slide something past us regular folk. It's to the point now that when I see a media frenzy, even if the story really IS something interesting enough to warrant the attention of every newspaper, internet site, TV station, radio broadcast etc., I start wondering what is happening that by default is NOT the top story any more.

Now I'm not about to say that the Boston bombings aren't a big story. They are tragic and emotional. That's news! I'm certainly not going to even imply that the bombings were orchestrated to coincide with any underhanded politics or violations of human rights that somebody wanted as a secondary or thirddary news story if at all. I would never do that! But I just know I'm not the first to notice that this might be the absolute perfect time to do some unsavoury, unscrupulous, unpopular, unmentionable things with as near to public impunity as can be manufactured.

It seems more than mere coincidence that virtually simultaneous to the Boston bombing media frenzy a couple things happened that I think might be even larger stories. And, hey what do you know, they involve underhanded politics and possible, (translation: probable), violations of human rights. You may not have heard about them.

The first story is the CISPA bill that was quick pitched past the American citizens at the plate just trying not to let the political hurlers rob them of basic human rights. This is the euphamistically named, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. A little less than a year ago it was proposed in the American senate and vetoed by the Obama government on the grounds that it lacks civil liberty safeguards and confidentiality. Amazingly, a year later, the same president with the same advisors passed the thing. Was the determining factor the media cover fire laid down by the extensive reporting on the Boston bombings? Who can say?

If it were up to me, I'd let my government see that 90% of my internet time is spent surfing www.hellokitty.ca . Other than my online banking, I don't care what ANYbody sees me doing online. If the government could catch one malicious hacker or even, (oh if it could only be so!), eliminate just one of the 15 passwords everything online requires, full cyber transparency would be worth it to me. But this might be one of my opinions that is not so popular. I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of people who are not so thrilled with the possibility of the government not using the freedoms this legislation affords them solely to protect the people. Spying on the general public is now legal, so why not do it? Now I'm not saying that's going to happen. I'm not saying the government of the U.S. of A. would ever try to bury this story in columns about the Boston bomber's upbringing and school projects or TV interviews with relatives and neighbours or internet chat sites about how long it will be insensative to have happy occasions in Boston or screen movies with explosions in them or have any James Bond film "marathons." I'm just admiring their uncanny timing is all.

The second story you may not have noticed is one that Barack Obama is actually ashamed of. There were some clever political manouevres, manoover, manure, minervas, uh strategies employed by just a few congressmen that allowed an absolutely obvious gun control reform amendment to remain unpassed. The amendment called for more background checks on gun purchasers and a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Now this means clips that hold many many bullets, not the Playboy Christmas issue.

This is a pretty big issue in and of itself. But the HUGE story here is the fact that so many senators, with full knowledge that poll after poll showed the American public around 90% in favour of this kind of gun control reform, voted so as not to piss off the massively powerful, and increasingly extremist gun lobby. Yet another perfect example of the people being forced to settle for fake democracy.

Though the irony would be 100% pure Canadian maple syrup sweet, I am not saying Charlton Heston paid the Boston bombers to create a distraction while about 40 U.S. senators earned their N.R.A. paychecks. That's not what I am saying. But again, timing. Why do you suppose this was voted down April 18th?

Is the story of the Boston bombings being overblown? Is it really the horrible tragedy the media is portraying it as? Again, it is not my place to say. I don't think I had any loved ones involved so I can only imagine how those who did feel right now and mourn for them all. It is certainly tragic and I can partially understand the frustration and anger but there is no way of truly relating. Please don't mistake my levity for apathy or hard-heartedness. I feel awful about the Boston bombings and my heart goes out to all involved. But I will say that there are people in Iraq or Syria and probably dozens of areas throughout the world who on the day of the events might have said, "3 dead? 179 injured? That's not so bad." Almost every day there are so many instances of killing, bombing, torture, starvation and all manner of tragic circumstances that I can't help but think surely the human suffering is more devastating than that felt by the people in Boston right now! I can only be grateful and count my blessings that I have no way of knowing.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the Boston bombings was pointed out by my friend Heather in one of her daily Facebook entries. She noted the bloodlust and pure venom being spat in posts and comments all over the internet by people demanding the capture and punishment of those responsible. Some want to "bring back racial profiling," because it will stop things like this from happening. Even the uncle of the two suspects called his nephew losers and wished they had never existed, though at this point it would be almost suicidal for him to say anything else. Heather brought up some verses in the book of Matthew which say that the sun rises and rain falls on all alike. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Even the tax collectors do that! (I just love that part!) The point of Heather's post was that we should love everyone, even those who are our enemies. Or who bomb our cities and people. Easy to say but excruciatingly difficult to master!

