The latest Purple Fashion Magazine, created by Olivier Zahm, has been in Australian bookstores for a few weeks now and is a must have alongside your coffee table book about coffee tables.

Pick it up from Mag Nation along with some wine & enjoy, what I claim to be, some of the most important fashion archives / stories of the current time.

Also check out their website – www.purple.fr

Hopefully you’re party training is kicking into top gear now with Stereosonic / Meridith & the Party Knights Launch coming up over the next 4 weeks.. If you have some extra cash lying around now that exams are pretty much over, there are some interesting events on this week.

Thursday 26th

Canvas Found @ Loop Bar

Designs from GIN + 27 Local & Overseas artists showcasing images & motion from a mix of illustrators, animators, fine artists, photographers & many more designers.

Followed by a delightful set from Bobby Lane, Josh O’Shannassy & Guilty Pleasure.

Formal Presentation of the show reel will begin @ 8pm

DJ’s kicking off @ 9pm

Free entry & tasty drink specials.

Friday 27th

Leslie Salvador Double @ Match Bar & New Guernica

Swing by Match Bar from 9pm – 12am

Free Entry.

Then head on down to New Guernica and see the guys spin some more tunes until 2.30am

Nick Curly @ OneSixOne

Just incase you missed his amazing set at Revolver last Sunday. Nick Curly is back for one more set @ onesixone.

Comp bubbly 9-11pm + a courtesy peroni slab from 10pm

Doors open 9pm.

$15 guestlist before 12. $20 general

The Last Bang Gang for 2009 @ Sorry Grandma

If you’ve already seen Mr Curly, don’t miss out on your last chance to see Gus & the guys shred it one more time before the year closes.

$20 General

$15 Guestlist

Saturday 28th

Saturday’s @ Sweatshop

Very exciting news for us. Starting this Saturday will be a rotation of Opposites Attract DJ’s @ SweatShop

First up will be Ricardo from Leslie Salvador & Simon TK playing from 9pm – 1am.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with SweatShop, it’s the basement bar of Seamstress in the Melbourne CBD.

DJ’s include –  Bromance, Mandate, Simon TK & Bobby Lane.

Free Entry

Opens from 6pm

DJ’s start spinning from 9pm – 1am

Come in and see why this place was voted 2009 Cocktail Bar of the Year.

It’s the perfect way to kick start your night of debauchery.

SweatShop is located in the basement of Seamstress, 113 Lonsdale St. CBD

Finally, something different to watch. Fans of the Mighty Boosh & the I.T Crowd should be familiar with this show starring the talented duo of Noel Fielding & Julian Barrett called “Nathan Barley”.

It’s quite an old show and has remained trapt in the UK due to poor ratings, lack of funding etc.

All their clips can be found on youtube.com.

Enjoy.

x

Have I ever told you that I love Morrissey? Well, I do.

But, anyways, Eliza Gauger’s Sweatshop with guest Vol Hydrogen is RIGHT NOW and you’re not there. You should be. Unless you’re a horrible, horrible person. If you’re not horrible go here.

DO IT.

[Originally posted on the Maquila Solidarity Network website.]

Historic Victory: Jerzees de Honduras workers win break-through agreement

November 18, 2009

On November 14 an unprecedented agreement was struck between Russell Athletic and the union representing unjustly laid off workers at its former Jerzees de Honduras (JDH) factory.

Russell has agreed to open a new facility in the Choloma area, re-hire and provide substantial economic assistance to the 1,200 former JDH workers, institute a joint union-management training program on freedom of association and commit to a position of neutrality with respect to unionization, which will open the door for union representation at all of Fruit of the Loom’s Honduran facilities (Russell Athletic is owned by Fruit of the Loom).

“This agreement represents one of the most significant advances for fundamental workplace rights in the twenty-year history of apparel industry codes of conduct,” said Scott Nova of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), which conducted independent investigations into violations of freedom of association at JDH. “It is hard to overstate the significance of this breakthrough.”

“For Honduran workers this agreement represents real hope, especially in the midst of an unemployment crisis in our country,” said Evangelina Argueta, Coordinator of the Honduran General Workers’ Confederation (CGT) in Choloma, which spearheaded the fight for the former JDH workers. “The fired workers haven’t had income to support their families. Now they can be assured that they will have a job – this is the most valuable thing to come out of the agreement.”

Russell Athletic was under serious pressure to repair the damage caused by its decision to close the JDH factory last January, which was widely condemned as an attempt to destroy a newly formed union (see last issue of the Update for details).

At the urging of students, unions and labour rights organizations, including United Students Against Sweatshops and MSN, over 100 universities in Canada and the US that have adopted ethical purchasing policies either withdrew their licensing agreements with the company or threatened to do so unless it took action to remediate the violations. Retailers and other Russell consumers were also approached.

“This is the first time we know of where a factory that was shut down to eliminate a union was later re-opened after a worker-activist campaign. This is also the first company-wide neutrality agreement in the history of the Central America apparel export industry – and it has been entered into by the largest private employer in Honduras, the largest exporter of t-shirts to the US market in the world. This is a breakthrough of enormous significance for the right to organize – and worker rights in general – in one of the harshest labor rights environments in the world,” said Rod Palmquist, USAS International Campaign Coordinator.

Talks between the union and the company finally began after Russell Athletic’s membership in the Fair Labor Association (FLA) was put on “Special Review” status last June. An FLA investigation carried out in response to a complaint filed by the CGT, the Clean Clothes Campaign and MSN confirmed the WRC’s finding that the presence of the union was a significant factor in the FLA member company’s decision to close the JDH factory.

The FLA told the company it had to negotiate remediation with the factory union (SITRAJERZEESH) and the CGT, and engage with MSN and the WRC.

Fruit of the Loom is the largest private sector employer in Honduras, owning eight factories that employ over 10,000 workers, making the impact of this agreement extremely significant.

“The partnership being created between a large private employer and an independent union federation is unprecedented in the history of the apparel sector in Honduras and in Central America,” said Nova.

Implementation of the agreement will be monitored by a joint union-management committee, with an agreement to enter into binding arbitration in the case of disputes over implementation or interpretation.

“We feel that the company acted in good faith during the negotiations, and this has to be recognized,” said Argueta. “Relations between workers, the union and the company have been strengthened, and this will be reflected when the new factory is opened.”

“All the support we received from groups like the WRC, MSN and from all of the university students was fundamental and we are very grateful,” said Argueta. “The support of international organizations is very important.”

•    Read the Joint Public Statement on the agreement by the union and the company (November 17, 2009)

•    Read more on the Jerzees de Honduras Campaign.

‘Possum Walk’ writer/director Jeremy Sumrall grew up in New Waverly, Tex., about an hour north of Houston, on Possum Walk Road. He decided the name would work well for the small-town setting of a horror movie, then expanded it to be the name of the movie itself.  

Sumrall has written a number of scripts over the years in several styles (slasher, supernatural, occult, etc.), but could never finish anything before going back to the old adage ‘write about what you know.’

“I don’t really know a whole lot,” Sumrall explains. “But a couple of years ago my niece had a pregnancy scare, and naturally, since she’s in a small town, people immediately began looking down on her. She was an unmarried, small-town, 19 year old who grew up believing you do things a certain way: grow up, get married, then start having kids. That’s not the generation a lot of us live in anymore, but in small towns it’s still prevalent.”

His niece’s situation got Sumrall thinking about the general lack of privacy in small-town life — in order to have any secrets you have to be really sneaky about it – and provided the basic idea for his first motion picture, ‘Possum Walk.’

Sumrall set the movie in a small religious town and made the protagonist a girl who grows up believing in the straight-and-narrow life, living her own accordingly, but winding up pregnant anyway. 

The girl has a Southern Baptist preacher father with a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ approach. He rules over Possum Walk with an iron fist and tries to control his daughter’s life as well. At the same time these two battle their respective demons, a murderer decides to make Possum Walk his hunting ground, sexually abusing and killing its young women.

Maggie Conwell (as 'Faith Carpenter')

The paths of daughter, father, and killer eventually collide, leading to lots of messy carnage and allowing ‘Possum Walk’ to simultaneously explore the internal horror of the human mind and the external horror of, well….having a maniacal killer on the loose!

“One thing that’s always bothered me about the horror genre,” explains Sumrall, “is that people tend to look at it as being just one step above porn. And it pisses me off. There are brilliant writers and directors at work in the genre, but they get written off because the outside world sees what they’re doing as just mindless violence and sex. And yeah, we all use sex and violence in our stories, but if you go even a layer below the surface, there’s often some really good stories there to sink your teeth into. So that’s one of the things I tried to do with this one; make it a human story. If you peeled the layers back and took away all the boobs and the blood, there’s still a very dark dramatic tale here about personal redemption and living life in the moment instead of for what’s to come.”

