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It has been a tough week for stingy Canadians who wear clothes, with three media exposes of hideous conditions in Bangladeshi sweatshops where human beings sew clothes for the lowest wages on the planet for, well, people like me.
Reading it, watching it, wearing it, writing about it is like treading in a trough of hypocrisy, much of it my own. Money is a fraught crucial intense subject. It's like sex but without the fun and yet somehow one can never get enough of it.
I selected a uniform in which to type this. Would it be the $30 Made-in-Portugal sweatshirt from Zara's boys department? I have shuddered seeing living conditions outside Lisbon. Or the $150 sweater from Reiss? It makes reasonable junk fashion in Romania for the Duchess of Cornwall but says flatly -- and perhaps admirably -- that it refuses to operate in Bangladesh, but those Romanian factories aren't pretty. No, I'll wear a very good heavy cotton Made-in-Cambodia T-shirt which I bought ITALon saleITAL in Joe Fresh a year ago for the horrifyingly low price of $2.97.
"I believe my purchasing decisions will help change the world but they will only ease my own conscience."Support Cambodia, was my thinking. Bombed and permanently poisoned by the U.S., and nearly finished off by the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia needs a market for its products. But what feeble support does this price provide?
I cannot win. When I deplore Walmart's cheap detestable products and employment practices, readers attack me for assaulting poor people. It's all I can afford, they tell me. Canadians worship the god of cheap.
I thought I was depressed by reports from the Star, the Globe and The Fifth Estate ("The Race to the Bottom") on Bangladeshi sweatshops until I read this ill-judged headline in the Star, "Bangladesh's tanneries make the sweatshops look good."
OK then. Why was I so worried about this lovely nine-year-old sweatshop girl, Meem, whose conscientious work and Co-Worker of the Year kindnesses to a Star reporter had me twisted like an emotional corkscrew? Apparently Meem has it good. Life can get worse. She could be in a tannery.
And then we have the stories about unpaid internships in Canada, where students clean hotel rooms, unpaid, for something to put on their resume and thus multinational hotel chains clean up. One driven young Vancouver woman, told the Star she worked as a chambermaid for three months, unpaid, in 2011, which is dreadful. And then I read that she will enrol at Humber College and do the same unpaid "internship" again because she doesn't mind the work and wants a hotel career. So it is only theoretically dreadful.
Her work will keep wages low for other chambermaids who work for food and shelter. She hasn't thought this far ahead. But, if you've read Heads in Beds ("Housekeeping is one of the hardest jobs in the world"), a revelatory book about the hotel industry, good for her because she will then treat chambermaids kindly, having known what they endure.
Unpaid Canadian internships should be banned, as should Bangladeshi child labour, but students are trying to climb into the workforce and Meem and her family need her job. Meem herself is quite chipper. She isn't Dickens, 12, sent to the blacking factory in 1824.
It is exhausting to see this, to be sent up and down a sliding scale of misery burdened with the idea that all work is awful, except when it is more awful, when clearly it all depends on context. I pity Meem but if she were to lose her 12-hours-a-day, cramped ill-lit job, Meem would weep.
Or, as stated, she could stretch hides in a tannery. Tanneries were awful in England in Shakespeare's time and awful in the Victorian era. Bangladesh can't afford to mechanize tanneries (its big problem is flooding caused by global warming) and centuries later Dickens should have been thrilled his shiftless father didn't stick him in one.
Oh, that ungrateful Dickens.
I believe my purchasing decisions will help change the world but they will only ease my own conscience. Human beings are human. They try to be good, they excel at being bad. I admire honest work. I am left speechless by how much more there is to say.
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It has been a tough week for stingy Canadians who wear clothes, with three media exposes of hideous conditions in Bangladeshi sweatshops where human beings sew clothes for the lowest wages on the planet for, well, people like me.
Reading it, watching it, wearing it, writing about it is like treading in a trough of hypocrisy, much of it my own. Money is a fraught crucial intense subject. It's like sex but without the fun and yet somehow one can never get enough of it.
