Countrysiders, I was just doing a little surfing to see what Kmart had on sale that I really didn't need, just wanted. All of a sudden this site came up that said "need and greed". Amoung those listed Wal-mart J.C.Penny,Kmart and others was listed under the most "greed". These folks is where my better half and I do all of our shopping. Condensed version, just south of us, Mexico and beyound, across the big pond(Asia), and others outside of USA were amoung the highest of offences to human rights. Then again I had heard of "offences" in USA that was close to being just as bad. SO I don't mean to be casting the stone. My question to all countrysiders,"Where can we shop/buy our needed goods, without destroying our neighbors"? Is there a fine line between what we can control and not control? Sooner or later we all need a t-shirt, shoes, a suit for going to weddings and to buried in. Mankind can and will justify all things, so we can sleep at night. I don't have the answer . Let us all think somewhere between the box and outside. GJ

-- George J. (pangusg@netscape.net), December 20, 2000

Answers

Buy American. We know there is no slave labor being used to make the products and it helps the farmers who raise a lot of the goods that go into the products.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), December 20, 2000.

Countrysiders, I know this is an old subject that has been over the coals many times, but there must be an answer somewhere out there. Other than buy american. Fruit of the loom has gone south along with BVD/Levis and many many others. In fact walmart has been caught more than once switching labels from way down south of the border to the USA. I guess its one of those questions that I already know the answer. Human beings are not a nice bunch of folks, no matter what side of the fence you are on. Holding each other in prayer will always be a good answer, if not the only answer. Take care my fellow countrysiders. GJ

-- George J. (pangusg@netscape.net), December 20, 2000.

George,

I wish I had an answer for you. So many times, we have no way of knowing what went into the production of what we buy. I buy most of mine and my family's clothes at consignment stores and resale shops. I confess that my reasons are more economic than philanthropic. Maybe someone else had an idea.

-- Mona in OK (jascamp@ipa.net), December 20, 2000.

I usually buy only what I NEED and if it is a WANT careful study is made before purchase. The whole world is currently based on rampant commercialism, I have made a choice to get off that bus and travel the path less taken.

-- JLS in NW AZ (stalkingbull007@AOL.com), December 20, 2000.

Recycle! I consider new clothing one of the biggest wastes of money around. There is just SO MUCH really top quality merchandise available for so little money that it's a great waste of your hard- earned $$ to buy new, including farm equipment. Buy used at yard/garage sales. Or at one of the many thrift stores run by charities where it is a win-win situation with you getting more bang for you buck and your money helping a good cause. I have not bought new stuff other than repair parts in many years as with careful shopping and always planning for the future I have acquired enough clothing, linens, household necessities, yard goods and even my very first issues of Countryside for pennies on the dollar. This includes many like new shoes, boots, sox, t-shirts and even underwear. If you choose cremation like most on the planet do, you won't have to worry about what you're buried in either. Dust to dust. I had a CS friend complain to me about her towels being shabby and when I mentioned to watch garage sales she told me she never sees them there. I believe this is because she has never really LOOKED for them before. Most seem to think sales are just for clothing and kid's stuff. Even though they seem to make up the bulk of items, this is definitely not true. My favorite all-time quotation is from the book DUNE by Frank Herbert and it is "You only see what you are educated to see". I believe this is Maria's problem. I hope it is not yours also.

-- Sandy Davis (smd2@netzero.net), December 20, 2000.

Countrysiders, Finger error.sorry.not a typist. Thank all for your comments concerning the question of buying products made in our world today. Whether it is brand new or at the local yard sale for pennies on the $$$, even the world wide web of e bay or some other form of buying/selling, these products still are made somewhere. They still have a tag that more than not, are made way down south or across the ponds. Yes I have been educated, and yes I can buy at yard sales as well as the store uptown. Maybe the answers I am looking for will be around the next corner of someones pasture. May your greens be greener this spring. Thanks again. GJ

-- George J. (pangusg@netscape.net), December 20, 2000.

A lot of the previous posts said to buy american. I know a dirty little secret. I've worked out of my home as a seamstress off and on over the years. I used to sew for a company where they would send us shirts made in another country....we would add a bit of trim and then take the tags out of the shirt...add the american companies tag and a tag that said made in the USA. This is perfectly legal. As long as an american does some work, no matter how small, it can wear the made in USA tag. I'm sure a lot of people don't know this. I was a bit shocked myself.

