I've finally figured out what's wrong with America. We just can't seem to wrap our heads around what's important. Since we can't, we are doomed to failure.
I was saddened but not outraged by the Susan Komen foundation's decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood. Saddened by the lack of leadership by that organization. It is a private non-profit, and its board can do whatever it wants to. I am heartened by all who wish to contribute directly to Planned Parenthood.
Preventing breast cancer in women is not a laughing matter. My wife's mother died after a long battle with breast cancer. I fear that the same could happen to my wife, even though she gets regular screenings, and tries to manage the risks.
There's been a lot of hand wringing and pearl clutching in the last 36 hours over this move by this non profit organization whose mission is to raise money and disburse it to organizations and programs to whom it deems worthy.
For those who oppose the decision, the choice is easy, don't make donations to this organization. Period.
Now on to Apple. Apple is the largest corporation in the United States when it comes to market capitalization. It has 44,00o domestic employees, yet almost none of its most popular products or suppliers are made in the United States.
I know there are a lot of consumer of Apple products who post to this site. Yet, I've seen almost no one who was willing to write to Apple to complain or stop using Apple products.
When President Obama sought to provide loan guarantees to GM and Chrysler, he wasn't doing it to just to keep jobs at Chrysler and GM. He was trying to save jobs everywhere in the automotive manufacturing supply chain in the United State and North America.
Accepting Apple's response "those jobs are gone" is not recognizing the power that Apple consumers have. Demanding that products are made in the U.S. is not an unreasonable request. It may reduce the profit structure for the company, and the company may charge a premium on U.S. made products, but Apple users are paying a premium anyway.
So where's the outrage? Where the movement to vote against Apple by using your power as consumers?
Are you so complacent that you have an iPad, or iPhone and you don;t care that some slave laborer made it?
Nike corporation had a huge public relations problem in the 1980s when it was revealed their overseas workers were forced to work in sweatshops with no concern for workplace safety and worker health. Consumers rose up and Nike was forced to take action.
Yet, Apple users are just sheep who just accept what Steve Jobs said, and what Apple executive say about those jobs losses are permanent. Only if you let them.
I worked in manufacturing four years and watched factory after factory close and move the work offshore to low cost workers. Mainly because the companies that ran them could pocket huge off shore profits without paying taxes.
I have never purchased an Apple product. Until they produce items in the United States, I never will. That's my stand...what's yours.
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But you bring up most worthy points.
Didn't they get bought out by Bill Gates?
:D
Just kidding, never have really used an Apple product(Back in the early days of my computing, I was a big fan of Radio Shack's Tandy....and after that, Microsoft became my bread and butter in my career....WINDOWS!!!!!!) and I've said for a long time, those companies who outsource should have their "Savings" taxed so high that it will be more profitable to make the stuff here in the States.
Any product or service.
Companies should be rewarded who keep jobs here, in America, and we the consumers should buy those products and services, instead of the products and services made in other countries, especially those that use the slave labor and horrible working conditions!
Rated my canine friend!!
(But I seriously need to stop reading these good but serious posts, they make me think which makes my head hurt!! WAAA!! ;D)
This outsourcing is madness and it took us all a long time to wake up to that.
Our spending is creating evil conditions in other countries and destroying the good one we had here. We are doing it to ourselves as well as them. This post and others like it help dispel the lies that we have been sold that all these power-magnates are benevolent. Time is running out quickly.
Back in the 80's people still remembered that if wrong could be done to someone else, it can be done to them. I have no problem with outsourcing if the people I compete with for jobs have the same pay and conditions. If they did, then they would be able to buy what we make and it would be good for workers everywhere.
Even if we leave morality out of it, any time someone else has to do the same thing I do for less money, that person is my competition.
If the Komen Foundation had said, we are a prolife organization from the beginning, they might not have the millions of dollars they have now. The money they take away from Planned Parenthood may be a mere pittance compared to the money they spend on themselves staying salaried and legally tight, but they were supposed to be about women's health care and survival. Now, they are onto something else- after having taken so much money from everyone.
For OESheepdog. . . Huzzah! Huzzah! Bully!
(I have TR on the brain today)
I think my point is made, and that point is that it isn't Apple that's to blame -- it's a system that considers profit the only worthy consideration.
I'm afraid we will be plagued with such problems until we grow-up as a nation -- and a people -- and come to understand that unfettered corporate capitalism is not something to be desired -- let alone admired.
I'm glad that Apple's overseas manufacturing has come to light. I don't know if it will make any difference. Americans expect their electronics to be build in East Asia.
Down here (SW TX--yes, it IS another planet), we had a Levi Strauss blue-jean manufacturing plant that pulled up stakes and moved operations to Costa Rica--even though they had shown record profits for the previous 2 YEARS. In CR, they were paying their workers $10 a DAY.