I suggested that although I am fully behind the sentiment perhaps it is a little bass ackward. Wouldn't it be amazing if we didn't live in a fear-based, everyone-is-my-competitor world and we could spiritually evolve away from the chaos a world like that creates into a minimal entropy, love-based, everyone-is-my-brother/sister world where we didn't kill or blow each other up so much? In a paradise like that the internet would not be flooded with stories and comments about a few of "US" dying when so many of "THEM" are dying elsewhere. It's so much easier, and sensible, to love each other and PREVENT these tragedies than to do our best to love each other AFTER they take place!

Leastaways, that's what I reckon.

Chicken Hockey

Now that it's almost playoff time and the hockey has turned to soccer because of that old, tired, (and in my humble opinion WRONG), cliche, "defence wins Stanley Cups," I am bangin' away at the remote trying to see as much of the baseball game as I can and keep up with the score, (if any there be), of the hockey game. Don't get me wrong, I am still hugely grateful that I live in a country where that is possible without the aid of NHL Centre Ice or MLB Online or some such service. Still trying hard not to take Canada for granted. But for the love of Gordie Howe, half the teams that played last night, and there were a lot of them, HALF scored 2 goals or one or NONE! Even IN Gordie's day they were scoring more than that.

If hockey weren't broken, and players were allowed to try to win instead of forced, (and you KNOW it's against their wills), to make sure the OTHER team doesn't score, I think we'd have a lot more games being settled by team play and not a bad call, a lucky bounce, a broken stick or a stupid shootout! Games that are played defensively, ( I call it "chicken hockey"), are more likely to be the low scoring, one-goal games we see all too often these days. Games in which players are being "defensively responsible." Games in which offense is offensive. Games in which they slowly exit their end, carefully cycle the puck and wait for an opportunity to safely approach the net. Or better yet draw a penalty and then carefully control the power play so the other team doesn't score a shorty. Games that just barely keep the damn fans awake. Games that after 58 minutes of chess-like waiting for the other team to make the first mistake you then see the great switcheroo: suddenly one team yanks the goalie; or you get 4 on 4 overtime or even the shootout. Instead of putting all your offense into the very end of the game and saying a Hail Mary, why not have some good old up and down hockey, passing to players instead of the boards, defensive pinching, shooting, passing or skating instead of DUMPING it in or out,  shots and even one-timers on the rush, forechecking, chance taking. Otherwise viewers, like me, will switch over to the ball game. Because, if you're like me, the excitement from hockey does not all come from close scores. I'd prefer A score thank you very much. It's just more fun watching a game where you get out of your seat and cheer a goal five times rather than none. Is this rocket science?

And if you look at the standings from last year compared to this, things are upside-down! A lot of the teams have the same, (or almost the same), personnel, yet they are last instead of first in their divisions. Or vice-versa. What has happened? I'll tell you what: games ARE being decided more often by lucky bounces, broken sticks, bad line changes, goalies misplaying pucks, or things that really shouldn't be the difference in the game. But in close games this is what happens. The big change this year has been the STUPID new rules and ABYSMAL refereeing. I'm not just talking about bad calls, I mean EVERY SINGLE GAME I see possible odd man rushes or breakaways being screwed up by a ref or linesman getting in the way of the puck! Every game! That hardly ever used to happen. They are probably too busy looking for guys shooting the puck over the glass or covering it with their hands to get the hell outta the way of the puck.

Combined, these three things alone have been the difference in a hundred games I'm sure. Chicago winning streak? Wrong. The game they played against Detroit at the 21 game-in-a-row point, (or so), was tied and then won because of the puck over the glass rule. Folks it's delay of game. Same as icing. In the very rare case when the player actually IS trying to flip the puck over the glass it is most likely to relieve pressure in his end, (and keep the other team from scoring (eye-roll)), and/or get a line change. So the blatantly obvious punishment is a face-off in the offending player's zone and no line change allowed. The very same punishment for icing. Who are the morons who made it a two-minute penalty and how many games of hockey have they played? More to the point, how many games of hockey this season have they RUINED?

Officials blocking breakaway passes; players being called for hooking, slashing, or tripping a guy with one hand on their stick; covering pucks on the ice, and the old standard - players being pushed by defencemen into the goalie and being called for goaltender interference. ANY of these, or just a plain old blown call can win or lose a game. So why are NHL teams inviting the controversy? Get out there and play the game and odds are these things won't be the difference in the games. And we will all have more fun watching.

The Jays game last night was 10-8. Fun to watch! I'd much rather have watched that than the Yu Darvish 8 2/3 perfect game. I know I'm not alone in that! Watching chicken hockey is like watching a baseball game full of clean-up hitters sacrifice bunting. But if that were happening, (thank GOD baseball sees the wisdom of not being all about defence), the same thing: games would be decided by missed tags, errors, strikes called balls etc. Play the game properly and these things won't have so much of an effect on the game.

NO kid in Canada, Sweden, Russia or any hockey-playing nation is taking shots on his net underneath the streetlight hoping Mom doesn't call him in for supper and making believe he's in the Stanley Cup final BLOCKING a shot! He's scoring a goal, folks, every time. Leastaways that's how I see it.