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), December 20, 2000.

I just bought a $200+ sequined top at a thrift shop in Bellevue, WA for $16.00. So what if somebody else wore it once or twice? I may have to throw a party myself just to wear it, though!! But I love it! I practically gag whenever I have to buy something at retail pricing. I guess from having worked in the biz so long, I know the markups and the nonsense.

btw, in defense of some retailers, there is a concerted effort among a few retailers to NOT participate in sweat shop manufacturing. They really do care about not exploiting people. However, the rub is that the public will also not be willing to pay 2-3 times as much for a product made domestically, and the company that "cares" can just go right on out of business. A lot of people love Walmart for their low- prices and wouldn't shop anywhere else. I haven't looked at their sourcing in a few years, but as I recall, most of it was offshore, and at times in questionable factories. Maybe they have improved by now. But if you want cheap prices at retail, companies have to source it even cheaper at wholesale, and they need to get it freighted in even cheaper too.

If people bought good quality domestically-made goods and took care of them, even if they paid more initially, AND if they recycled and shared when they got tired of them, AND didn't accept the insecurities that advertisers and marketers manipulated them into believing and thus bought too much stuff in the first place, I think our world (at least here in N. America) would be a better place. Dream on, huh???

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), December 20, 2000.

It has been a while since I have been in the inner city, but not that long. We have SWEAT SHOPS IN THE USA. They are hidden in second floor buildings, old warehouses, where-ever. Just because it was completely made in the USA does not mean it was not made by slave labor. Sad but true, the Union Label dosen't really mean anything either.

-- Diane Green (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), December 20, 2000.

Diane, too true. NYC and L.A. are full of them. Every once in a while they get busted, though. Then everyone forgets about them and they move on.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), December 21, 2000.

I kinda feel like when I buy something second-hand, I am not supporting the manufacturer in any way. Many people are just going to keep on buying things retail, wearing them once or twice, then throwing or giving them away. I can't stop that. But I can stop myself from buying retail, except on very rare occasions. That's about as much as I can realisticaly do to contribute to the solution rather than to the problem.

On those rare occasions when I do buy retail, I generally try to buy items of very high quality so they will last, and I will definitely pay the difference for that quality. One of the ways I choose such items, apart from obvious quality, is by the Made in the U.S.A. label. Also, many items made in Europe and Japan seem to be pretty well put together, and as far as I know, their working conditions and standard of living are comparable to our own.

I also boycott known offenders like Nike. Mostly, it seems that countries that have huge human rights issues are, coincidentally, incapable of consistently producing high-quality merchandise. It may have something to do with worker motivation. You never know.

-- Laura Jensen (lauraj@seedlaw.com), December 21, 2000.

My wife is beginning to sew our clothes as she learns more seamstess skills. As she said "We'll know where these were made, our sunroom."

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), December 21, 2000.

But then, Jay, do you wonder where the fabric was made and under what conditions? :-( Textile mills can be dangerous places. Are there kids making the fabric? If not, are the workers paid a living wage? I'm not sure it is possible to get away from exploitation in our wonderful modern world. Certainly not, IMO, while still enjoying "reasonable" prices. I ponder these things frequently, but have come to no satisfying conclusions regarding what action I can take.

The following excerpt is from a much longer article at While you were sleeping. I didn't want to post the entire thing and take up too much space.

"The floor under the gore of Juarez is an economy of factories owned by foreigners, mainly Americans. I keep having the same experience when I talk with Americans about the foreign-owned factories in Mexico. I'll tell them the wages-three, four, or five dollars a day-and they'll nod knowingly, and then a few minutes later I will realize that they have unconsciously translated this daily rate into an hourly rate. When I practically drill the actual wages into someone's head, he or she will counter by saying that the cost of living is much cheaper in Mexico. This is not true. Along the border, Mexican prices on average run at 90 percent of U.S. prices. Basically, the only cheap thing in Mexico is flesh, human bodies you can fornicate with or work to death. What is happening in Mexico betrays our notion of progress, and for that reason we insist that each ugly little statistic is an exception or temporary or untrue. For example, in the past two years wages (2) in the maquiladoras have risen 50 percent. Fine and good. But inflation in that period is well over 100 percent.

