What do these things have in common? Defective automobile parts, poisonous toothpaste, deadly pet food, toxic toys and bibs, tainted food products, faulty medical supplies, counterfeit drugs. These are all cheap, substandard consumer products imported from Communist China.
Politicians and pundits nonchalantly view these life-threatening imports as just a hazard of globalization. I can buy that up to a point, but I thought the basic premise of globalization was for everyone to thrive and prosper. The last time I checked, the only ones prospering were the large corporations. In addition to the cheap, plastic crap forced upon us, middle class wages are stagnant and jobs with health care and benefits are rapidly disappearing. Foreign workers labor for pennies on the dollar in unsafe work environments with no benefits.
If you're waiting for someone to protect you from death or injury due to cheap, plastic crap, sorry, not going to happen. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is dangerously understaffed and can only inspect about 1 percent of imports. Very little help there. Since many politicians of both parties, including the Democratic front-runner, are beholden to these very corporations for campaign contributions. No help there either. The nefarious occupant of the White House who refused to fund the Country of Origin Law passed in 2002 so that we might know where the food we feed our families is grown and processed doesn't care unless you have a seven-figure income. The large corporations that are making money hand over fist from cheap labor, defective materials and the many tax breaks bestowed upon them by a Republican White House and Congress view this cheap plastic crap with casual indifference. No help there.
So that leaves us - the consumers. Since many of our votes don't count either, figuratively or literally, our only voice is our consumer dollars.
If you're absolutely convinced that product safety is not an issue, and you're happy with the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs, then continue to buy cheap, plastic crap from Communist China. If not, won't you join me in boycotting anything bearing the made in Communist China label?
And didn't 58,000 Americans die in another quagmire 40 years ago to stop communism?
