Two dumb things I heard on NPR
I usually love NPR's Marketplace. They make bankruptcy and losing money sound like so much fun.
But they were doing a series on China last week for obvious reasons. And some of the stories were, well, dumb. This one is about a woman who is boycotting China because of Tibet. That alone is fine. Boycott whomever you want for whatever your reason. I hope your one-person boycott makes a difference. I am on several one-person boycotts that matter so much, let me tell you. But this woman only looks for the "Made in China" labels, and will nobly seek any other label as an alternative, including "Made in Spain" and "Made in VietNam." She is so proud to find a label that does not say "Made in China" that it matters little to her what other despots she might be supporting. VietNam, that perfect model of Human Rights, doncha know.
This one, with commentary from Ted Fishman, he says that American executives start to become organs of the Chinese propaganda machines, that they buy into Chinese propaganda and start spewing it. One example he gives is how when you bring up human rights to some of these American executives and they start talking about poverty reduction. I mean, wow, 'way to doubt your fellow man. When I talk to Randy about China, as he falls into this class of people now, he has not yet been totally uncritical of China and its policies. Whe he does understand is that he is living in a foreign country with history and culture so unlike our own, that it is possible to emphasize the positive effects of what he is doing over there while still being confounded by everything else. Why is it bad to talk about human rights advances like elimination of poverty, even though there are long ways to go in other respects. I just found his whiny crap insulting.
But they were doing a series on China last week for obvious reasons. And some of the stories were, well, dumb. This one is about a woman who is boycotting China because of Tibet. That alone is fine. Boycott whomever you want for whatever your reason. I hope your one-person boycott makes a difference. I am on several one-person boycotts that matter so much, let me tell you. But this woman only looks for the "Made in China" labels, and will nobly seek any other label as an alternative, including "Made in Spain" and "Made in VietNam." She is so proud to find a label that does not say "Made in China" that it matters little to her what other despots she might be supporting. VietNam, that perfect model of Human Rights, doncha know.
This one, with commentary from Ted Fishman, he says that American executives start to become organs of the Chinese propaganda machines, that they buy into Chinese propaganda and start spewing it. One example he gives is how when you bring up human rights to some of these American executives and they start talking about poverty reduction. I mean, wow, 'way to doubt your fellow man. When I talk to Randy about China, as he falls into this class of people now, he has not yet been totally uncritical of China and its policies. Whe he does understand is that he is living in a foreign country with history and culture so unlike our own, that it is possible to emphasize the positive effects of what he is doing over there while still being confounded by everything else. Why is it bad to talk about human rights advances like elimination of poverty, even though there are long ways to go in other respects. I just found his whiny crap insulting.
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