We can only assume, that the Left, led by president Obama, deems it appropriate to keep our own country free of drilling rigs and refineries at the cost of jobs and a reliable source of oil. The Left is willing to sacrifice our national security to insure that we refrain from developing our own resources and remain dependent on foreign sources. Their global outlook becomes circumspect, when we realize that other countries will now be drilling for oil exploration and refining the oil with no pretensions of caring for the environment. Thus when the many oil tankers dock at our ports to unload the same oil products that we could be producing without the international shipping expenses, the great tanker leave empty, adding to the expense and waste generated by foreign oil being shipped to an oil rich country that chastises itself by metaphorically loading immeasurable amounts of US treasure or money on those tankers and exporting US wealth in an international form of wealth redistribution.
In the world of White Liberal Guilt, so prevalent in the affluent suburbs of big city America, this is the soothing salve to appease and calm the neurosis of desperate housewives and their psychologically gelded husbands. Their guilt is overwhelming, and while they have no intention of abandoning their hedonistic life of excess, they instead want everyone to share in this opulent lifestyle and the neurosis that accompanies the lifestyle. They are content to contribute their fair share to help the oppressed in our country and the world, but they will seek out every deduction and tax shelter they can find or imagine, thank you all the same. No, the burred for lifting the oppressed rests on the shoulders of those who are truly wealthy, for while those in the affluent suburbs consider themselves comfortable, they are far from wealthy and the working middle class who has a good income, but lack the tax loopholes, they have not yet truly earned their position of affluence.
In the lavish lifestyle of affluent suburbia, there are accoutrements that are necessary to identify individuals as members of this privileged class that operates on a higher plane of being with their dedication to humanity and all things Liberal. They drive certain late model cars, they wear leisure clothes from the catalogues that cater to just the look they ascribe to, their shoes, their haircuts, coffee shops must conform as they go about their routines with the obligatory and rehearsed efforts to ignore each other’s efforts to conform. Thus they can identify with each other and feel safe within their own enclave as they continually, with great solemnity, refuse to acknowledge each other.
One of the most obvious signs of Liberalism at the upper tier is the Apple computer; often displayed at prestigious coffee shops while the student or studious person sits and ponders thoughts and images that aren’t available at home. I admit, I prefer the Apple, but not the sanctimonious smugness displayed by Apple users outside the neighborhood of Redmond, WA. Steve Jobs has made a great product and has masterfully defined the upscale image of the person who has the intellect and the checkbook to turn on a Mac as a free thinking Liberal who is only covertly a slave to fashion and image projection.
One of the most recent additions to the image that apple is promoting is the iPad and the iPhone more recently the #2 editions. They are neat little machines that enable internet usage that is less technical, but more than powerful enough for the great majority of internet users. It is the trendy accoutrement for the trendy upscale Liberal that simply must hear about their friends latest romantic and/or erotic encounters in live time.
There is one problem with this latest episode of Liberals contributing to the profit schemes of the great Free-Market Capitalist Liberals who have a knack for exploiting the weaknesses and neurotic tendencies of the fashion conscious Liberals: In their altruistic efforts to provide the image so desperately sought by the easily deluded, they are literally working their indirect employees, those Chinese who actually manufacture the IPads, to death.
No they aren’t beaten, but they are being made to work hours that are driving them to suicide. There is a shocking human cost that the owners of iPads and iPhones are willing to overlook in their selfish quest for just the right technology that provides the right look.
A series of suicides among workers has resulted in employers asking employees to sign an “anti-suicide” pledge, at the two plants in Southern China that produce the iPad and iPhone. In fact, there have been so many suicides by jumping from the factory-dormotories that employers have installed netting to catch the jumpers.
Research was instituted by two NGOs (Non Government Organizations) to investigate the suicides, their findings revealed allegations of excessive work hours and draconian rules in the factory-dormotory. The report describes a dreary life for the 500,000 workers at Shenzhen and Chengdu factories owned by Foxconn, that produce millions of the Apple products a year. The report alleges that employees are treated, “inhumanely like machines”.
The two NGOs, the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) – listed claims that allege:
■ Excessive overtime is routine, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip, seen by the Observer, indicated that the worker had performed 98 hours of overtime in a month.
■ Workers attempting to meet the huge demand for the first iPad were sometimes pressured to take only one day off in 13.
■ In some factories badly performing workers are required to be publicly humiliated in front of colleagues.
■ Crowded workers’ dormitories can sleep up to 24 and are subject to strict rules. One worker told the NGO investigators that he was forced to sign a “confession letter” after illicitly using a hairdryer. In the letter he wrote: “It is my fault. I will never blow my hair inside my room. I have done something wrong. I will never do it again.”
■ In the wake of a spate of suicides at Foxconn factories last summer, workers were asked to sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and pledging to “treasure their lives”.
Foxconn managed to turn out its first iPad in November of last year so that they would be available for the Christmas stampede. Last year, Apple sold 15 million iPads; they expect to produce 100 million a year by 2013.
The allegations were put to Foxconn, Louis Woo, the manager, confirmed that workers are sometimes working more than the legal overtime limit to meet the demand from the West, but maintains the extra hours were voluntary.
However, workers claim that if they turn down the excessive overtime, they will be forced to rely on their basic wage of 1,350 yuan or 125 Euros (approx) for a standard 48 hour week.