Sumrall confesses to always having been kind of anti-message in selecting his own entertainment and is aware he might’ve run contrary to his own preferences. “There’s enough fucked up shit in this world without having to get beaten over the head with a message when I’m trying to be entertained,” he says. “Leave your fucking message out of my entertainment. And yet I wrote a script that has a message.”

‘Possum Walk’s unintentional compass seeped in through his own rebelling against small-town religious judgement. Sumrall doesn’t think religion should control anything: “It’s the fundamentalism I don’t like, whether Christian, Muslim, or the green alien that comes down from Mars. It’s not always a good thing to have blind faith, and not always a bad thing to question everything around you and find your own truth. It wasn’t until I’d finished the first draft of the script that I realized I’d written a movie saying ‘Look at yourself before you start judging anybody else.’ But there’s still lots of boobs and blood, so everything’s fine!”

Sumrall’s interest in horror began with the old slasher movies of the 80s: Friday the 13^th, Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween, Terror Train, My Bloody Valentine. His first script was very much an old-school slasher flick, with a supernatural twist. He still hopes to finish it, but hasn’t touched it in 5 or 6 years.

‘Possum Walk’ was supposed to be mindless boobs and blood itself. But Sumrall felt compelled to change it up as he’d just finished shooting his role as the Beast in ‘Sweatshop,’ a movie he describes as over the top blood and boobs, completely ridiculous amounts of gore, and lots of fun.

The Beast ('Sweatshop')

“Possum Walk got darker and darker and darker as it went along, and a lot more serious.”

The more dramatic parts were actually the harder ones to film, Sumrall says. “There’s a moment where two girls were finally confessing their love for one another, and then they die. That’s not even a spoiler…a lot of people die in this movie! And if they’d just lived in the moment and said ‘fuck what anybody else thinks, let’s just do our own thing and be happy about it,’ maybe they wouldn’t have ended up being killed.”

“But that day, when we had the moment with those two girls, I literally had to walk away from set for 15 minutes because I was crying. I wrote it with a lot of heart. But even more came out when we were doing the scene. So much so that a just had to leave.”

His next script (‘Iso’) promises to go even further down the dark, dramatic path, centering on the existence of a girl who lives 10 years trapped in her apartment convinced there’s an entity outside bent on doing her in unless she come out and meets it on her own terms. Hitchcock meets Clive Barker, is how Sumrall describes it. A third script Sumrall describes as Evil Dead 2 meets Mad Max–comedic and politically incorrect—is also in the works.

And his aspirations aren’t limited to horror. Sumrall says he has both a romantic comedy and a family comedy kicking around in his head, though realistically he’s not sure if or when he’ll get to them.

Sumrall is a reformed drummer who works in his family’s machine shop as his day job. But he somehow not only decided he could make a movie, but succeeded in doing so. He describes the journey as “pretty fucked up.” He burned out on music, feeling like his wheels were spinning and becoming increasingly frustrated with its collaborative nature, and started horror memorabilia company Necrobilia so he could meet other fans of the genre.

While still involved with his band, he started taking script-writing classes and saw Necrobilia as a way to increase his immersion in a culture he had long admired. One day he met Stacy Davidson (‘Domain of the Damned,’ ‘Sweatshop’) and thought it was really cool there was actually someone in the Houston-area making movies. Professors had told him if he was serious about the business he’d have to move to one of the coasts, or Toronto. Sumrall called bullshit, citing Robert Rodriguez as at least one exception, but nonetheless shuffled the whole screenwriter notion toward the back of his to-do list for a time.

Welcome

Then he had the meeting with Davidson. “His movie was waaay better than I ever would have imagined,” says Sumrall. I expected to see something somebody had gone out into their backyard with a little $200 Hi-8 camera and made as a little cheesy indie movie. But instead it was very professionally done and very slick looking.”

Sumrall kept the Davidson connection alive at Texas Frightmare Weekend, the first event at which Necrobilia was going to be a vendor, attending a pre-party Davidson had organized and meeting several other film-makers from the Houston area, a network he had no idea even existed.

Beyond Davidson, Sumrall met Mel House (‘Walking Distance’), various effects artists, sound guys, and local composers through his newly discovered network. All of them were working on each other’s films. Newly invigorated, Sumrall recalls very badly wanting to just get access one of their sets to learn whatever he could.

When Davidson finished pre-production on ‘Sweatshop’ and was ready to start filming, he and Sumrall got together and Davidson happened to mention he was still looking for someone to play the killer. Sumrall jokingly responded that he had always liked the idea of playing a killer “so why not use me?” The two laughed it off.

But a couple of weeks later Davidson gave him an open invitation down to the set, followed by an e-mail asking if he’d been at all serious regarding wanting to play the slasher in a horror movie. “I thought about it for all of 2 seconds and answered yes,” says Sumrall, who, still stuck in life-long slasher-fan mode, didn’t dare really believe it was going to happen. “I was basically shitting water for 2 days.”

Sumrall eventually regained enough regularity to go down to the set on a day none of the killer’s parts were shooting and get a feel for the mechanics of movie making. He was instantly impressed. “They literally had just this single 13-in. monitor and an HD camera he was running himself. So if you were just a bystander you’d think it was a bunch of goofy fucking kids making their little backyard movie. But if you watched it in the monitor it already looked like a professional product. It was ridiculous how cool it was. So I knew I was onto something special.”

His own parts followed, and from that point on, Sumrall was on set almost every weekend for ‘Sweatshop,’ whether he had a scene or not, learning as much as he could, seeing how things were done. He describes the experience as invaluable, particularly regarding the importance of patience: “17 hours on set could sometimes yield just 5 minutes of screen time.”

After ‘Sweatshop’ Sumrall got a call from Josh Vargas for a cameo in the movie he was shooting at the time (‘Sway’). Seeing another opportunity to gain experience, Sumrall was on-set from 5p to 5a, soaking in as much as he could and making himself as available as possible in exchange for 2 seconds of camera time.

Along the way he started to get asked, only half seriously, when he was going to direct his movie. He responded that he always saw himself as more a writer than a director. “The photo shoots I’d sometimes do for Necrobilia were enough to make me want to pull what little hair I have left out of my head, so I certainly couldn’t see myself directing a whole movie.”

A pivotal moment on the ‘Sway’ set followed. Vargas had reached the end of his rope. Sumrall tries to remember the exact words: “It was something like, ‘I’m fucking done with this movie. I need to film something else.’” Sumrall let Vargas know he was thinking about writing something and had been asked when he was going to direct, and Vargas said he’d film whatever Sumrall was working on for free.

One week later Sumrall had completed ‘Possum Walk’s first draft. Vargas didn’t end up working on the film, deciding he had to finish ‘Sway’ instead. But around the same time, Robert Luke (‘Man In The Garage’) joined ‘Possum Walk’ as a producer.

Sumrall and Luke had met and hit it off on the set of ‘Walking Distance,’ and when it became clear Vargas wasn’t going to be available, Luke said he’d film it. According to Sumrall he did a “fucking amazing job.”

Jeremy Sumrall, Robert Luke

With a team in place, ‘Possum Walk’ began to take shape. But sleepless nights lay ahead, and not just because of a rigorous shooting schedule. Sumrall recalls tossing and turning to the point his wife asked him what was wrong. He had initially hired friends and acquaintances as much of the cast and crew, but had come to find that many of them were treating the whole process as a lark. His wife gave him some hard advice, but advice he needed to hear: fire everyone and rebuild it from the ground up.

Sumrall now sees it as the movie’s turning point. “I got rid of a lot of dead weight,” he says. “There were a lot of people who weren’t actually actors, but were friends of friends or whatever who thought it might be fun. And I naively thought at the beginning that I wouldn’t be able to hire any professionals, because we were working with no budget. I mean we had a few dollars to pay for things here and there, but in the grand scheme of things we were a gnat on Hollywood’s balls. We’re not talking about Michael Bay money!”

Once actors were hired, forward momentum returned. Not to suggest things actually ever got easy. “When you’re working with no budget and everybody’s living paycheck-to-paycheck at their day jobs and then putting in 18-19 hour days on the weekends….it’s really fucking difficult. Tempers flare. People snap. You’re in the middle of Texas in the middle of summer.” In the end, however, Sumrall says the common purpose of making a great movie they could all be proud of would take over and carry everyone through.