I selected a uniform in which to type this. Would it be the $30 Made-in-Portugal sweatshirt from Zara's boys department? I have shuddered seeing living conditions outside Lisbon. Or the $150 sweater from Reiss? It makes reasonable junk fashion in Romania for the Duchess of Cornwall but says flatly -- and perhaps admirably -- that it refuses to operate in Bangladesh, but those Romanian factories aren't pretty. No, I'll wear a very good heavy cotton Made-in-Cambodia T-shirt which I bought ITALon saleITAL in Joe Fresh a year ago for the horrifyingly low price of $2.97.
"I believe my purchasing decisions will help change the world but they will only ease my own conscience."Support Cambodia, was my thinking. Bombed and permanently poisoned by the U.S., and nearly finished off by the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia needs a market for its products. But what feeble support does this price provide?
I cannot win. When I deplore Walmart's cheap detestable products and employment practices, readers attack me for assaulting poor people. It's all I can afford, they tell me. Canadians worship the god of cheap.
I thought I was depressed by reports from the Star, the Globe and The Fifth Estate ("The Race to the Bottom") on Bangladeshi sweatshops until I read this ill-judged headline in the Star, "Bangladesh's tanneries make the sweatshops look good."
OK then. Why was I so worried about this lovely nine-year-old sweatshop girl, Meem, whose conscientious work and Co-Worker of the Year kindnesses to a Star reporter had me twisted like an emotional corkscrew? Apparently Meem has it good. Life can get worse. She could be in a tannery.
And then we have the stories about unpaid internships in Canada, where students clean hotel rooms, unpaid, for something to put on their resume and thus multinational hotel chains clean up. One driven young Vancouver woman, told the Star she worked as a chambermaid for three months, unpaid, in 2011, which is dreadful. And then I read that she will enrol at Humber College and do the same unpaid "internship" again because she doesn't mind the work and wants a hotel career. So it is only theoretically dreadful.
Her work will keep wages low for other chambermaids who work for food and shelter. She hasn't thought this far ahead. But, if you've read Heads in Beds ("Housekeeping is one of the hardest jobs in the world"), a revelatory book about the hotel industry, good for her because she will then treat chambermaids kindly, having known what they endure.
Unpaid Canadian internships should be banned, as should Bangladeshi child labour, but students are trying to climb into the workforce and Meem and her family need her job. Meem herself is quite chipper. She isn't Dickens, 12, sent to the blacking factory in 1824.
It is exhausting to see this, to be sent up and down a sliding scale of misery burdened with the idea that all work is awful, except when it is more awful, when clearly it all depends on context. I pity Meem but if she were to lose her 12-hours-a-day, cramped ill-lit job, Meem would weep.
Or, as stated, she could stretch hides in a tannery. Tanneries were awful in England in Shakespeare's time and awful in the Victorian era. Bangladesh can't afford to mechanize tanneries (its big problem is flooding caused by global warming) and centuries later Dickens should have been thrilled his shiftless father didn't stick him in one.
Oh, that ungrateful Dickens.
I believe my purchasing decisions will help change the world but they will only ease my own conscience. Human beings are human. They try to be good, they excel at being bad. I admire honest work. I am left speechless by how much more there is to say.
It has been a tough week for stingy Canadians who wear clothes, with three media exposes of hideous conditions in Bangladeshi sweatshops where human beings sew clothes for the lowest wages on the planet for, well, people like me.
Reading it, watching it, wearing it, writing about it is like treading in a trough of hypocrisy, much of it my own. Money is a fraught crucial intense subject. It's like sex but without the fun and yet somehow one can never get enough of it.
I selected a uniform in which to type this. Would it be the $30 Made-in-Portugal sweatshirt from Zara's boys department? I have shuddered seeing living conditions outside Lisbon. Or the $150 sweater from Reiss? It makes reasonable junk fashion in Romania for the Duchess of Cornwall but says flatly -- and perhaps admirably -- that it refuses to operate in Bangladesh, but those Romanian factories aren't pretty. No, I'll wear a very good heavy cotton Made-in-Cambodia T-shirt which I bought ITALon saleITAL in Joe Fresh a year ago for the horrifyingly low price of $2.97.