When questioned about the suicides and the anti-suicide netting under the dormitory windows, Woo replied:
“Suicides were not connected to bad working conditions. There was a copy effect. If one commits suicide, then others will follow.”
In its defense, Apple issued a statement:
Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base. Apple requires suppliers to commit to our comprehensive supplier code of conduct as a condition of their contracts with us. We drive compliance with the code through a rigorous monitoring programme, including factory audits, corrective action plans and verification measures.
The next time a Liberal tries to impress upon you the great achievements of Socialism, describe the excesses and homicidal tendencies of Stalin and Mao, then tell them about Steve Jobs putting profit ahead of human life to provide them with their Liberal fashion ensemble.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1LeqQbf4Rs[/youtube]
A professional horseman for over 50 years, Skook continues to work with horses. Skook has finished an historical novel, Fifty Thousand Years, that traces a mitochondrial line of DNA from 50,000 years ago to the present. The story follows a line of courageous women, from the Ice Ages to the present, as they meet the challenges of survival with grit and creativity. These are not women who whimper of being victims, they meet the challenges of survival as women who use their abilities without excuses or remorse, these women are winners, they are our ancestors.
Fifty Thousand Years is available in paperback and e-book, it is getting great reviews. You can purchase a copy here; Visit me on Facebook.
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Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!
The present focus is: “Let other countries drill for the oil. We’ll leave them in the dust with our new, clean, Green, energy supreme, as Barry plays on his adding machine, the left rattling their tambourines, and the debt consuming yours and my means, with a nice Chianti and fava beans.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make the observation, and Barrambo has flat out stated the case.
Chianti and fava beans, geez Louise, soon we will dream of those days of yesteryear with Cabernet or beer beside a steak with a shot of rye before bed.
“In fact, there have been so many suicides by jumping from the factory-dormotories that employers have installed netting to catch the jumpers.”
This is wild.
Don’t blame me, I’m still using my 8 track.
I am proud to say that I have no facebook page and no apple products and don’t use google anymore (when possible), also I have stopped using GE light bulbs. I will stick to my Dell laptop, blackberry, military issue knife and hope to add a colt 1911 to my outfit. I may not be trendy but I am practical.
Geez Skook, . . . . now you’ve gone and screwed up my whole day, and after I’ve gone to visit a shrink, I’ll have to go somewhere for confession.
The metaphor of the “Volvo” of 30 years ago has morphed into a Mac/iPad/iPhone/iPod – you’re right about that smugness quotient which we find very much rooted in Palo Alto. I disliked the Volvo attitude/politics then, and dislike it now. However, hmmm……..
Joyously, and Sadly, I find myself in the crosshairs of one of your sights. I got lucky, and had the good fortune to have played a role in the personal computer explosion, including that of Apple. I’ve pretty well had one of every Apple computer made since the beginning, and even had one of the first Mac prototypes every built, . . . I think the 5th one.
In defence of Apple, it’s had and has an army of great and seriously talented people who live in the shadows of Steve Jobs. The company has always had a solid core of competence. Jobs on the hand is and always was a very self serving individual, with endless insecurities, who is IMHO, two individuals inside one shell. One half is pleasant and engaging, the other half, when it rears its ugly head, is just an obnoxious, demeaning and aggressive bully. I knew him personally and we had a good relationship until I walked in on a very public, very loud, undeserved, “dressing down” he was delivering to one of my employees in front of a group of engineers assembled in a large open space at Mac headquarters in Cupertino. The performance I observed as I was walking into the building can only be described as “nuts.” Steve was just Nuts. My employee didn’t deserve the tirade. Steve and I never spoke again, and I ignored subsequent attempts at “rapprochement,” even as our joint “corporate” efforts continued positively. I blank out stupidity and move on.
Apple employees fear Jobs. It’s that simple. That’s why you never see any public misstatements or dissent from the rank and file, not even from senior people at Apple. That doesn’t mean they’re incompetent, but they’re all really well paid and deliver outstanding products, so they accept a little paranoia cowering under Steve’s emotional indiscretions. It is unfortunate that this great company, through its leader, is involved in supporting the far left lunies – particularly Al Gore who sits on the Apple Board. You’ll also note that no one from Apple ever makes a statement remotely related to politics, . . . more of the paranoia. None of them want to ever piss off Jobs or Gore.
I’m a great fan of the Mac platform. It’s a technological marvel and is the most reliable one in the industry, but the company’s manipulated politics stink. . . . . As for the anal retentive crowds that adoringly hover around the Apple brand, at least they’ve got good taste in technology. 🙂
I also think that you will see an acceleration of reversal of the trend to “manufacture in China,” over the next few years, . . . a trend that has already begun. Customers are reacting to bad Customer Service, and to poor quality control. Companies are finding that manufacturing in America no longer has the cost differentiation it once had.
Unfortunately, the Nation does not have leadership that understands much, or that can fuel those energies positively to speed up that reversal. Nevertheless, it will happen.
Bob, I remember when the eight track was thought to be the epitome of cutting edge technology. Improving on the eight track was considered almost impossible.
I saw the use of the cassette in the terrible movie Clockwork Orange; it was producing big sound and I told all my friends that the technology was going to change because of the scene in the movie. I was pitied as being soft in the brain pan. My friends said the scene was a hoax; there was no way such a small tape could produce big sound; consequently, we would always need eight tracks.
Country boys are better with trucks and tractors.