Sumrall also points out that his cast made the directing process itself easier than it could have been, being self-motivated enough to free him from having to direct their each and every move and allowing him to keep focused on the big picture instead.

‘Possum Walk’s cast includes Maggie Conwell (Faith Carpenter, the main character), Parrish Randall (her father, Brother William Carpenter), Tyler Tackett (male lead, Joe Don Sims), Victoria Lane, Keli Wolfe, Kristen Hall, and Andrew Sensenig. Sumrall describes the entire ensemble as professional, dedicated, and serious actors. “I didn’t have to ask them when we got to set if they knew what we were doing. They just knew. They all had taken notes on their scripts, had certain lines highlighted, and had their lines memorized, which the one thing I was sure wasn’t going to happen.”

Sumrall recalls a conversation with Lane before he had wiped the slate in which she was telling him how prepared she was going to be before heading out from L.A. Sumrall told her it sounded like she was going to be the most prepared person on set. She sounded surprised and Sumrall explained that the rest of the cast was just reading their lines right before they had to film them. She quickly joined the chorus letting him know that better could be had.

Girls of Possum Walk: Danielle Jones, Jessica Jecker, Maggie Conwell, Keli Wolfe

More often than not, however, the actors either got it the way Sumrall heard it in his head, or came up with an even better interpretation of their own. “I wasn’t going to knit-pick on certain words if the intent was the same,” Sumrall explains. “If the intent got changed, that’s when I’d get involved. But I never really had to crack anybody over the head about anything like that!”

Challenges included sometimes not knowing where they were going to be shooting until 5 minutes before the shot. Sumrall and Co. had secured a tiny church on the outskirts of Groesbeck, Tex. The only restriction the church placed on the project was no shooting on Sunday.

Not so fast. “Two days before the shoot,” Sumrall explains, “I got a phone call from [executive producer] Burt [Bailey] saying the church’s septic system had just exploded and sprayed piss and shit all over the church.” A new location needed to be found on next to no notice. Randall knew folks in the area and started making calls and knocking on doors, finding a replacement church just 12 hours before shooting.

Burton Bailey hard at FX work

Sumrall couldn’t get a look at the inside, but based on the outside and the fact that 50 people were arriving in the morning to make a movie went ahead and approved it. They put up signs guiding the new arrivals to the location. The next morning, five minutes before Sumrall himself was ready to head to the set, Randall calls again and says, “I screwed up. I took you to the wrong church last night.”

The correct church was right around the corner from the wrong one, but still 40-50 horror movie extras had to be diverted from inadvertently showing up at the wrong house of worship. The crew shot from daybreak until 7 pm, when choir members started showing up for their own practice.

Returning to the here and now, when asked what would constitute success for ‘Possum Walk’ Sumrall instantly responds with “absolute world domination” before dialing it back a bit. “We’ve accomplished our first goal: to make the movie. Now it’s all about getting the word out. In this day and age it’s pretty easy to self-distribute your movie, with services that print on-demand. But it takes a lot longer for you to get your money selling one piece at a time. So we’d ideally like to go with a distribution deal.”

Sumrall doesn’t pretend to know who he’d go with, or who might even be interested, but plans to work the convention circuit in 2010 to find out. Sumrall says he and the rest of the production team are willing to release the movie themselves, but he’d rather find an already established distributor.            

“I’m hoping that the hopefully pending success of ‘Sweatshop,’ which is now out with screeners getting sent to critics and getting really, really good reviews, will help springboard ‘Possum Walk’ into something maybe a little bit bigger than any of us had anticipated,” Sumrall explains. “Indie film is a hotbed right now, especially Texas indie film. Guys like Mel House are starting to put out some really good pictures that aren’t just rehashes of other movies that have come before. They’re pretty damn original and pretty fucked up and done as professionally as possible with very little money.”

Sumrall says it would be great if ‘Possum Walk’ could be lumped into the same group. movement. “I’m sure that never in a million years did Tobe Hooper expect ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ to blow up the way it did, or Eduardo Sanchez never thought ‘Blair Witch Project’ was going to be as big as it was, and I know that Oren Peli had no idea ‘Paranormal Activity’ would be as huge as it is.”

“You just never know,” concludes Sumrall. “I’d be stupid to say I want to make $40 million off this movie. Ultimately, the idea of success for me would be having people see it, having people respond to it, and through that being able to keep making movies.”

Maggie Conwell as 'Faith Carpenter'

Keli Wolfe as 'Gracie Richmond'

I just saw a free screening of “Made in L.A.” at SFU Habour Centre which had a Q & A session afterwards with one of the three main women who were followed, Lupe Hernandez and Joann Lo, who was one of the lead organiser of the Garment Worker Centre.

The documentary follows the lives of 3 undocumented migrant workers employed in the garment industry and follows their lives as they work towards a campaign for fair wages and treatment, specifically targeting Forever 21.  The workers are paid below minimum wage, sometimes not even paid at all, have to work 10 or more hours a day and many times have to bring work home.  Because they are undocumented, the manufacturing companies take advantage of this and they decide to protest.  It takes around 3 years before they are able to finish negotiations with Forever 21, the end result being a document that promises that Forever 21 will give its workers fair wages and so on.

Although the movie ends on a good note, it left me wondering about if this was really a good thing or not.  I think it’s great that they are able to make a company acknowledge it’s part on sweatshop labour and promise that it will provide fair wages for ALL workers but now, most if not all of those jobs are now shifted to China where labour is cheap, and regulation is minimal to non-existant.  Also, would this not deter the company from hiring a non-documented worker as opposed to a documented worker?  What I really wanted to know was if the lives of these undocumented worker any better because of their campaign?  I would think that it would be more difficult as when they first come here, as Lupe said in the film, the garment industry is what they go into, now that this line of work is being shifted to China, what jobs out there are available to them?  I’m really kicking myself for not asking this because I felt like it would have been important to not only acknowledge the triumphs but also the repercussions.

I was really surprised that no one else asked something along these lines and I need to learn to be the black sheep when something is important to me.

Adbusters

I have recently read the book “No Logo” by Naomi Klein and have come to conclude it’s  a very worthwhile and informative read . Here is why:

The book is an amazing recount of the evolution of the brand as well as an incredible analysis of the corruption of big name corporate bodies, their large influence on the world as a whole and the response of the working class towards the unfair practices of these corporations. Klein’s thesis points out that because of the resulting loss of space, choice and jobs of multinationals, the common folk has taken it upon themselves to lash out and take a stand in various forms such as culture jamming, boycotting, pie throwing and “reclaiming the streets” (among many others).

If sweatshop labour is something that you have only heard of and not something that you have been able to explore in detail, this book is a perfect opportunity to learn about the unlawful labor practices of the 90s (some of which I’m sure continue to this day). Big name brands like Nike, Adidas, Starbucks, Tommy Hilfiger, Shell and McDonald’s are put on the stand and are unmasked in the realm of hiring practices, labour disputes, space invasion, and the huge separation between marketing and production of goods.

Klein writes using her experiences in downtown Toronto as well as detailed worldwide facts and research. She uses the method of analyzing specific names, incidences and examples to look at the big picture of anti-corporate  movement. Throughout the work, she has a way of inflicting a sense of hope for the reader by showing that the power is in our hands, and when people join together for a common purpose, they will succeed. She points out that no matter how powerful these companies may be, the brand can be tainted and reduced on account of their unjust actions, because let’s face it, without the consumer, the brand is nothing. Although the biggest names in advertising hold a huge portion of the world’s wealth, they can indeed be brought down to earth, “spotlighted”, exposed and forced to respond to the demands of the people.

I find that the ideas correspond closely to one of my favourite movies, Fight Club.  I love the detailed description of the culture jamming movement and groups like Adbusters that take it upon themselves to “out” corporate bodies by altering billboards, creating meaningful tunes, skulling posters and using other forms of effective activism. In Klein’s view, Adbusters serve as an ad for anti-advertising. I find the book gives you something to think about if you are the kind of person who think that there is SO MUCH wrong with the world, but you have no idea what to do about it. Well, it turns out there are many options to make your voice heard and remembered. You can join a group of corporate bullies or boycott on your own, but  either way, you are doing something. Below is a collection of keywords from the book. If you are interested in any of them, you should really look into Klein’s writings and  inform yourself of the many ways to make a difference.

Some keywords from the book: Culture Jamming, Adbusters, Reclaim the Streets, Koder fire, Loglo, Spotlight, Selective Purchasing Agreement, World Trade Organization, National Foreign Trade Council, Saturation Point, Censorship, Synergy, Cannibalization Strategy, Trademark Harassment, Buyouts, Mergers, Chain Clusters, Price Wars, Superstore, Monoculture, Creative Artists Agency, “Cool” Hunters, MAI.