"I believe my purchasing decisions will help change the world but they will only ease my own conscience."Support Cambodia, was my thinking. Bombed and permanently poisoned by the U.S., and nearly finished off by the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia needs a market for its products. But what feeble support does this price provide?
I cannot win. When I deplore Walmart's cheap detestable products and employment practices, readers attack me for assaulting poor people. It's all I can afford, they tell me. Canadians worship the god of cheap.
I thought I was depressed by reports from the Star, the Globe and The Fifth Estate ("The Race to the Bottom") on Bangladeshi sweatshops until I read this ill-judged headline in the Star, "Bangladesh's tanneries make the sweatshops look good."
OK then. Why was I so worried about this lovely nine-year-old sweatshop girl, Meem, whose conscientious work and Co-Worker of the Year kindnesses to a Star reporter had me twisted like an emotional corkscrew? Apparently Meem has it good. Life can get worse. She could be in a tannery.
And then we have the stories about unpaid internships in Canada, where students clean hotel rooms, unpaid, for something to put on their resume and thus multinational hotel chains clean up. One driven young Vancouver woman, told the Star she worked as a chambermaid for three months, unpaid, in 2011, which is dreadful. And then I read that she will enrol at Humber College and do the same unpaid "internship" again because she doesn't mind the work and wants a hotel career. So it is only theoretically dreadful.
Her work will keep wages low for other chambermaids who work for food and shelter. She hasn't thought this far ahead. But, if you've read Heads in Beds ("Housekeeping is one of the hardest jobs in the world"), a revelatory book about the hotel industry, good for her because she will then treat chambermaids kindly, having known what they endure.
Unpaid Canadian internships should be banned, as should Bangladeshi child labour, but students are trying to climb into the workforce and Meem and her family need her job. Meem herself is quite chipper. She isn't Dickens, 12, sent to the blacking factory in 1824.
It is exhausting to see this, to be sent up and down a sliding scale of misery burdened with the idea that all work is awful, except when it is more awful, when clearly it all depends on context. I pity Meem but if she were to lose her 12-hours-a-day, cramped ill-lit job, Meem would weep.
Or, as stated, she could stretch hides in a tannery. Tanneries were awful in England in Shakespeare's time and awful in the Victorian era. Bangladesh can't afford to mechanize tanneries (its big problem is flooding caused by global warming) and centuries later Dickens should have been thrilled his shiftless father didn't stick him in one.
Oh, that ungrateful Dickens.
I believe my purchasing decisions will help change the world but they will only ease my own conscience. Human beings are human. They try to be good, they excel at being bad. I admire honest work. I am left speechless by how much more there is to say.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans said they disapprove of the Trump administration slashing the Social Security Administration workforce.
As the US marked the 90th anniversary of one of its most broadly popular public programs, Social Security, on Thursday, President Donald Trump marked the occasion by claiming at an Oval Office event that his administration has saved the retirees' safety net from "fraud" perpetrated by undocumented immigrants—but new polling showed that Trump's approach to the Social Security Administration is among his most unpopular agenda items.
The progressive think tank Data for Progress asked 1,176 likely voters about eight key Trump administration agenda items, including pushing for staffing cuts at the Social Security Administration; signing the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is projected to raise the cost of living for millions as people will be shut out of food assistance and Medicaid; and firing tens of thousands of federal workers—and found that some of Americans' biggest concerns are about the fate of the agency that SSA chief Frank Bisignano has pledged to make "digital-first."
Sixty-three percent of respondents said they oppose the proposed layoffs of about 7,000 SSA staffers, or about 12% of its workforce—which, as progressives including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have warned, have led to longer wait times for beneficiaries who rely on their monthly earned Social Security checks to pay for groceries, housing, medications, and other essentials.
Forty-five percent of people surveyed said they were "very concerned" about the cuts.
Only the Trump administration's decision not to release files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case was more opposed by respondents, with 65% saying they disapproved of the failure to disclose the documents, which involve the financier and convicted sex offender who was a known friend of the president. But fewer voters—about 39%—said they were "very concerned" about the files.