JR, I said once that you traveled in a rarefied atmosphere and you add fuel to the fire once again.
My first computer was an Apple IIE. I bought from a customer, for what was considered to be an excellent price of $1,500 Cdn. It was as fast as motor oil in forty below and there was no internet in Northern, BC, but I built a writing business and cartooning business off that old radio looking machine. They were humble businesses, but I learned the ropes and gained confidence. The cartoon technology has left me in the starting gate, but I am willing to do keyboard battle with the best and wade in laughing as I limber up my keyboard for battle at any level.
Horse savvy has been a blessing and a curse, it paid much better than pounding out prose, but I became so successful, I worked away my life and neglected my artistic abilities. Oh well, no use crying over wasted years at this point.
My new Mac is a Mac book pro and I became with the ugly side of Apple Elitism among the faithful while traveling and writing down ideas and checking in on FA at coffee houses along the hi-ways. Obviously, I don’t fit the image of an Apple user and I am sure this has caused consternation and confusion here and there, much to my delight. Some young ladies and older ones try to engage in conversation about my Mac, but please ladies, I don’t have the time or the inclination for idle flirting or exchanging tech notes. I suppose the cowboy look and the tanned face and arms is more intriguing than the cookie cutter type men packing a Mac with their mail order outdoor clothes that have no sun bleaching. Too funny.
Jobs is a work in progress. He has excellent PR men promoting his image, because I had no idea about his true nature. I have worked for a number of the Microsoft guys and gals. They seem to be a sharp bunch with little personality inconsistencies. The Mac raises eyebrows in the Woodinville and Kirkland areas and I love to gauge the expressions of disbelief. It’s kind of like running a motor yacht in a sailing regatta. I pull out the Mac more than necessary for the fun of it.
It’s good to hear about the changing attitudes concerning the manufacture of electronics in China. Exposing Obama’s ineptness and naiveté on reversing that trend could be an excellent idea for an article, a very important article that could change many things.
I work in the Woodside, Cupertino, Palo Alto areas several times a year. They must have been beautiful a hundred years ago. Now, there are too many AJ Foyts driving expensive SUVs with an Elitist attitude.
Good to hear from you again. JR. Writing from the heart is the key. You could have written this article with a lot more authority.
I did not realize that by using a Mac that I am now in the liberal elite atmosphere of stupidity and ignorance. I bought my first Mac back in 1985 and still have it. I am a snob of the worst kind when it comes to trying to use Windoze. I hate them with a passion as they remind me of liberals – always promising and never delivering; expanding the operating system with bloated and useless software while charging a premium to keep them running; and being run by a guy who never “heard a note of technological music” in his life.
While getting an MA in English (after a year at a tech school mastering Photoshop), my great joy on the weekends was running around Tulsa, Oklahoma looking to buy and work on (and with) discarded Macs. At one time, much to my wife’s disapproval, I had twenty-eight old Macs up and running.
Mac Fanatic – yes. Liberal elite – never. But I did enjoy reading your input.
Oh, BTW, it was obvious from your article that you really do not understand how the factory system works in China. Suggest you read Poorly Made In China.
The Western investors have little or no control over how these factories really operate on a daily basis. For example, Jobs or other Apple people travel to China to check out how things are going. There is no such thing as a surprise visit as entry visas and such are well known by all. The factory is prepared to meet all expectations for the length of time the VIPs visit. Visit over and . . . It depends on how much more the factory owners (which always has the local cadre boss involved) want to make above what is on the books. This would explain all the contaminated crap that comes out of China and is even sold in China.
To blame Steve Jobs and Apple for something that is part of the system in China is a bit much. Do believe that any CEO or President would make changes in a hurry if they had control of the manufacturing system. They do not and I doubt if they ever will. After having lived in China for the past three years and having traveled there every year since 1998, I would not invest in the place. I would pay a little extra and stay in Thailand where I could guarantee quality of life and product.
Cecil, your post reads like CHill.
You are correct, I know very little about manufacturing in China, but I’ll wager Jobs knows considerably more than I do. In that respect, he should be held responsible for contributing to a system that caters to greed at the cost of human misery. Who wins, the evil bosses in China, the equivalent of the imagined boogeymen of the Right, that the Left is always pointing fingers at, but Steve Jobs and the Apple brand is employing typical Leftist sanctimonious righteousness while they rake in billions with their greed and callous disregard for the poor souls who produce their product. The same people who compromise the lives so that Jobs can have a huge profit margin.
No, they don’t use slave labor, they use a group of labor a step or two above slave labor; therefore, they can feel redeemed as they take exploit these people to make their billions. After all, true slave labor would be truly embarrassing for one of Obama’s main supporters and financial backers. Remember, Obama has told us how much better they do everything in China.
Yes, I like the machine, but I and many others will be looking for alternatives now that the exploitation of Labor by Jobs and his Chinese overseers is leaking out. If Jobs wasn’t a sanctimonious phony, he wouldn’t issue such a piss poor statement to excuse his greed. He would apologize to the Chinese people for their exploitation and begin looking into alternative locations for the manufacture of his product. That’s why I call the man a lying fraud and a hypocrite.
You are absolutely right, I don’t understand the Chinese Labor system, just like many other American and Europeans don’t understand it, but I will make you a promise, the system will be exposed on a regular basis by me and if Steve Jobs takes offense, he can thank you, for you have convinced me of the need to expose this Leftist corruption as an ongoing mission, until he relocates his sweat shops and tones down his greed.