Peace and Love,

Phyllis

Wizards of Money Part 9: Jack And The Sweatshop
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

View Transcript

Part Summary: In this the Ninth Edition of Wizards we are going to take a look at the “Manager of the 20th Century” – Jack Welch – GE’s CEO for the 20 years up until Fall 2001. In September 2001 Jack’s much awaited autobiography entitled “Jack – Straight from the Gut” was released with much fanfare. Business professionals are besides themselves with praise for the book from Warren Buffett’s comments that “All CEOs want to emulate him” to the Chairman of SONY corporation’s statement “Jack Welch, the brilliant business magician, has finally disclosed his mysteries of management”.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

Audio/Transcripts hosted online at http://www.antiscia.com/wizardsofmoney/

Image via Wikipedia

The HBO Documentary “Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags,” directed and produced by award-winning filmmakers Marc Levin and Daphne Pinkerson, premieres on Monday, October 19, at 9:00 p.m. (Eastern).

Brian Lowry writes in Variety: “Opening to the lively strains of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, ‘Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags’ is a loving and sobering look at the demise of the New York garment industry, where the loss of manufacturing jobs to nations with cheaper labor represents ‘a microcosm of everything that is going on in this country.’”  (See linked reviews from Variety and Womens Wear Daily).

The documentary tracks how the garment industry, once the largest employer in the U.S., helped build the middle class through organizing strong unions.  Today, 95 percent of all garments sold in the U.S. are made offshore, mostly in sweatshops in China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.  Once the race to the bottom in the global sweatshop economy is unleashed, and corporations are free to pit workers against each other, there is no way to go but down.  The documentary is a wake-up call, as manufacturing jobs all across the U.S. are under siege.

The race to the bottom will only end when we have enforceable laws that prohibit the import, sale, or export of sweatshop goods in the U.S.  Goods made by children, by workers beaten and forced to work grueling hours while being cheated of their wages, and by workers denied their legal right to organize should be prohibited from entering the U.S.  If corporations can have enforceable laws to protect their corporate products and trademarks, we sure as heck should have similar laws to protect the rights of the human being who made their product.  Right now the corporate product is protected, but not the human being who made it.

(See the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act and how you can help.)

The Dining Room of William F. Buckley’s Apartment on Park Avenue and 73rd Street, Where Buckley Entertained

The $30,000 a Night Bathroom at The Four Seasons Hotel Discreetly Deluxe Ty Warner Suite

Room 4, the Very Private Personal Shopping/Dressing Room at Bergdorf Goodman

The Backstage Quick-Change Room for Actors in “The Lion King” at the Minskoff Theater

The Clowns Private Room (Clown Alley), Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden

A House Halfway to Hades: A Cramped Flophouse in the Bronx

A Garment Business Sweatshop in New York City’s Garment District

Inside the Dancers’ Private Dressing Room at Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club

The Pleasure Grottoes at a Brooklyn Swinger Sex Club, Where the Outré Meet the Ordinary

Rooms: The Secret Life of Things Behind Closed Doors

Photography by:  Fred R. Conrad, The New York Times

“A traveling barfly finds himself in a small town near the border and entertains the locals at the tavern one night with amazing tales of his adventures.  This barfly has been everywhere, of course, and makes a great impression, especially on a young man of romantic nature who, alas, is rather poor.

Early the next morning, the young man turns up at the traveler’s room, eager to thank him for the words of inspiration he heard the night before.  But the barfly seems distracted and, as he pours himself the first drink of the day, he turns and says: “Please, sir. If you really want to help, tell me where I am, not what you learned.”-Alan Feuer, The New York Times

The Secret Life of Things Behind Closed Doors

New York City, as in other large cities like Los Angeles or Chicago, is a city of rooms, a city where  many secret things occur behind closed doors.  Who knows what mysteries are even now unfolding inside the apartment in that very ordinary-looking building on the corner of 38th Street and Seventh Avenue or, for that matter, who knows what’s happening in the apartment right next door to it?

The guiding concept of this series of photographs by Fred Conrad entitled Rooms, was to visit rooms inside of places about which you may never have thought, or even if you’ve imagined what they’re like, you’ve probably never actually been there.  The photographs capture a wide range of social and economic levels of life in New York City, including: scenes at a sweatshop, a sex club, the dressing-room in a stripper-club, a morgue in Harlem, New York City’s Office of the Mayor, the behind-the-scenes kitchen of a fancy-gourmet restaurant, super-elegant bathrooms and even a bowling alley in the basement of the Frick Museum of Art.

The framework of the project was fairly simple the whole time: to look at the interiors of rooms in the city and, from that very small perspective, to attempt an exploration of the rich fabric of New York.  And the year-long project confirmed that New York City-as is the case with other large urban centers-is a city of rooms in which the  really good stuff always tends to happen clandestinely behind closed doors.  Nevertheless, this little photographic project has merely scratched the surface of the city’s mysterious life behind closed doors.  One can imagine repeating a project like this in a few years when a large number of the rooms will have changed dramatically, which of course they will.

The Control Room of the “Today” Show, Where a Dozen Behind-the-Scenes Staff Members Keep the Show Afloat

Slide Show: Rooms/The Secret Life of Things Behind Closed Doors

(Please Click on Image to View Full-Screen Slide Show)

You can read more about the Rooms photographic project here.

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Rarely, if ever, do I read anything positive about Wal-Mart.  If you believe what the media reports, they underpay their employees, deprive their employees of health benefits, and support the establishment of sweat shops in poor countries where people toil in abominable conditions day after day for more hours than most consider humane.  I am here to share another perspective.  Wal-Mart is a great company that stands as a shining example of how international trade, capitalism, and economic progress are supposed to occur around the world.

Surely, any reasonable reader at this point is wondering what sort of vested interest or bias would lead me to write such an opinion about Wal-Mart.  I assure you that I have no such vested interest or bias whatsoever.  I have never worked for them, nor have I ever known anybody who worked for them.  On the contrary, I have worked for companies who sold product to Wal-Mart, and I know how difficult they can be from the perspective of manufacturers who sell to them.  They are extremely demanding, difficult to please, and prone to make decisions based 100% on price, disregarding any past relationships they have established with reliable suppliers.  Still, I have nothing but positive things to say about them from the perspective of a consumer, an American, and a believer in free market capitalism.

Economics classes teach us that all countries are better off when each country focuses on those activities where it has comparative advantages.  Countries can then trade goods and services with other countries to make sure that everybody gets what they need or want in the most economically efficient manner.  Admittedly, this is a simplified explanation of international trade, but the basic principle is valid—that countries ought to do what they do best.  This principle, in large part, explains why the U.S. is no longer a country that manufactures products.  Manufacturing often requires lots of low-paid labor, large factories, and land for the factory.  Given the economic progress the U.S. has seen since the industrial revolution, our labor is no longer cheap, either to build the factory or work in it.  Further, land in the U.S. is generally not cheap, especially in developed areas that are more favorable for centralized distribution of products throughout the U.S. and the world.  On the other hand, labor and land are still relatively cheap in less developed countries, such as China and elsewhere.  For these reasons, it makes perfect sense that Wal-Mart, as well as virtually every other retailer in the world, would turn to China and other developing countries for a great deal of its products.  

As for pay and benefits, I submit that the market determines the fair wage and benefits for workers.  Wal-Mart has been accused of many things, but I have never heard them accused of instituting slave operations.  Therefore, it follows that each and every worker shows up to work by his or her own free will.  If conditions are too lousy, wages are too low, or benefits are too scarce, the workers are free to seek alternative employment with a different company.  To continue working for a company while complaining about its many failings is to admit that no better work is available.

In the end, consumers should determine the success or failure of any company that competes in a free market.  Like workers, consumers get to vote for or against companies.  Unlike workers, consumers cast their vote with their wallets.  For example, Chrysler and GM ultimately failed because they didn’t sell enough cars.  Likewise, if consumers suddenly decide that they do not want to save money on purchases of consumer products, they can stop shopping at Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart will then be challenged to deliver value to consumers in other ways.  If they do not, then they will become less competitive.  Ultimately, they could face the same fate as Chrysler and GM (minus the government bailouts, of course, since Wal-Mart is “bad” and auto manufacturers are “good”).  All of this said, we can rest assured that American consumers (if not all consumers around the world) will never lose their attraction to low prices.  Low prices allow everybody the opportunity to consume more, spend less, and save more money for the future.

