Talking of “spouting fiction”
Your expertise in hyperbole must put you in the running for the Booker:
<< the US and its allies managed to do in Iraq was to sanction and bomb an advanced middle-eastern country back into the dark ages>>
Though, I guess you’d be ruled ineligible by the fact that most of your lines are lifted ( plagiarized) from Naomi’s blogs
Have you spoken to any Kurds about their new “dark age” –No, I guess not!

And on the issue of reason .How is it that you are seemingly unmoved by Saddams tyrannical rule yet hyperventilate about sweatshop in Bangladesh--or more tellingly, are silent about the slavery Josephus alludes to below,eh?

(And please don’t come back with that old line about him being an American ally –that does not answer the question

That's fairly low, SPQR.

Ahem, I have no need to plagiarize, dearie.....or do ya tink I'm a tad thicker than I make out?

And I will come back with that line about him being an American ally - because that's what he was when it suited the US.

I note the US was good chums with Saddam while he was belting the daylights out of the Iranians...even when they knew he was spraying gas about quite liberally in their direction.

So tell me how totally destroying Iraqi infrastructure was a good thing. Tell me how totally destabilising their relatively advanced society has been helpful to Iraqis?

And if it was all about relieving Iraqis of Saddam's tyrannical rule, it makes one wonder why the US hasn't popped over to Zimbabwe to relieve them in the same fashion of Mugabe.

Could it be that there's nothing there that the US wishes to have influence over?

Surely not?

Dear Poirot,

Most of the stuff in the shops is now
made overseas - so choices are limited.
I try to buy local produce when it comes
to food and "Australian made," where
possible.
I don't intentionally "turn a blind eye."
And I think most people don't.
We all try to do the best with what's
available. I remember a while back trying
to find an "Australian made," teddy bear
for my grandson with no success whatsoever.
All of the "soft toys" were made in China.
Much to my frustration. I finally settled
for one I found in a local market that was
hand-made by a local lady.

You can't fight multinational corporations.
They are joining nation-states as the
major actors on the international stage,
for they inevitably develop world-wide
interests and the "foreign policies," that go
with them. And if products can be manufactured
more cheaply overseas than locally, the
multinationals may close down their local
plants and open ones in Asia, and import the
finished item back to this country.

The only path open to us is to try to convince
our elected Reps in Parliament to pass legislation
that places import duties on goods that compete
with our local industries. I believee it worked
in the past but somewhere along the line our governments
have decided in the interest of trade to reduce or
remove import duties on most products. Take essentials
like food and clothing. Local stuff always costs more.

As for the plight of the people in "sweat shops?"
Sweat shops will continue in these countries. Reform
must come from within in order to succeed. Certainly
putting pressure and publicity on the appaling conditions
will help. Especially when well-known companies have the
spotlight directed on them.

Well, yes, Lexi.

I realise that the system is so entrenched that it's usually not possible to find much ordinary everyday produce that is made in Australia.

We luxuriate in so much, and it's all brought to us on the backs of lowly paid workers in developing countries. so now countries like the US and Australia have very small manufacturing sectors and the reason for that is that profit and growth are everything in a consumer society.

Nice way to whittle away our humanity and our creativity. Of course the paradigm is too opaque for us to glean that we are poorer for that.

I tend to agree with Bazz that in the end, we'll be forced to rely on our creativity in a more localised manner sometime not too far down the track...and we'll find it as difficult as a princess who suddenly finds herself out in the fields among the peasants with no skills or character to guide her in her endeavours.

Don't you find it spooky that if the electricity fails, us moderns are plunged back into the dark ages?

It's a very thin membrane that separates us from such a state.

I'm finding the heat that Poirot has drawn on this topic interesting.

As I've read it Poiro admits she does not have neat answers to the issue, she asks initially about the relationship between aspects of feminist conscience and the impacts on third world women of the way our society has gone (poorly paraphrased on my part I suspect).

It seems like a valid discussion.

Stepping back a bit from the feminist conscience bit to the broader issue there seem to be a limited number of broad stances we can take.

- don't care about conditions in third world countries its good here
- care but see it as an unavoidable step along the way to a developed/industrialised society that should eventually self repair
- care but feel a lack of control over the supply chain
- mostly bothered by the impact on local manufacturing

I think I sit somewhere between the last two. I'd lke to be able to have some confidence that if I spent more buying a more expensive item that it meant that workers at the other end of the chain had reasonable conditions.

I'm also bothered by concerns about what we could produce in this county if push came to shove, eg a sustained war that cut us off from shipping for long enough for it to matter as an example.

R0bert

Dear Poirot,

A fundamental insight of sociology is that once
people no longer take their world for granted,
but instead understand the social authorship of
their lives and futures, they can become an
irrestible force in history.

If we can divert unprecedented energy and resources
to the real problems that face us, including poverty,
disease, overpopulation, injustice, oppression,
and the devastation of our natural environment - we just
might be able to enhance the life on this planet.

I feel optimisitc about the future. There will always be
doomsayers - but I believe that there will be subsequent
technological and other factors that will help us to make
the right decisions. If data on agricultural production
a century ago had been used to project trends into the
1980s, they would have pointed to global mass starvation.
But the "green revolution" (the introduction of new hybrid
species of high-yield grain) and highly mechanised agricultural
techniques have greatly increased food production
in a way that could not have been anticipated.

Back in 1850, Cities such as New York were faced with a
"horse crisis." The number of horses was increasing
exponentially and the streets were piled with horse dung.
A simple projection would have indicated thatt the streets
of New York would eventually be impassable and the city
uninhabitable, but this prediction would not take account
of several intervening factors, most notably the
replacement of horses by automobiles.

Of course we have to change our lifestyles. The planet
has a finite amount of resources and it can only
tolerate a limited amount of pollution. If world
population continues to grow rapidly, if industrialisation
spreads around the world, and if pollution and
resource depletion continues at an increasing rate -
massive social changes will await us all.