It’s true, I have a limited market, but the stories don’t fade away and they are often emailed among friends, so the system will be exposed in time. In the future I will do more research and sharpen my keyboard’s edge to cut deep and long with cyber prose.
Chill I am and Chill I shall be.
Words are always easy to type and concepts even easier to come up with. The way the Chinese factory system works generally is very, very simple. A Westerner desires to access the labor in China and is provided manufacturing expertise at prices that only a none capitalist who has no product to offer would refuse. How long has Apple been in China? Won’t take long to find out.
What did Apple see and what were they promised when they first opened their manufacturing base in China? All aspects of the deal were crystal clear and met all international standards. In fact, my guess would be that his partners were working and meeting all expectations for a minimum of two years. Apple “thought” things were going well and met the expectations of the very “liberal’ Steve Jobs. There is no such thing as a separation of politics and business in China. You want to be a successful business person in China, you will be connected at the local, regional or higher levels depending on your personal wealth you want to keep.
Now let’s say after two years or so, Apple is locked into China. It would be impossible to transfer the manufacturing to another country. Billions have been invested and products would be jeopardized and the whole process would be endangered. Competition does that very quickly. Apple is locked into China and China has total control (in reality since they control how many Apple employees can visit at any given time). Also visits are totally controlled and phony environments are common in all the factories across China. Apple is locked into China. LOCKED into China.
This is how the Chinese make their money. When they have a company locked in, they then begin their immoral little games of making trash (whenever possible), lowering worker standards or forcing overtime. These are done clearly against the original specifications of the binding agreement. What are you going to do, back out of the manufacturing with millions of products already on order? It does not mean one can all of a sudden change manufacturing bases and remain in business. Put the blame on the manufacturing system in China where it belongs. Steve Jobs has no control – NO CONTROL. He can challenge, complain, or whatever else he wants to do but he has products he has already sold or at least in the pipeline to be sold. The Chinese know this and know it well.
The only way the system will change is when it collapses upon itself because Westerners realize what is going on and just how immoral and corrupt China is. Steve Jobs is just another typical Westerner that got screwed by the Chinese. Happens everyday and will continue to happen until we expose every one of these factories to the world. How much do you really want that Ipad 2?
Chill, I don’t really need the iPad 2 and no one else really really needs it either. Not that I care to help Jobs or do I presume that he needs my help, but new technology could be the saving grace. If the advancements are assembled in another location, it could be much easier to phase out their factories in China.
Thanks for your input, it has been enlightening.
To accept the exploitation of Chinese Labor and to have it edified by Obama is an ongoing deception and hypocritical fraud promoted by the Leftist Elites and unknowingly accepted by the faithful sycophants of Apple and Obama.
The times, they are a changing.
Sycophants of Apple.
You figure I am a sycophant because I use a Minimac and have ten or so Macs laying around. Geez, Skookum, a machine is not political. To say that all employees of Apple are liberals or all those who use an Apple product are liberals is beyond the pale. Mac computers are used by most magazines and newspapers including conservative ones. Lump. Lump. Lump. Yeh, lump us altogether and justify your distress over Steve Jobs getting ripped off in China. He is a victim like every Westerner that opened a factory in China. It is the Chinese who are doing bad and not the Westerners.
Oh, and for your further information, the Chinese are better off now than they have ever been in their history. Remember China has always had an authoritarian government with the peasants belonging pretty much to the land and only a very small group of elites able to read and write.
Welcome to the evils of capitalism.
Modern industrial capitalism came to England in the late 1700s. Remember it was here that Karl Marx got his ideas about socialism and communism and the concept of oppression and exploitation. The evils of capitalism on full display in a country that was transforming itself from agriculture to industrial. The people working in those factories in 18th Century England were exactly the same as the workers in China today. Who are better off, those who stayed on the farm, worked into old age and died before the age of 40 or those who went to the cities, worked in the factories, interacted with other people and had their eyes opened by a much larger world? These workers knew what they were getting into and they made a decision to work in the cities. Same with the Chinese who are migrating to the cities where the factories are. Life in the factory beats the hell out of life as a peasant every time.
Welcome to China today. You expect them to start out in a place in time and space that took us 200 years to reach. Go from ignorant and backward peasant farmer to highly paid wage earner in a modern factory overnight. It has never happened anywhere in the developing world. High wages mean no factories which means no jobs which in turn means no high wages.
China is a developing country. Follow the history of developing countries including the US (and don’t forget the exploitations going on in the early 1900s). We learned, the factory workers learned and laws were made to control the inherent evils of capitalism. World pressure, enlightened Westerners should force the current system to change in China and especially if it means the end to their money flow. Human nature does not change just because of location or ethnic background. Capitalism has given what the normal, common Chinese peasant has never had before – a future.
Steve Jobs is the most brilliant conveyer of technology for us common folks that the world has ever produced. “He thinks success requires “listening to the technology” in order to “discover” the potential products waiting to be invented.” No one listens quite like he does. Hate him or love him, he is not incompetent as our current resident of the WH most definitely is.