As I have said before in other postings, the U.S. government has erred severely by creating a climate of government handouts, bailouts, and subsidies to the private sector.  In doing so, the government has all but suggested that the American taxpayer is now a shareholder in every company in America.  We can scrutinize executive pay, demand that companies do this or do that, and inject our own philosophical beliefs into discussions about how companies ought to be doing business.  While it is reasonable for taxpayers to be concerned about the practices of the companies receiving their money, government had no business destroying the mechanisms of free market capitalism.  Taxpayers ought to be up in arms that the line between government and free enterprise has become so blurred.  If we think that the solution to our problems lies in more government involvement, then we are in serious trouble.  The market can most often sort out winners and losers without government involvement, and the end result of such natural selection is a system where incentives are still intact and moral hazard has not be created.  Of course, it is too late to talk about the market solving its own problems now.  Washington has decided that it knew better.   

But I digress.  Summarizing my position on Wal-Mart, companies are not missionaries.  They are for-profit enterprises, and they need to compete not only for sales to consumers, but also for workers, who could choose to work elsewhere if pay, working conditions, or benefits are inadequate.  If we all took a few moments to think about how much Wal-Mart does to keep the rest of the retail world on its toes, we would thank our lucky stars for their existence, rather than trying to make them out to be the bad guys.  This type of behavior reveals a subject of a future posting—success breeds jealousy, animosity, and a desire by the masses to paint themselves and others as victims at the hands of the successful.  Nobody ever said that money brings out the best in us.

Zac

We’ve got a bit of the crud around here – both kids have colds, and I think Wally’s developed an ear infection. (We’ve never dealt with one before, but he’s definitely MUCH more whiney and the constant “ow, my ear hurts” crying seem to both point in that direction…)

I’m also working on two very large orders right now, with most of the items in the orders needing to be made (as opposed to being in stock).

Soooo…. the MTO’s that were supposed to be up this week, will be up next week. Sorry.

And suddenly, I find that I’m low on inventory on a few items again. I’ll be focusing on restocking through November, first pocket diapers, then on to covers..

i love orange. it’s my favorite color. i even painted my office at boise state university orange a few years ago. but in this region colors always take on new meanings that destroy colors and what they mean. for instance, when i first moved to palestine in the summer of 2005 i discovered that orange was the color that the zionist terrorist colonists in gaza were using to protest their removal from occupied gaza. you still see their orange ribbons on backpacks and and rear view mirrors. these are the same people who are building new colonies and expanding them in naqab, al quds, nasra and everywhere else.

but why am i writing about orange? well, actually it’s not the color i’m speaking of. it’s the corporation. when i lived in jordan (2005-2006) i had a land line in my house from the jordanian national telecom company and i had internet from a company called wanadoo. it seems that in the time since i lived here last, both have been swallowed up by orange (which is why i won’t be having a land line or internet service or cell phone service from orange). for the land lines this is a huge issue: it means that jordan has privatized its telecommunications sector to a foreign company. apparently, this happened two years ago:

The Jordanian mobile operator, MobileCom – a subsidiary of Jordan Telecom Group (JTG) has rebranded under the Orange brand name. Jordan Telecom is 51% controlled by France Telecom which in turn, owns Orange.

“With this move, Orange becomes the sole commercial brand for JTG’s fixed, mobile, and internet services,” said Chairman of the Board of Directors of JTG Dr Shabib Ammari. “Our customers will be enjoying Orange’s competitive range of telecom solutions and top quality services, enjoying the premium offering that will meet their needs to full satisfaction through this single and reputable provider,” added Ammari.

The GSM arm of JTG was first registered on 21st September, 1999 and launched full public service across the Kingdom on 15th September, 2000. The infrastructure was provided by Ericsson.

Orange Jordan has around 1.7 million subscribers according to figures from the Mobile World, which gives the company a market share of 36%.

and orange has fully inserted itself and its brand into jordanian life. billboards are everywhere. there are orange ramadan placemats in restaurants and cafes. and they even have some magazine that i found in my hotel room when i was in amman on my way to the u.s. for a couple of days. it is inescapable. but it is also possible not to participate in this orange branding of jordan, which, according to the jordanian blogger black iris, they aren’t offering such hot service:

Since writing that open letter to Orange Telecom Jordan on their terrible service I’ve noticed the link really flying around the twittersphere. It’s gotten around 1,700 views in the past 48 hours, which, along with the comments and emails people left me, is a real indication that many are simply not happy with the Kingdom’s telecom giant and it’s level of service.

but i think there are other reasons, aside from crappy service, that people in jordan should be up in arms that their national telecom industry was handed over to orange. some of what i am about to say is speculative, but the facts will be backed up with reports. my suspicion about orange was first raised because i know it to be one of the main mobile phone companies in the zionist entity. for many years, it was the only mobile company that palestinians had access too before they created their own network, jawal. orange is not an israeli company, but i have been told it was started by two french jews. i have looked to find out more about the people who started and/or who run orange headquarters, but it has been difficult to find anything out on them. my curiosity is that is suspect they are like howard shultz, ceo of starbucks, who donates a significant amount of his profits to the zionist entity every year. i don’t have any such information yet (though if anyone out there knows the dirt on orange please send it my way! ), but here is what wikipedia has to say about it:

Microtel Communications Ltd. was formed in April 1990 as a consortium comprising Pactel Corporation, British Aerospace, Millicom and French company Matra (British Aerospace soon acquired full control of the company). In 1991 Microtel was awarded a license to develop a mobile network in the UK, and in July 1991 Hutchison Telecommunications (UK) Ltd acquired Microtel from BAe. BAe was paid in Hutchison Telecommunications (UK) Ltd. shares, giving the company a 30% share. Hutchison Whampoa held 65% and Barclays Bank the remaining 5%. Microtel was renamed Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd. in 1994. The Orange brand was created by an internal team at Microtel headed by Chris Moss (Marketing Director) and supported by Martin Keogh, Rob Furness and Ian Pond. The brand consultancy Wolff Olins was charged with designing the brand values and logo and advertising agency WCRS created the Orange slogan “The Future’s bright, the Future’s Orange” along with the now famous advertising. The logo is square because a round orange logo already existed for the reprographics company, Orange Communications Limited, designed by Neville Brody in 1993.

Orange plc was formed in 1995 as a holding company for the Orange group. France Telecom formed the present company in 2001 after acquiring Orange plc (which had been acquired by Mannesmann AG, itself purchased by Vodafone shortly after, leading Vodafone to divest Orange) and merging its existing mobile operations into the company. The company was initially 100% owned by France Telecom (although there were and still remain minority investors in some of the national operating companies). In 2001 15% was sold in an IPO, but in 2003 the outstanding shares were bought back by France Telecom.

so there is no proof or connection to the zionist entity in any way yet. but that is okay. there is proof that their hands are dirty any way. like all cell phone companies that exist in the zionist entity, they are a part of the colonial infrastructure. here is a report from who profits laying out how orange, along with the other cell phone companies participate in colonialism and occupation:

All Israeli cellular communication companies are commercially involved in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights. These companies build infrastructure, maintain property and equipment in illegal Israeli settlements, much of it on privately owned Palestinian lands. They all provide services to the Israeli military and to all Israeli settlers, and some provide specially designed services. They use the Israeli control of the Palestinian territory to exploit the Palestinian frequencies and to impose their services on the Palestinian captive market.

Currently there are four Israeli cellular communication service providers: Cellcom, Partner (Orange), Pelephone and MIRS. Cellcom is part of the IDB group, a conglomerate of Israeli and international companies, one of the major players in the Israeli market; Partner is a subsidiary of the Chinese Hutchison Telecommunications International (HTIL); Pelephone is fully owned by Bezeq, the Israeli Telecommunication Corporation; MIRS is a subsidiary of Motorola Israel.

All four have dozens of antennas, transmission stations and additional infrastructure erected on occupied Palestinian land: MIRS holds at least 86 antennas and communication facilities on occupied territory, Cellcom at least 191, Pelephone 195 and Partner 165. As a survey by Yesh Din reveals, many of these antennas and communication facilities were erected on confiscated privately owned Palestinian land. Often, these devices are guarded by Israeli guards, and at least in one occasion, they were used as seeds for a new settlement outpost. Using this infrastructure, the companies provide services to Israelis in these areas, both to the settlements and to the Israeli soldiers operating in the occupied West Bank.

All four, Cellcom, Partner, MIRS and Pelephone, operate service stores in West Bank settlements. Additionally, MIRS is the exclusive provider of cellular phone services to the Israeli army (since 2005 and at least until 2011). This company installs communication units in army vehicles and it builds communication facilities in army bases throughout the West Bank and Golan Heights. The company also offers special rates for service personnel and their family members.