The majority of their workers were mostly women of color, single heads of household, who earned $6.35 a day (this was mid-80s), but they also had health insurance and other benefits. Those ladies may have had jobs, albeit back- and soul-breaking--lots of carpal-tunnel problems from cutting heavy denim to make the jeans.
But LS officials insisted that "no promises had been broken" when they left town in search of more $$. Since then, I won't buy a LS hair ribbon in protest.
The best way anyone can respond to such cruelty is to "protest w/their wallets." If enough people stopped buy their toys (do you really NEED that iPod?), Apple just might get the hint.
Mary -- Apple users have almost a cult like regard for those products. yet they look askance at how Apple exploits workers. It bothers me deeply.
Tink -- Thanks for the serious comments on my serious post.
Fernsy -- The legal is system is broken. No doubt about that.
Songbird -- I am pro-choice. Screening is important. The Komen Foundation is not the only game in town.
bleue -- nicely said.
Rita -- I understand we all have different priorities. I'm not advocating one over another. I only wish that people would harness the same kind of outrage again the for profit world.
OB -- It is clear from what I have been reading in the last 36 hours, the a psychological contract between the Komen foundation and women has been broken. That is maddening and sad. I don't condone what they did, only recognize that they can do anything that they want. I hope support for Komen dries up, and that suport goes to other "worthy causes"
If all charitable orgs caved like this, all a congressional bastard would have to do is ANNOUNCE an investigation and never have to show any results bc he'd know the damage has already been inflicted.
Maybe we all should watch Woody Allen's THE FRONT again.
rated.
I dogged Apple until the day was done, but to no avail. Hear me now: Apple pretty, easy, colorful and eeeeeevil.
Done.
The cult-like regard comes from actually being able to use the products rather than spending all of our time trying to get them to work. In addition, the products all work well together. Those who wish to spend most of their time fixing their computers and trying to figure out why their PC contacts don't transfer into their phones should stay away from Apple products.
The loss of manufacturing jobs and the treatment of overseas workers are important issues that should be addressed by our elected representatives. Accordingly, I try to vote for the candidates who I believe will address these issues. If our elected representatives fail to address these issues, there is very little that I, as a consumer, can do. And for me, the inconvenience of purchasing inferior products more than outweighs what little good I would do by purchasing a non-Apple product -- that most likely would ALSO be manufactured overseas by poorly-paid workers laboring under bad conditions.
In order to be truly righteous I suppose I should buy an abacus instead of a computer, making sure that the abacus is made from environmentally-friendly materials by a minority/female-owned local business employing happy workers enjoying good pay and benefits. Unfortunately, the abacus doesn't do email.
-Ray Bradbury
But, and I see by a quick glance at the first couple of comments, the question I had in mind has been voiced by others: If not Apple, then where is the American-made computers we can get instead?
If I do get around to ordering those products from Apple, I will accompany my order with a (totally futile) letter of complaint about their manufacturing policies.
Where is the outrage??
Yet where do we purchase anything 'made in America' these days??
Certainly not anything resembling any computer of any brand.
I say pick your goal and then plan your battle. If it is Apple then speak out. Write about it. Make a change for the better, or at least attempt to educate, as Fernsy is doing.
The cult-like regard comes from actually being able to use the products rather than spending all of our time trying to get them to work. In addition, the products all work well together. Those who wish to spend most of their time fixing their computers and trying to figure out why their PC contacts don't transfer into their phones should stay away from Apple products.
Mishima got this right. For years, I've used Macs at home and usually had Windows machines at work. The Windows computers have been royal pains in the ass all too often, while my Macs have been much easier and nearly trouble-free. My first home computer was an IBM. I switched to Apple machines in the late 1980s and I've never regretted that switch.
Do Apple's labor practices trouble me? Yes. And I intend to write to Apple about it. I doubt that the labor practices for manufacturers of Windows computers are any better. We should be looking at all companies that send jobs out of the country.
I was listening to a story recently about manufacturing in China. Seems like they either have inventories of manufacturing buildings and infrastructure in place or can have it up and going in a tremendously short timeframe--apparently they're not concerned about Environmental Impact Statements or infrastructural improvement planning. And, if X number of workers are needed, there apparently is a waiting supply housed nearby that is almost instantly available. That's just NOT possible in the U.S., let alone wages. However, should American companies be doing business in that fashion? They have to KNOW that's how it's happening.
We constantly hear that it's all about costs--naw, it's all about return on investment (short-term) and profit margins.
Seems as though in America a "good" job with Apple is a clerk in an Apple store rather than investing in the wherewithal to actually MAKE Apple products here. (Remember when Gateway was actually made in a barn--and then in a facility in Sioux Falls?)
You really made me think with this piece, man.