I admit that many of the “liberals” I know tend to use Apples. I suspect that the reason why, is that their computer methodology is for a stable, user-friendly (less complex to operate,) system, and due to their unwillingness to spend the research time to find a system that might better meet their needs now and in the future. For the non-tech savvy novice computer user who just uses a computer for email, cruising the web or playing around with pictures and video for YouTube, I would recommend a Mac. The ones that like to get their “fingers dirty” and add lots of bells and whistles later, I steer towards PC’s
I’ve worked on both systems (Mac & PC) heavily. The Apple computers are definitely more stable. No argument about it. The Operating System is pretty idiot proof, and the GUI interface is fairly simplistic. For power-users (like myself) they are also very limiting. There is very little in the way of hardware customization or upgrading that you can do.
In comparison, Consider an Apple to be like a BMW, while a PC is more like a 1960’s musclecar that you can keep “factory-stock”, lightly customize, or turn into a bracket racer.
They are often touted by hardcore Apple aficionados as being “virus proof”. (This is not factual, and Apple admits that they are not virus proof, but that they are only “less likely to get a virus”. The reason why, is because the purpose of a creating a computer virus is to infect, spread and damage as many computers as possible. Apples are a much smaller share of the market, so virus designers tend to focus on the majority owned PC platform.) Mac computers can experience hardware failure, and you pretty much will NOT be able to fix the problem yourself.
I generally use PC’s more often, because I can be much more productive on a PC. I can multitask and work about three to five times faster with Windows. I can quickly navigate through the drives to find exactly the file I need, and I can quickly jump back and forth between programs to work my magic on said files. (Various programs have their own strengths and weaknesses, and certain tasks have different results depending on which program you used to work with the file.) Windows is a much less stable operating system, but I’m willing to put up with that. I can easily update and change a PC’s components, to modify or customize a system that meets my current needs, rather than be forced to make do with a cookie cutter system.
Chill, I currently use a Mac. I use it for specific purposes, that are fairly simple. Like most people, I use only 2% of the machine’s capacity.
Most people who drive a car have no idea what happens to make key, gas, and tires propel you to ruin or a successful trip to the grocery. That describes my basic knowledge of the computer. With cars and trucks I have done many repairs in trying circumstances. Dropping a transmission or pulling an engine, while on the road, would be a challenge without a shop, but I know I can get the job done. The computer is more of a mystery to me. You have obviously developed your Mac skills with the passage of time. I probably should have taken my Apple IIE apart and kept it going in the 80’s, but that didn’t happen.
With the recent acquisition of my second Mac, I became aware of the Mac as a fashion statement among the affluent neighborhoods of American suburbia. Due to the nature of my work, these are the places I tend to work. It would take a certain amount of sensory denial to say that I am seeing apparitions. Yes, I realize the true advantage of the Mac platform is for the artist, cinematographer, and musician. I work for some of these people and except for a battery of various and assorted computers in their homes and studios, they don’t care to make a fashion statement with their computer. They, like me, are oblivious to the labor situation in China, and after reading and listening to the fawning reports from Obama regarding China’s infrastructure, why would we give it a second thought; until, we become aware of the true situation and nature of the smoke screen that is promoted as the great Revolution of Socialism. Jobs is a typical Elitist Socialist, who realizes an inner vision of themselves as a leader who can live in luxury while directing his underlings with brutality and cruelty. Yes, he brought a great system of electronic marvels to life, but mainly he had an operating system in mind, like a cantina owner who wants to give the customer excellent service and hired the right people to see it through. He has been a major contributor to the system in China; that is allowed to continue with its virtual slavery because of men like Jobs and our weakness for cheap electronics at the expense of someone else’s misery. His unwitting sycophants, who smile so smugly while they proudly display their Macs with contrived indifference, only serve to perpetuate the myth, and are indirectly smiling at their control of the Chinese. These are the Mac users I am referring to, if you take offense, you should include yourself among them.
Yes, I am fairly familiar with history and the Industrial Revolution; although, I lack formal education, my years of home schooling involved a disproportionate amount of time studying history, mainly as a result of my father’s personal library. I will concede the battlefield of formal historical training, but it may be a mistake to underestimate the abilities of the home schooled farm kids. Once the gauntlet of debate hits the table, degrees often become so much chaff in the wind.
Woah there cowboy. I am an Okie born and raised and I plan to die an Okie. The finest most intelligent people I have ever met were farmers and beef ranchers in southern Oklahoma. I am not elite in attitude nor feelings. I did not really take offense because I stated clearly (and cleverly, I thought) that the Mac is not political, it is just a machine. I am a conservative because I have lived in places and done things in those places very few people on the planet have had the privilege of doing. I am conservative because I have seen the other side and it is made up of lies and emptiness, pain and suffering and a loss of personal freedom which I believe we are all born with but is taken away by men of evil.
It does not appear that we are debating, as we probably agree on ALL the basics. My intent was to inform you of what is actually happening in China. Steve Jobs, Intel, and the rest of these investors have been taken in by the factory system of China. They are stuck. They cannot possibly break away without destroying the product line and the corporation in which they are associated. The people who own them expect profit and thus to move from China would be the end of them. Steve Jobs and the rest probably do not care except when it hits the papers and fingers are pointed. It is when these fingers are pointed and people see what is happening, that changes will come but it will be slow as it is in all developing countries. You seem to think that Jobs and the other entrepreneurs went into China knowing that the people working in the Apple factories would be abused and exploited and that is just not the case. Jobs is not the bad guy here – the Chinese exploiters are the bad guys. In Apple’s case it is Foxconn. Here is a quote from Steve Jobs about the suicides at some of Foxconn facturies.