Cellcom, Partner and Pelephone are also operating in the Palestinian market. The conditions of the occupation ensure several advantages for these companies over the Palestinian cellular communication providers. The Israeli authorities do not provide permits for Palestinian companies to install antennas and transmission infrastructure in area C, which is under full Israeli control and constitutes 59% of the entire West Bank, making it virtually impossible for Palestinians to provide cellular coverage in many areas of the West Bank. Additionally, the frequency allocation granted by the Israeli authorities to Palestinian providers is very limited, and the Israeli authorities impose significant limitations on the Palestinian providers when it comes to the import of devices or the on ground installation of communication transmission devices. Even when the Israeli authorities do allow equipment into the Palestinian territory – it is often delayed by months or years, and by the time it arrives to the Palestinian providers it is outdated. Together, these limitations restrict the reception ranges and the overall quality of service by Palestinian providers, and the Palestinians turn to services provided by the Israeli companies, especially when traveling outside of the major Palestinian cities.

The Israeli control of frequencies and the implications of this control have been evident in the case of Wataniya Palestine. In 2007 Wataniya Palestine, a joint venture of Palestine Investment Fund and Wataniya Telecom of Kuwait, was licensed to become the second Palestinian cellular communication provider. On July 28, 2008 an agreement was signed by the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, allocating frequencies for Wataniya’s use. The frequencies were supposed to be released by April 1 of 2009. As of August of 2009, none were released due to ongoing delays from the Israeli government. Consequently, Wataniya Telecom announced that it would back out of its initiative to operate cellular communication services in the occupied Palestinian territory.

According to a World Bank report issued in January of 2008, 20% to 45% of the Palestinian cellular market at that time was in the hands of Israeli companies. In breach of the Oslo Agreements, the Israeli companies do not pay taxes to the Palestinian Authority (PA) for their commercial activity in the Palestinian market. The World Bank report estimated that the lost annual PA tax revenues due to unauthorized Israeli operations amounted to $60 million. Additionally, the PA claimed that these Israeli companies have been targeting West Bank clients and actively selling to the Palestinians in the West Bank although they were never licensed to do so by the PA.

Surprisingly, even when using Palestinian providers, Palestinian customers have to rely on the Israeli companies because of the restrictions on Palestinian construction of telecommunication infrastructure. The Israeli companies collect a percentage surcharge on all interconnection revenues from calls between Palestinian landlines and cellular phones as well as calls between cellular phones of Palestinian operators and Israeli operators. Similarly, Palestinian operators have to depend on the costly services of Israeli companies for any international call, for calls connecting the West Bank and Gaza and for calls between different areas in the West Bank.

For more information, see the Who Profits website at: www.whoprofits.org.

here is a brief summary on orange in the zionist entity by who profits as well (who i normally don’t link to because they are colonists who don’t see themselves as colonists merely because they don’t live in the west bank):

An Israeli provider of cellular phone services.

The company erected more than 160 antennas and telecommunication infrastructure facilities on occupied land in the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

The company provides cellular communication services to the settlers and Israeli soldiers in the occupied territory. Additionally, the company enjoys the structural advantages of Israeli cellular services providers over Palestinian competitors in the Palestinian market.

Click here to read the full report about the involvement of the Israeli cellular companies in the occupation.

Involved in:

Palestinian Captive Market
Israeli Construction on Occupied Land
Services to the Settlements

51% of company shares are held by Scailex, which is controlled by Ilan Ben-Dov.

so this is why i am boycotting orange. i don’t need a land line. i have a cell phone from a kuwaiti company (zain) and internet (insha’allah soon) from a jordanian company (umniah). but what i see a lot of in jordan is heavy levels of consumption among a population who does not know, does not want to know, or does not want to sacrifice in the ways one must sacrifice in order to resist. part of this may be because i don’t have internet at my house yet and the only place near my house to get it (i.e., within walking distance) is a mall. so i’m being subjected to my least favorite sort of space with people participating in my least favorite activity all around me as i work in an internet cafe around people who eat and drink and smoke all day while i fast (it is ramadan, but there seem to be lots of jordanians who are not fasting). and i’m thinking a lot about sacrifice. not just because it is ramadan and i am fasting and my empty stomach makes me think about it, but also because i don’t understand why it consumption and globalization have turned the world numb and dumb. the divide between want and need is completely gone. and this is something i find so disturbing. i don’t know why people cannot just say no to so many things.

i also wonder why people cannot say no to normalization with the zionist entity. why they cannot say no on a personal or a collective level in places like jordan. for instance, there was a report in ha’aretz a few weeks ago about a sweatshop owned by zionist terrorist colonists in jordan:

If the term “sweatshop” used to be associated with Asian countries and global brands such as Nike, now such methods of production by exploiting workers have made aliyah. Two Israeli entrepreneurs run a sweatshop in Jordan that produces clothes for leading Israeli brands such as Irit, Bonita, Jump and Pashut, Haaretz has learned.

The National Labor Committee, a U.S.-based workers’ rights organization, has released a report accusing the Musa Garments factory in Jordan of employing workers under inhuman conditions, and charges the company with “human trafficking, abuse, forced overtime, primitive dorm conditions, imprisonment and forcible deportations of foreign guest workers.”

The report exposes what is said to be one of the biggest secrets of the Israeli fashion industry, saying the cheap production costs for Israeli labels is a very expensive price for workers’ rights at Musa Garments.

The report says Mr. Musa, the owner, is an Israeli. But the real owners are Jack Braun and Moshe Cohen from Tel Aviv. The factory is located in the Al Hassan industrial area in Irbid, Jordan. The two employ 132 people from Bangladesh, 49 from India and 27 Jordanians. Chinese, Sri Lankans and Nepalese have also worked there in the past. “They all come for one reason only: To earn as much money as they possibly can to pay off the debts they incurred to purchase their three-year work contracts in Jordan, and send money home to their families,” states the report.

The report explains how the “guest workers” face inhuman conditions from their first day. Management takes away their passports, sometimes for the entire three-year period. Workers who asked for their passports back – or at least a copy – were refused, an illegal act and serious human rights violation.

The conditions are close to slavery. Until December 2008, when the economic crisis hit the company, workers averaged shifts of between 12 and a half and 13 and half hours a day, seven days a week – even though their contracts give them Fridays off. They also had to work on Jordanian national holidays. Anyone who missed a shift was fined three days’ wages, the report claims.

After December last year, the pace of production was stepped up and instead of having to sew 30 pieces an hour, workers were made to sew 40 – for the same wages.

“The public must know that products have a heavy human cost too,” said Dr. Roi Wagner of the Kav LaOved (Worker’s Hotline) organization. “The pursuit of lower production [costs] is very often dependent on violating human rights. The price is paid by Israeli workers whose jobs disappear, and also by the ‘cheap’ workers who produce goods in places where it is easier to abuse them. The manufacturer is not the only one responsible, but also the companies [that buy the goods] and the consumers,” said Wagner.

The list of complaints is long, including subhuman living conditions such as 4-8 people in a tiny dormitory room, no showers and water for only an hour or two a night. There is no heat in the rooms in the winter, and the bathrooms are filthy. The roofs leak.

One of the owners, Jack Braun, claims the truth is completely different. “The report is a total lie,” he said. “The workers went on strike for a reason I don’t know. As a result, human rights organizations arrived and the workers lied – though every one of their claims was proved false. They attacked the Bangladeshi consul and police who tried to talk to them. The conditions we provide them, in terms of work and food and housing, are above and beyond. We always paid them as required – they earn tiny salaries, so why shouldn’t we pay them?” said Braun.

Bonita’s management said they do not work with the company.

Kobi Hayat, one of the owners of Pashut, said: “I do not know of the place since we work through a subcontractor who receives the material from us, manufactures in Jordan and returns the clothes. I have never been there, and I do not know who receives the work, so it is hard for me to discuss the claims.”

a few days later another article appeared saying it was not a sweatshop:

Jordan’s Ministry of Labor on Wednesday rejected accusations that a local factory supplying clothing to Israel was abusing its workers, saying there was no evidence of either human trafficking or forced work.

On Sunday The National Labor Committee, a U.S.-based workers’ rights organization, released a report accusing the Musa Garments factory in Jordan of employing workers under inhuman conditions, and charges the company with “human trafficking, abuse, forced overtime, primitive dorm conditions, imprisonment and forcible deportations of foreign guest workers.”

of course, it is great to see that the government in jordan is concerned about having a sweatshop or human trafficking in their midst. but whee is the outrage over having a zionist terrorist colonist business on their land and in their midst? given that official jordanian policy is that they are at “peace” with the enemy, it makes sense that the government isn’t outraged. but where are the people? compare this to how egyptians responded recently when the government was working on a gas deal with the zionist entity as reported by adam morrow and khaled moussa al-omrani in the electronic intifada:

Opposition figures and political activists have slammed a new deal to sell Egyptian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Israel at what they say are vastly reduced prices.