Among "persuadable voters"—those who said they were as likely to vote for candidates from either major political party in upcoming elections—70% said they opposed the cuts to Social Security.
The staffing cuts have forced Social Security field offices across the country to close, and as Sanders said Wednesday as he introduced the Keep Billionaires Out of Social Security Act, the 1-800 number beneficiaries have to call to receive their benefits "is a mess," with staffers overwhelmed due to the loss of more than 4,000 employees so far.
As Common Dreams reported in July, another policy change this month is expected to leave senior citizens and beneficiaries with disabilities unable to perform routine tasks related to their benefits over the phone, as they have for decades—forcing them to rely on a complicated online verification process.
Late last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted that despite repeated claims from Trump that he won't attempt to privatize Social Security, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act offers a "backdoor way" for Republicans to do just that.
The law's inclusion of tax-deferred investment accounts called "Trump accounts" that will be available to US citizen children starting next July could allow the GOP to privatize the program as it has hoped to for decades.
"Right now, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are quietly creating problems for Social Security so they can later hand it off to their private equity buddies," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Thursday.
Marking the program's 90th anniversary, Sanders touted his Keep Billionaires Out of Social Security Act.
"This legislation would reverse all of the cuts that the Trump administration has made to the Social Security Administration," said Sanders. "It would make it easier, not harder, for seniors and people with disabilities to receive the benefits they have earned over the phone."
"Each and every year, some 30,000 people die—they die while waiting for their Social Security benefits to be approved," said Sanders. "And Trump's cuts will make this terrible situation even worse. We cannot and must not allow that to happen."
"Voters have made their feelings clear," said the leader of Justice Democrats. "The majority do not see themselves in this party and do not believe in its leaders or many of its representatives."
A top progressive leader has given her prescription for how the Democratic Party can begin to retake power from US President Donald Trump: Ousting "corporate-funded" candidates.
Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas wrote Thursday in The Guardian that, "If the Democratic Party wants to win back power in 2028," its members need to begin to redefine themselves in the 2026 midterms.
"Voters have made their feelings clear, a majority do not see themselves in this party and do not believe in its leaders or many of its representatives," Rojas said. "They need a new generation of leaders with fresh faces and bold ideas, unbought by corporate super [political action committees] and billionaire donors, to give them a new path and vision to believe in."
Despite Trump's increasing unpopularity, a Gallup poll from July 31 found that the Democratic Party still has record-low approval across the country.
Rojas called for "working-class, progressive primary challenges to the overwhelming number of corporate Democratic incumbents who have rightfully been dubbed as do-nothing electeds."
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in June, nearly two-thirds of self-identified Democrats said they desired new leadership, with many believing that the party did not share top priorities, like universal healthcare, affordable childcare, and higher taxes on the rich.
Young voters were especially dissatisfied with the current state of the party and were much less likely to believe the party shared their priorities.
Democrats have made some moves to address their "gerontocracy" problem—switching out the moribund then-President Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and swapping out longtime House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) for the younger Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.).
But Rojas says a face-lift for the party is not enough. They also need fresh ideas.
"Voters are also not simply seeking to replace their aging corporate shill representatives with younger corporate shills," she said. "More of the same from a younger generation is still more of the same."
Outside of a "small handful of outspoken progressives," she said the party has often been too eager to kowtow to Trump and tow the line of billionaire donors.
"Too many Democratic groups, and even some that call themselves progressive, are encouraging candidates' silence in the face of lobbies like [the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee] (AIPAC) and crypto's multimillion-dollar threats," she said.
A Public Citizen report found that in 2024, Democratic candidates and aligned PACs received millions of dollars from crypto firms like Coinbase, Ripple, and Andreesen Horowitz.
According to OpenSecrets, 58% of the 212 Democrats elected to the House in 2024—135 of them—received money from AIPAC, with an average contribution of $117,334. In the Senate, 17 Democrats who won their elections received donations—$195,015 on average.