“You go in this place and it’s a factory but, my gosh, they’ve got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it’s pretty nice,’ he said.
The man visited the Foxconn facturies and everything was set up just for his viewing pleasure and he is clueless about the Potemkin swimming pools, hospitals, movie theaters and such. Garbage, pure unadulterated garbage. Steve Jobs and his fellow investors WANT to believe this fairy tale so they do.
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1283389/Apple-boss-Steve-Jobs-defends-China-Foxconn-factory-conditions-10-suicides.html)
The Chinese peasant lives a hard and unrewarding life. What you seem to want is to force him to remain on the farm with no future. Moving to the cities and working in Foxconn factories gives these people a better life multiplied by a thousand. How do I know this? I have very close friends who are Chinese peasants or at least people from peasant families. That does not justify the exploitation but the exploitation is well known and understood and yet the people make that decision and move.
Actually, my last research a couple of years ago, indicated that the factories on the average are operating at around 60% because there are not enough workers to meet the demand. Welcome to the one child policy. When one breaks natural law, one pays for it one way or the other. China law breaking is coming home to roost and the leaders across China know it but they are stuck with it.
Obama and his regime can tout the Chinese infrastructure all they want. Pure Potemkin from the unlived in apartments overlooking the ocean in Zhuhai to the tearing down and rebuilding of the schools and hospitals every two or there years to invest in the infrastructure. The hospitals in China, the biggest majority, are dangerous. I know because I almost went blind believing the “medical advice” I received. The biggest majority of medical practitioners are followers of Chinese medicine with absolutely no knowledge of Western medicine.
Beijing is untenable as a city. Too many cars with not enough roads. Last month we had to wait for over three hours stuck in traffic jam around 100 km from Beijing. We traveled from Datong to Beijing and our driver told us that this was normal and on a six lane separated freeway to boot. A huge joke, is what Chinese infrastructure is all about.
What really makes me laugh is the slogan – Socialism with Chinese characteristics. The place is capitalism even more intensely than the US (actually I have not been back to the States for eight years). Private businesses drive the local economies. Most of our friends in the small town(650,000) where we lived were business people operating Chinese pharmacies, computer software companies or restaurant owners and such. Pure unfettered capitalists they were.
Again, one has to be very careful not to think of China as that huge monolithic Communist threat. Countries that trade generally do not go to war as it would disrupt too many peoples lives and 1.4 billion people disrupted would most definitely let Beijing know about the disruption.
Bottom line for me is that Steve Jobs is a genius at “listening to technology” and making products we think we need. Politically, I could care less about him or his Apple. I am not a computer illiterate, having built my first computer using a TRS 80 as a base back in the 1970s. I started using computers in the military as early as 1972 when we used paper tape in the intel business. As an airborne linguist I was the comm guy who sent encrypted messages to the ground site using a very expensive computer with core memory (bet you don’t know what that is).
I am a power computer user who spends a lot of time in Photoshop and original anti-liberal poetry (http://podunkdhimmi.blogspot.com/) but I despise computers. Tried my hand at programming and hated it. I currently run a minimac (for travel purposes), a cube and a imac all with about 5 terrabytes of total storage. My minimac is hooked up to a 32″ monitor (remember I said I almost went blind). I have taken apart just about every type of Mac made up to around 2002 and gotten them to work just for the heck of it. I have also built at least two PCs totally from scratch (which made me hate them even more). I swear by Macs simply because they cease to be computers and are an extension of what I am trying to do with a computer. I do not have to think about CPUs, biases, hard drives,mother boards and crap. Just do it.
I would not be too hard on the fools who know nothing about China and keep making statements about China. China, for most Americans, is a very deep mystery. China is no mystery to me as I have travelled in China more than most of the Chinese have. I love Chinese history and the Chinese. They are the one constant throughout their history. Hey, my wife is 100% ethnic Chinese and we have been married 36 years come August!
Chill: thank you for the in-depth review. I respect and envy your knowledge of both China, languages, and computers.
The poetry page was fun. I write poetry on these cyber pages now and then, just because I have a certain limited artistic license here at FA.
Perhaps the Chinese situation needs to be exposed, not specifically and only directed at Jobs, but because of the situation in general. The advancement of the Chinese peasant since the time of Mao, a time that is not in the distant past, has improve immensely. I would like to see the Chinese join the modern nations of the world, but not through the evil machinations of Elitists who control 80% of the wealth through political treachery.
I discriminate, not against people, but against evil and corruption. I actually like people who have no intention of trying to cut my throat in a literal or metaphorical sense. I dislike Socialism; especially, when they employ presumptive pretensions of equality and freedom, the old proverb “to each according to whatever degree he has the courage and power to steal from others” , sickens me. Thus the smug self-righteous air of arrogance and ignorance of those who carry the Mac as an identity and fashion statement bothers me. The altruistic seeker of a false identity connected by the image of a machine being produced udder such circumstances bothers me. A little humility often comes with the truth and most Americans have no concept of the truth and reality. That is why we have a few thousand seekers drop in for a few minutes; they are seeking the truth or they may want to know what truths we devious Conservatives are spreading for the day.