“Egyptian gas is being sold to Israel at prices far below the international average,” Ibrahim Yosri, former head of legal affairs and treaties at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry told IPS. “This agreement is proof that the ruling regime is unconcerned with public opinion and is insistent on depriving the Egyptian public of its rightful national assets.”

On 28 July, Egypt formally agreed to sell between 12.5 billion and 16 billion cubic meters of LNG per year to Israel for a period of between 17 and 22 years. The Cairo-based Egyptian-Israeli energy consortium Egyptian Mediterranean Gas (EMG) will supply the gas to Israeli firm Dorad Energy for a total reported cost of between $2.1 billion and $3.3 billion.

Given longstanding popular condemnation of Israeli policies, particularly those relating to Palestinian populations in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, the deal also stirred political controversy.

“It is absolutely forbidden that we support a country currently at war with Islam and Muslims, and which occupies the land of Palestine,” Nasr Farid Wassil, former Grand Mufti of the republic, was quoted as saying in the independent press. “All economic relations with such a country should be severed.”

Despite its unpopularity, the deal is not the first: under an earlier energy accord, Egypt has been exporting LNG to Israel since May of last year. Extracted from fields in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula, gas is pumped via submarine pipeline from the coastal town al-Arish to the Israeli port city Ashkelon.

The first accord, signed in 2005, allowed EMG to sell 1.7 billion cubic meters of LNG annually to the Israeli state-run Israel Electric Corporation for a period of 15 years. The sale price was never officially disclosed, fueling speculation by critics that gas was being sold to Israeli buyers at reduced prices.

Egypt is one of the few Arab states, along with Jordan and Mauritania, to have full diplomatic relations with Israel. Nevertheless, bilateral cooperation has remained severely hampered by popular disapproval of Israeli policies.

meanwhile the united states–and hillary clinton in particular–are pushing normalization among african countries with the zionist entity as ips reporters jerrold kessel and pierre klochendler explain:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been busy pursuing one aspect of the Obama Administration’s agenda – carrying to Africa the U.S. message of accountability. With a rather different agenda, Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Liberman also has Africa in his sights.

Whereas the U.S. is pressing a moral message hard – more democracy and less corruption, the Israeli approach is entirely pragmatic.

It’s not the first time Israel has been heavily involved in Africa.

Tanzanian freshmen at the University of Dar es Salaam will be excused for being unaware of the fact that their campus strikingly resembles facilities in Tel Aviv and Beersheba, two of Israel’s leading universities. That’s because the UDSM campus was designed by Israeli architects.

Nearly half a century ago, there was unexpected interaction between sub- Saharan Africa, just emerging from the dark years of colonial rule, and Israel – which had come into existence a decade-and-a-half earlier after ridding itself of a British presence – busily engaged in reaching out to other emerging nations.

Ever since, it’s been a relationship of ups and downs.

The aid to development programmes of Israeli experts, especially in the fields of irrigation, agriculture, communal rural development and medical training, won Israel considerable sympathy, and friends, in many of the newly- independent states. Hundreds of African students and experts underwent specialised training, tailor-made for their societies, in Israel.

But, as was the case in the Cold War era, the Israeli development projects were not entirely altruistic.

There was also the political motive of trying to break the ostracism in which Arab states and their allies in the Third World were encasing the fledgling new Middle Eastern state. This became especially acute following the 1955 conference of the non-aligned world in Bandung in Indonesia, where non- co-operation with Israel was adopted as policy.

There was a strategic dimension too. Israel’s legendary first prime minister David Ben-Gurion and his foreign minister Golda Meir foresaw a policy of encircling the circle of Israel’s regional isolation through alliances with non- Arab states on the periphery of the region – Turkey and Iran and, critically, Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa.

Just back from an extensive tour of South America, Liberman is soon to set out on a five-nation African tour. The Israeli foreign ministry calls it “an out- of-the-ordinary visit”, the most extensive ever by Israel’s top diplomat to the continent. He will criss-cross Africa to take in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Angola and Nigeria.

if you look at the website for the orange company, by the way, or its wikipedia page, you’ll notice that many of the above-listed countries in africa are also being subjected to orange telecom. just say no.

• My weekends are starting on Thursdays from now on. Wanna know why? Head here.
• Apart from that, Saturday night was spent celebrating Alex and Jessie’s birthdays, there was wind, which then led into Michael Jackson wind screaming, meows, laughs, cake, cauliflower mac & cheese, crying (on my behalf) and a lovely DJ at Sweatshop that kept banging out tunes he knew we would love. I think we scared him.
• So Costco has finally arrived in Australia. I liken the hype to when Krispy Kreme finally landed here. Everyone queued up for hours just to get something that ended up being not so great. Infact, I think the only people that buy Krispy Kremes here in Melbourne are these boys.
• My father has acquired some land in Ghana, which means a lot of amazing things are to come.
• Speaking of which, my love Likle P has been updating his blog whilst back in Kumasi, for a little bit of insight, head here.
• Hot air balloons flying over the park next to my office at 7am today made me so happy.
• I’ve started drinking coffee again, like, a lot. Time to detox and get back on the South African Rooibos.
• If you are into Keyboard Cat like I am, I shall leave you with this;

Here I am, hard at work yesterday making one of my last batches of diapers before the new labeling laws – part of the CPSIA – go into effect. The law forbids stockpiling, but part of me wants to stay up really really late these next few days and sew as much as I can, just to be a snot, lol. I won’t, though. These diapers are medium pocket diapers. Yes! I finally restocked medium pockets. Get them while they’re hot.

No, not Genna. Not yet, anyway. Me.

Today was just one of those days – those GOOD days. We got up, ate breakfast, did some homeschooling, read a few books, and still got downstairs to work by 10. I got the week’s diapers all cut out and staged, so they’re ready to sew around and elastic tomorrow. I got the weekend’s orders packed up and shipped. I returned a few phone calls, updated my inventory, and almost restocked some fabrics. Almost, because my cell phone battery was dead, thus making it difficult to use to make long distance phone calls.

The two kids weren’t entirely happy the whole time, but Wally was willing to work with me to help keep teething and generally unhappy Genna at least entertained while I finished up a few things. She loves him more than me any way, lol.

All this, and we were upstairs and eating lunch by 12:30. Yeah. Wahoo. Spent the afternoon with my niece and nephew, then a quick trip to Staples for some school supply shopping. Who am I kidding, right? It was all for ME! But seriously, dry erase markers were on sale, and notebooks were ONE CENT!! And then, since we were at the mall, and the library is at the mall, too, we swung by the library to pick up a few knitting books I had on hold.

Awesome day. Hope tomorrow’s the same!!

(PS, they’re remodeling our library building, so our library is temporarily relocated at the mall. Between Target and Old Navy. Niiiiice.)

Ha’aretz reported yesterday,

Two Israeli entrepreneurs run a sweatshop in Jordan that produces clothes for leading Israeli brands such as Irit, Bonita, Jump and Pashut, Haaretz has learned.

…The report exposes what is said to be one of the biggest secrets of the Israeli fashion industry, saying the cheap production costs for Israeli labels is a very expensive price for workers’ rights at Musa Garments.The report says Mr. Musa, the owner, is an Israeli. But the real owners are Jack Braun and Moshe Cohen from Tel Aviv. The factory is located in the Al Hassan industrial area in Irbid, Jordan. The two employ 132 people from Bangladesh, 49 from India and 27 Jordanians. Chinese, Sri Lankans and Nepalese have also worked there in the past. “They all come for one reason only: To earn as much money as they possibly can to pay off the debts they incurred to purchase their three-year work contracts in Jordan, and send money home to their families,” states the report.

I fail to see a problem here. If people decide–by their own free will–to work under such conditions, why protest? Their continued employment means working in a sweatshop is better than the next best alternative. Shutting them down will not leave them with better jobs, it will instead leave them unemployment.

Let me clarify. I made the assumption that those workers maintained the right to stay or leave. If that is the case, even under the worst of working conditions, the sweatshops should continue functioning. If the workers are prevented from leaving, than individual rights are restricted and the sweatshop should close.

I expanded on the topic of sweatshops in an earlier post.