Juarez is an exhibit of the fabled New World Order in which capital moves easily and labor is trapped by borders. There are a total of 350 foreign-owned factories in Juarez, the highest concentration in all of Mexico, and they employ 150,000 workers. The twin plant system- -in Spanish, maquiladoras--was created by the United States and Mexico in 1965 so that Americans could exploit cheap Mexican labor and yet not pay high Mexican tariffs. Although the products that come from the factories are counted as exports (and thus figured into GDP), economists figure that only 2 percent of material inputs used in maquila production come from Mexican suppliers. All the parts are shipped to Mexico from the United States and other countries, then the Mexicans assemble them and ship them back. Two or three thousand American managers commute back and forth from El Paso every day. Juarez is in your home when you turn on the microwave, watch television, take in an old film on the VCR, slide into a new pair of blue jeans, make toast in the kitchen, enjoy your kid playing with that new toy truck on Christmas morning.

Politicians and economists speculate about a global economy fueled by free trade. Their speculations are not necessary. In Juarez the future is thirty years old, and there are no questions about its nature that cannot be answered here. The maquilas have caused millions of poor people to move to the border. Most of the workers are women and most of the women are young. By the late twenties or early thirties the body slows and cannot keep up the pace of the work. Then, like any used-up thing, the people are junked. Turnover in the maquilas runs anywhere from 50 to 150 percent a year. It is common for workers to leave for work at 4:00 A.M. and spend one or two hours navigating the dark city to their jobs. Sometimes they wind up in the Lote Bravo. The companies carefully screen the girls to make sure they are not pregnant. Workers at one plant complain of a company rule requiring new female hires to present bloody tampons for three consecutive months. The workweek is six days. After work some of the girls go downtown to sell their bodies for money or food. At least 40 percent of Mexicans now live off the underground economy, which means they stand in the street and try to sell things, including themselves.

Workers who lose their jobs receive essentially no benefits beyond severance pay. Mexico has no safety net. Independent, worker- controlled unions barely exist, and anyone trying to organize one is fired, or murdered. (3) It is almost impossible to get ahead working in the maquilas. Real wages have been falling since the 1970s. And since wages are just a hair above starvation level, maquilas contribute practically nothing toward forging a consumer society. Of course, as maquiladora owners and managers point out, if wages are raised, the factories will move to other countries with a cheaper labor force.

And so industry is thriving. Half a million cargo-laden trucks move from Juarez to El Paso each year. Boxcars rumble over the railroad bridge. New industrial parks are opening up. Labor is virtually limitless, as tens of thousands of poverty-stricken people pour into the city each year. There are few environmental controls and little enforcement of those that do exist. El Paso/Juarez is one of the most polluted spots in North America. And yet it is a success story. In Juarez the economic growth in 1994 it was 6 percent, and last year it registered 12 percent. According to Lucinda Vargas, the Federal Reserve economist who tracks Mexico's economy, Juarez is a "mature" economy. This is as good as it gets."

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), December 21, 2000.

I seriously doubt that there is a perfect solution to your dilemma. Most of life is that way. We try to do the best we can, though. There is going to be opposition everywhere we look. However, we DO have to be clothed and fed. I try not to buy eggs at the store because of how they are raised, but if someone needs something from me and it involves eggs and my chickens are not laying, then I have to break down and buy some. I take good care of my clothing and wear hand-me-downs and thrift store purchases whenever I can, but when my daughter got married and I didn't want to look tacky, I bought something for 30 bucks from Penneys on sale. I make nearly all my bread, but when unexpected hoards of people show up, sometimes I will buy some. My point is, I do the best I can to use the earth gently. I am as careful as time and energy allow. I do not use bleach, for instance because of the dioxin thing, but I store some in case I have to purify water in an emergency. It reminds me of once when a friend of mine was so sad and felt guilty because she had to go to work to help support their family and leave her kids with someone. I told her, "look, if life were ideal, you wouldn't have to do this, but is ISN'T ideal and you are doing the best you can." I think those of us on this forum like to think we do not live "unexamined lives". We do what we have to and try to do the best we can. No one can ask more of us. Instead of thinking so much about this stuff, after I do the best I can with doing what is needed to keep body and soul together (and we like to make that kind of a fun project), then I try get on with things and see what I can do to help the other guy. That is more important - I feel - doing what I can to help lift someone else's burden.

-- Yolanda Breidenbaugh (ybereiden@peoplepc.com), December 26, 2000.