The truth is what will change China and the truth is being spread once again, as it once was in Colonial America; an event that changed the world, much to the chagrin of noted Marxists throughout history. For the truth destroys their arguments and makes them irrelevant to all but the indigent, evil, stupid, naive, and lazy. We are the small brochure printers of the late 18th Century; except, we have far greater capabilities and reach a far broader audience.
The best to you and your wife in your idyllic life.
Starbucks And A Mac
Embraced by the smell of their Starbucks
Momentary magic to the nose, criminally delux
The concept of the seven dollar latte
Brings joy to the liberal spirit every day
Clever typing boldly keeps a rhythmical flow
Enticing other liberals to look and sway to and fro
The new Macbook Air envelopes each liberal mind
Their thoughts are synchronized as the awes are combined
Completely absorbed by this liberal elite stimulation
They together pride themselves in the supreme sensation
That they and only they are the nations elites profound
Using a Macbook liberals in awesomeness crowned
Sipping their Starbucks and using a Mac – heaven on earth
Their love of self goes beyond mere mortal worth
Far better than riches and deposits of gold
It’s the liberal way of life and a joy to behold
@ Skook,
“Perhaps the Chinese situation needs to be exposed, not specifically and only directed at Jobs, but because of the situation in general.”
For years now, America has been handed concrete, and extensive evidence of the questionable practices and standards that are pervasive throughout the manufacturing food chain in its dominant product source. The problems are not going away. They can’t. They are systemic.
America should wake up to that fact and so should its leadership.
Chinese leaders abuse their massive workforce, because they can. Short term thinking is not about to evaporate, and “every man for himself” will continue to affect the quality of the deliverables. We are sending hundreds of billions of hard earned dollars to a country that ignores patents, trademarks and all manner of protected intellectual property. Even very large powerful American companies are getting hurt, and will continue to get hurt.
Long gone are those “good old days” of Made in Japan, where you felt a determination to provide respect, civility, high quality – even a striving for perfection, cleanliness, honouring contracts, basic politeness, long term business planning, long term business relationships, etc.
Americans will slowly get educated to the reality that they are financing a System that is foreign to their own culture; a System that is very different; and a System that is not about to change.
JR, the proverb, “cutting off the nose to spite the face” seems appropriate.
There are two rationalizations Americans use to justify turning over our manufacturing to China. We are helping the Chinese evolve into an industrialized nation and the goods are cheap.
In the long term, the system is self defeating; unless, America can stand as an agrarian and service oriented country. I don’t think that model will stand for long. Producing goods with added value is the basis for a dynamic economy. Without added value, otherwise known as profit, an economy becomes stagnant and eventually shrinks into insignificance. This has been the result if not the model for every Socialist system from the beginning and now with our glorious plans for Redistribution in place, our economy seems to be aging momentum into the abyss of Socialist Idealism and failure that Putin was gracious enough to warn us about when it became obvious that TOTUS was a Marxist.
We seem to be in the situation of someone who has stepped on a land mine that explodes when you lift your foot off the mine. The answer is within education; although, not within the current curriculums, those have been eroded and compromised with the intentional indoctrination of the Left and of the Socialist influences of the Teachers’ unions.
The education system can undergo a true revolution with the machine you are looking at right now and the costs will be comparatively insignificant. For example, if say one million twelve year old students listen to a sub-standard lecture on the French Revolution by tens of thousands of uninspiring lecturers, what have we accomplished? In my opinion we have accomplished less than nothing, because we have lost the majority of students to the mediocrity of sub-standard lecturing. Why not seek out the foremost experts and most gifted lecturer on the French Revolution and pay them to do an educational series. Students now have an alternative for the French Revolution that can be paid for and reviewed when necessary. When we compare the high cost of employing millions of Socialist Indoctrinators compared to the cost of providing the absolute best in instruction in education. There would be no alternatives for serious students who want to avoid the now traditional washing of the brain by our public education scam.
Barnes And His Noble Noodle
Fair haired maidens, know me as Barnes
My airs as an author sets off their alarms
Ah, but real prose comes not so easy
My outward appearances, seem sleazy
For I am an author in pretension
So involved in useless revision
But your eyes tell you the lies
we who dress the part still try
To write among giants in the big bookstore
It’s not our fault, life’s played a cruel joke
It is easy to walk through the glass door
Much harder to write and not be heart broke
Aye, to sit amongst the great collection
Admiring the philosophers, men of wit
Asking favors of coy muse and direction
With Mac and coffee on a table, here I sit
Primed with black coffee ready for inspiration
Props are in place, God knows I am in position
Now with fabled Mac, I pose, fingers at attention
Surely, I am not deficient in classical erudition
My coffee is black and bold, my Mac is of latest model
Ignored by little fairies of prose drives men to the bottle
But I will have sweet cake and coffee instead
Tomorrow’s failure, I will yet refuse to dread
Tomorrow is just another day
Once more I will join the fray
I know no fear, For I have my Mac
Once again I will sit ready to attack
Skook,
“The education system can undergo a true revolution with the machine you are looking at right now and the costs will be comparatively insignificant. . . . . Why not seek out the foremost experts and most gifted lecturer on the French Revolution and pay them to do an educational series. Students now have an alternative for the French Revolution that can be paid for and reviewed when necessary.”
You have perfectly stated a part of the foundation to a solution. The power of our technologies, presents us that opportunity.
I’ve watched Bill Gates throw hundreds of millions at completely futile and misguided educational “projects” that have gone nowhere, when he could have very easily implemented the very program that you so succinctly present.