The two top Democrats in Congress—Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—both have long histories of support from AIPAC, and embraced crypto with open arms after the industry flooded the 2024 campaign with cash.
"Too often, we hear from candidates and members who claim they are with us on the policy, but can't speak out on it because AIPAC or crypto will spend against them," Rojas said. "Silence is cowardice, and cowardice inspires no one."
Rojas noted Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), who was elected in 2022 despite an onslaught of attacks from AIPAC and who has since gone on to introduce legislation to ban super PACs from federal elections, as an example of this model's success.
"The path to more Democratic victories," Rojas said, "is not around, behind, and under these lobbies, but it's right through them, taking them head-on and ridding them from our politics once and for all."
"History will not forget," said UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
The United Nations human rights expert assigned to the Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel is calling on countries around the world to send military forces to end the genocidal Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
Since March 2024, "I've warned the UN I serve at great personal cost: the destruction of Gaza's health system is clear proof of genocidal intent," Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said on social media Wednesday. "I'm in disbelief at its paralysis. States must break the blockade, send NAVIES with aid, and stop the genocide. History will not forget."
Albanese also shared her new joint statement with Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, special rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. They said that "in addition to bearing witness to an ongoing genocide we are also bearing witness to a 'medicide,' a sinister component of the intentional creation of conditions calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza which constitutes an act of genocide."
"Deliberate attacks on health and care workers, and health facilities, which are gross violations of international humanitarian law, must stop now," the pair continued. "There is a moral imperative for the international community to end the carnage and allow the people of Gaza to live on their land without fear of attack, killing, and starvation, and free from permanent occupation and apartheid."
Their comments came as a growing number of governments are recognizing the state of Palestine or threatening to do so. In a Wednesday interview with The Guardian, Albanese stressed that the renewed push for Palestinian statehood should not "distract the attention from where it should be: the genocide."
"Ending the question of Palestine in line with international law is possible and necessary: End the genocide today, end the permanent occupation this year, and end apartheid," she said. "This is what's going to guarantee freedom and equal rights for everyone, regardless of the way they want to live—in two states or one state, they will have to decide."
As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, Israel's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, claimed that the Israeli and U.S. governments have approved an expansion of settlements in the West Bank, which he said "finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize."
Meanwhile, in Gaza, the 22-month Israeli assault has left the coastal enclave in ruins and killed at least 61,776 Palestinians and wounded 154,906 others—though experts warn the real figures are likely far higher. Those who have survived so far are struggling to access essentials, including food, largely due to Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid and killings of aid-seekers.
On Thursday, over 100 groups—including ActionAid, American Friends Service Committee, Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam, and Save the Children—released a letter stressing that since Israel imposed registration rules in early March, most nongovernmental organizations "have been unable to deliver a single truck of lifesaving supplies."
"This obstruction has left millions of dollars' worth of food, medicine, water, and shelter items stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt, while Palestinians are being starved," the letter notes. As of Thursday, the Gaza Health Ministry put the hunger-related death toll at 239, including 106 children.
Both the registration process and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation "aim to block impartial aid, exclude Palestinian actors, and replace trusted humanitarian organizations with mechanisms that serve political and military objectives," the letter argues, noting that Israel is moving to "escalate its military offensive and deepen its occupation in Gaza, making clear these measures are part of a broader strategy to entrench control and erase Palestinian presence."
The coalition called on all governments to "press Israel to end the weaponization of aid," insist that NGOS not be "forced to share sensitive personal information," and "demand the immediate and unconditional opening of all land crossings and conditions for the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian aid."
During an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting on Sunday, Riyad Mansour, the state of Palestine's permanent observer to the UN, formally requested "an immediate international protection force to save the Palestinian people from certain death."
In response, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the US-based advocacy group DAWN, said in a Tuesday statement, "Now that Palestine has formally requested protection forces, the UN General Assembly should move urgently to mandate such a force under a Uniting for Peace resolution."
"Israel has made clear for the past two years that no amount of pleading, pressure, or negotiation will end its atrocities and deliberate starvation in Gaza; only international peacekeeping forces can achieve that," she added.