So there’s this great man (Jeremy Sumrall) making a sure-to-be-great horror movie (Possum Walk) which features Keli Wolfe, also a co-star in this webseries about a Dallas-based comic book store.

We’re going to duck Sumrall’s giant sledgehammer long enough to get an interview with him up in the near future. In the meantime, however, please enjoy ‘The Variants,’ Episode 1.

What is a working family? Rudd and the Labor government have been droning on about this for 2 years. Is it a family that works in a sweatshop? The problem with stereotypes is that they mean many things to many people. I am going to define parental stereotypes as follows:

• Stay at home dad
• Pram marching mum
• Tracksuit mum
• Corporate dad
• Corporate mum
• 4WD mum
• Pathetic dad
• Martyr mum
• Ugly parent
• Thumbprint dad
• Quality Time dad
• Hippy mum
• Wanna-be hippy mum
• Weight loss mum
• Celebrity mum
• Yummy mummy
• Teenage mum

Are any missing? Can you add any sweeping generalisations before I commence?

Stay at home Dad
Habitat: These dads love to been seen as fun, cool and in touch with their kids so watch out on the slide at your local playground. Slides designed for 20kg of child are now accommodating 80kg of man.

Not likely to see: Earning a significant income

Related to: Incompetent dad. Whilst these dads do absolutely everything to keep up the appearance that they are just as good as mums they are only one dirty nappy/ poor clothing choice/ grazed elbow away from being an incompetent dad.

Quote: I’m not bludging, I just like spending time with my kids.

Role model: Will Freeman from About a Boy. They love to think they are hip, modern and could easily drift back into bachelor hood but still retain a skill for raising kids.

[reposted from Nike website: http://www.nikebiz.com/responsibility/2009SecretaryClintonHondurasLetter.html]

Letter to Secretary Clinton Regarding Honduras

July 27, 2009

The Honorable Hillary R. Clinton
Secretary of State
2201 C St NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary Clinton:

As companies that have products made in Honduras, we are deeply concerned about recent events in that country. We understand that serious disagreements exist between the elected President, Congress and the Supreme Court, but these should be resolved through peaceful, democratic dialogue, rather than through military action.

While we do not and will not support or endorse the position of any party in this internal dispute, we feel it is necessary in this case to join with the President of the United States, the governments of countries throughout the Americas, the Organization of American States, the UN General Assembly and the European Union in calling for the restoration of democracy in Honduras.

We are also very concerned about the continuation of violence if this dispute is not resolved immediately, and with restrictions on civil liberties under the July 1 Emergency Decree. We urge for an immediate resolution to the crisis and that civil liberties, including freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association be fully respected.

We welcome the participation of the contending parties in mediation talks and are hopeful they will achieve a prompt and just solution to all issues in dispute.

Sincerely,

NIKE, Inc. The adidas Group Gap Inc. Knights Apparel

Copy: Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon
OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza

Forced Labor

By Juan Chamero, from Caece University at Buenos Aires, Argentine, July 12^th 2009

Subject: people, Crime Organized, economy, people rights, security,  geopolitics, homeless, immigrants,  people displaced, people diseases, invisible people, massacre,  people poverty,  society, social research

 Info Source 1: ILO, International Labor Organization; ILO Forced Labor Statistics; NYT Forced Labor in China, by Howard French; A forced labor Blog;

Workers rescued in May from a brick kiln in Linfen, in Shanxi Province, in northern China, in what has become an unfolding labor abuse scandal, By HOWARD W. FRENCH, Published: June 16, 2007

 ILO Forced Labor Report

As per 12^th May 2009

“….At least 12.3 million people around the world are trapped in forced labour. The ILO works to combat the practice and the conditions that give rise to it. Forced labour takes different forms, including debt bondage, trafficking and other forms of modern slavery. The victims are the most vulnerable – women and girls forced into prostitution, migrants trapped in debt bondage, and sweatshop or farm workers kept there by clearly illegal tactics and paid little or nothing. The ILO has worked since its inception to tackle forced labour and the conditions that give rise to it and has established a Special Action Programme on Forced Labour to intensify this effort. “

 Forced Labor Statistics

 Asia

Asia accounts for by far the biggest share of the world’s forced labourers. Many are migrants, either from elsewhere in Asia or their home country. The ILO currently views three issues with particular concern:

 • Persistence of bonded labour systems, particularly in South Asia, despite longstanding legislation to ban and punish such practices as well as efforts to identify, release and rehabilitate bonded labourers.

 • Widespread trafficking of children and adults, for both sexual and labour exploitation.

 • Continued use of forced labour by the State and official institutions, notably in Myanmar.

 Research has also shown the existence of forced labour in sectors that had escaped previous attention, including Thailand’s shrimp, fishing and seafood processing industries and shrimp production in Bangladesh.

 Some of the highest recruitment payments in the world are found in China, with research showing that workers can pay as much as 2.5 times their expected annual income in recruitment fees to obtain jobs in the U.S.

 Americas

Latin America accounts for the second largest number of forced labourers in the world after Asia, according to ILO estimates. Those most at risk are migrant workers in sweatshops, agriculture and domestic service. The main form of forced labour is through debt bondage, involving informal and unlicensed intermediaries who pay advances to entice workers and then reap profits through inflated charges.

 Forced labour in Latin America is closely linked to patterns of inequality and discrimination, especially against indigenous peoples. As a result, action to combat forced labour must be part of a broad framework of measures and programs aimed at reducing poverty by fighting discrimination and promoting the rights of indigenous peoples as well as helping poorest workers in urban areas.

In Argentina, there has been a crackdown against garment workshops following evidence that Bolivian men and their families were being trafficked for employment in the sector. Coercive practices include removal of identity documents, locking workers in factories and compelling them to work for up to 17 hours a day. After a factory fire killed several Bolivians in March 2006, a government inspection program led to the closure of more than half of the workshops visited. The drive included the establishment of a telephone hotline “Slave Labour Kills” in April 2006.

Elsewhere in Latin America, abusive practices include compulsory overtime, with allegations that in Guatemala, for example, workers were threatened with dismissal for refusing to work shifts of up to 24 hours.

 Info source 2: BBC of London, In Pictures: Forced Labor and Trafficking; David Kilgour Website a director of the Washington-based Council for a Community of Democracies (CCD).

Some not so awesome Forced Labor Images

From Russia: These are orphans. Natasha is the last one in the row, hiding from everybody. She was taken to the foster home by police who found her at a train station. Natasha didn’t know her surname or her age. Her mother is said to have sold her to people who ran a “beggar business”. “If I didn’t bring any money, they would beat me and send me back to work next morning,” she told people at the home. Natasha later disappeared from the orphanage and has not been seen since. Her mother has been located – she denies selling her daughter, saying she “rented her so she could earn some money for textbooks”.

Butterflies made by Falun Gong practitioners detained in Heizuizi Women’s Labor Camp in Changchun City, Jilin Province. The above pictures are some products and children’s jewelry made by Falun Gong practitioners under duress in the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. In addition to persecuting practitioners using brutal torture, murder, and sexual abuse, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also uses forced labor and organ harvesting to make huge profits. Falun Gong practitioners are illegally arrested and sent to prisons, labor camps, and brainwashing centers just for remaining steadfast in their belief in Falun Dafa and the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. While they are subjected to physical mistreatment, they also have to do hard labor for over 10 hours a day in very poor working conditions to make products. These products are exported to the United States, Japan, Australia, Europe, and have brought in a huge amount of foreign currency for the CCP. The economic exploitation of practitioners is an important part of the persecution of Falun Dafa by the CCP.

 Comments: These two pills show us the remaining of an almost chronic social disease: slavery. Take into account that ILO statistics talk of about 13 millions of people suffering the cruelest forms of forced labor. However this is only the visible part of the people exploitation iceberg: people who are enforced to work more than 16 hours a day six days a week and living like animals. People working in Latin American “maquilas” and sweatshops working from 11 hours a day up whole weeks all over the world should be accounted for hundreds of millions. 

Tags: ILO, International Labor Organization, forced labor, forced labour, debt bondage, trafficking, modern slavery, slavery, sweatshops, sweatshop, Howard French, forced labor in China, garment workshops, slave labor kills, Myanmar slavery, Thailand shrimp, Bangladesh slavery, migrant workers, indigenous people slavery, Argentina garment shops, Argentina garment factories, bolivian urban slavery, slave labor kills, slave labour kills, compulsory overtime, continuous shifts, Davod Kilgour, beggar business, russian beggar business, Falun Gong, Falun Gong slavery, Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, Masanjia, Shenyang City, organ harvesting, Chinese organ harvesting,