I thought that Google might head in that direction a few years ago, however their self serving blindness precluded anything worthwhile. They are too preoccupied with control, and beyond their core business model (advertising), the company is run by people with very little vision.
There’s also no chance that the current crop of leaders in Washington will stray from its union base, so bringing the solution to the fore will be a long slog.
I also should note that those neighbourhoods you mentioned, . . . Palo Alto, Hillsborough, and surrounds, don’t really care about education. They pay lip service, but are too engrossed in their own pecking position on the ladder of life.
Having spent way too much of my time in those “circles” I became very saddened by what I was uncovering. Trust me, I wanted to find those kernels of “life,” and opened Spirits, that might be prepared to actually DO something about the pathetic state of education. Lip service, I got. True support, NONE.
I ran in to a REAL GEM POST HERE, with commenters participating , in a way I like,
mixing poetry while exposing the abuse, and praising the sick genius and his machine
unable to percieve the sickening work conditions of the masses in CHINA,
where another come to equalyse the balance of the POST to try to show the core of the situation which he, WILL, that is, maintain irreversible to change, because of the implication that it would become impossible to manage!!! NOW, I for a different opinion I refuse to accept that word “IRREVERSIBLE”
THERE IS A WAY TO GRADUALY DELEGATE JOBS BACK TO AMERICA, WHERE THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN TO BEGIN WITH; and STEVE OWE IT TO THIS AMERICA TO MAKE THE CHANGE AS AN AMERICAN, that is as simple as it is, he could have a perfect product made in his own backyard,
by AMERICANS WHO NEED JOBS, and the people should take a good look at products made out of AMERICA AS THEY SHOULD FAVOR THEIR OWN NATION FIRST, A MUST FOR ENTREPRENEUR,
it can be done, it should have been done at first, and STEVE COULD MAKE ANY FIT HE WANT, BUT HIS PRODUCT IS NOT GOOD IF IT’S MADE OUT OF AMERICA,
ON a very low scale, exemple, I will add, that if my favorit recipye, require GARLIC,
IT WONT TASTE AS GOOD IF I cannot use the AMERICAN GARLIC BECAUSE THE STORE ONLY SELL THE CHINEESE GARLIC,
‘
JR, I can’t help but think of the rampaging Grizzly, who walks into camp causing havoc with horses and supplies. The Grizzly can instill fear in men’s hearts; I have felt it myself. Several hunters shoot quick and wildly, their bullets dropping branches from above and drilling harmless holes in the ground. Until on hunter takes careful aim and sends the fatal bullet through the heart of the ferocious bruin.
That one true shot is what education in this country needs, to give courage and inspiration to others. Education can become a mirrored image of our free market system. An education can be so awe inspiring that men of our age would never stop acquiring formal education: indeed, why did we stop? because, the results don’t justify the effort, time, and expense. That could all change and we could be a dynamic nation of thinkers; rather than a nation of semi-educated and under informed multitudes.
But the focus should be on youth, and why should an inquiring mind be stunted by the limited abilities of an uninspiring instructor or the curriculum imposed by a semi-literate school board in Podunk, USA. If the sixth grade mind can handle the best university lectures on Shakespeare or physics, why hold him back because of geographical location and a teaching regimen that refuses to acknowledge the possibilities of modern technology.
Of course attending Harvard and Stanford in their geographical locations will be less significant, except for acquiring the necessary social skills of snobbery and elitist entitlement; since, a more rounded and richer university education can be created by cherry picking courses from among the greatest minds in each field. A learning process that will be available after the demise of the lecturer, presumably in perpetuity or until his abilities are eclipsed by new talent.
I have a multitude of ideas, but lack the ability and funding to initiate such projects. Let me know if someone needs an idea man; preferably, a man of vision who is truly interested in revising and improving education for the masses and not just a select privileged few.
Thanks Skookum, love your post! Here’s another horror story of what awaits foreign manufacturers in Red China; A Cautionary Tale Of Outsourcing To China: There Is No Recourse, You Could Lose Everything, http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/11/0415/Fellowes1.html
CHINA IS AT THE POINT IN THEIR STANDING THEY THINK THEY
THEY HAVE BECOME THE SUPER POWER, THEREFOR TREATING THE AMERICAN COMPANIES, LIKE SO, WE MUST REACT TO THIS BEHAVIOR UNACCEPTABLE NOW, BUT THAT COULD BECOME INTOLARABLE IF POSSIBLY CONTINIUE, their having signed their partnership with RUSSIA propelled them to that way of thinking,
and the AMERICA’S must be aware and strongly remind them to get back down a few steps in their quest for domination of the world. and also remind them that what they now know ,originated from our companies unaware of their future intent to steal it
As my wife and I sat at the bookstore/coffee shop today we saw no obvious symptoms of grief for the deceased chinese workers demonstrated by any of the customers as they chatted and played with their ipads/ipods . But then again we were both busy fiddling with our own ipads. We both saw that news bit when it aired, but for some reason we don’t feel any guilt that we are both ipad junkies. Yes its sad about the chinese jumpers, but I would rather blame the liberals than the ipads. Kinda like alcohol, I don’t blame the makers of alcohol when a drunk driver kills a person. Or guns for all that matter. Just more proof that liberalism is a lie.
I like this blog it is really informative i will be sure to book mark it and come back to it occassionally