Stop buying Coca Cola and Asprin

I'll make this shoooort and sweet.

1. The multinational companies are the only things that are keeping these people from complete starvation. They come into countries giving people jobs... yes, it's exploitation, and yes... it's terrible... but the world ain't a pretty place... the coorporations are not going to change their ways, they are just going to move out of the country, find a different one, and leave thousands of people unemployed and starving.

2. Sweatshops in Honduras are a very beneficial thing. People literaly line up for blocks to be able to put some work in at a sweatshop. They provide people with contract labour... people can actually get much more than miniscule minimum wage working in them. Ask some poor Honduras!

3. I'm not rich. I work 8 hours a day at a greenhouse with Mexican immigrants moving heavy tables and plants around all day... while you probably sit at some bloody cubicle and bitch all day.

4. You people are not doing the right thing.

5. I did not call any of you idiots, I called the idea idiotic.

6. Freewheelin' Franklin is an asshole.

 

I've worked in a greenhouse before, and I don't recall it being THAT hard. The bending can be rough on your back, but if you do it right it's not so bad. I've never worked behind a desk before in my life, but thank you for assuming so.

you keep saying that sweatshops are beneficial, that it's better than starving yada yada. I mean, you could use argument for anything...resorting to cannibalism is better than starving, but that doesn't make it a GOOD thing. It's just that there is NO alternative if you want to live, even though it means you'll be just barely living. People existed in honduras before the corporations took over, would you have us believe that they just lived and died in piles of their own shit, eating dirt and leaves and living just long enough to create the next generation who were also doomed to lives of total and complete misery? Allowing people to recieve real pay for the work they do will NOT bring about economic collapse. It hasn't done it to any other country that I can think of. Can you name any? In fact, the quality of life seems to IMPROVE when workers rights, child labor laws and other protections are demanded and recieved. As a matter of fact, it's the countries who lack such laws/rights who suffer the most against disease, starvation and all the happy things that go with it.

 

What, greenhouse work? I lift 300 pound tables with another guy all day and carry 100 pound 24 inch pots, and then some 50 pound bags of soil... but that's beyond the point... you should see my muscles though, I look like hot shit.

Anyhow...

Resorting to cannibalism is indeed better than starving. I would eat you.

People did not exist in Honduras in such numbers before there were corporations. People reproduce... and there is not enough food to feed the growing population (Honduras has a very high growth rate, check the CIA Factbook). People CANNOT receive real pay for the work they do... because there would be no work. These corporations go to places like Honduras for two reasons:

1. The government encourages international business and offers tax-free industrial zones.
2. CHEAP LABOUR!

Can you think of any 3rd world country in which corporations suddenly decided to be altruistic and completely raise the benefits and working conditions in all the factories?

Honestly.

Honduras, and other countries such as Honduras do not have the economical, political, or social stability for corporations to actually invest money into such things as worker rights and so.

Yet again, Child labour laws will only result in lots of dead children.

Don't you understand that some countries do not have such laws because they simply cannot have them?

Go back into your American daydream... there is real poverty out there, and corporations, no matter how unethical, are still helping people stay alive.

 

What, greenhouse work? I lift 300 pound tables with another guy all day and carry 100 pound 24 inch pots, and then some 50 pound bags of soil... but that's beyond the point... you should see my muscles though, I look like hot shit.

Anyhow...

Resorting to cannibalism is indeed better than starving. I would eat you.

People did not exist in Honduras in such numbers before there were corporations. People reproduce... and there is not enough food to feed the growing population (Honduras has a very high growth rate, check the CIA Factbook). People CANNOT receive real pay for the work they do... because there would be no work. These corporations go to places like Honduras for two reasons:

1. The government encourages international business and offers tax-free industrial zones.
2. CHEAP LABOUR!

Can you think of any 3rd world country in which corporations suddenly decided to be altruistic and completely raise the benefits and working conditions in all the factories?

Honestly.

Honduras, and other countries such as Honduras do not have the economical, political, or social stability for corporations to actually invest money into such things as worker rights and so.

Yet again, Child labour laws will only result in lots of dead children.

Don't you understand that some countries do not have such laws because they simply cannot have them?

Go back into your American daydream... there is real poverty out there, and corporations, no matter how unethical, are still helping people stay alive.

 

youre so brave

 

Smug Sir Robin: What is your major malfunction? Are you doing a self-exam for lower colon polyps, or what? Now, pay attention kid. Professor Franklin's class is in session...

First of all, the reason that things are bad in Central America is because that is what the United States wants. I assume you know your geography, since you get to do a lot of traveling (being the child of privilege that you are), so I am sure you know that Honduras is sandwiched in there between Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Now, junior, pay attention:

In 1944, there was a revolution in Guatemala that succeeded in overthrowing a tyrannical leader named [size=-1]Jorge Ubico.
The Guatemalans established (horrors!) a democratic government modeled after Roosevelt's New Deal in order to make their country economically independent. Well, the US of A couldn't have that, a successful Latin American country with an independent democratically-elected government and a self-sustaining economy! Nosireesir! We went in there and overthrew their legally and democratically elected government, and set up another dictator. We have to go in there and kick some butt every so often, but hey: only about 200,000 Guatemalans have been killed since then, so no big deal. At least we got the message across.


Our economic "aid" to Latin America goes to the governments and dictators who serve U.S. corporate interests. We own lots of land in Central America, which means we can force the campasinos to grow bananas to import to America (for smoothies for certain globe-trotting yuppie-larva *ahem*) instead of maize and other crops they need to survive.

In El Salvador, it was worse. In the 1970s there was an uprising of people's groups, unions, and church-led organizations designed to help not only the economy but the deplorable situation of civil rights abuses. When Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of El Salvador, begged President Jimmy "Peanut" Carter to stop sending aid to the evil and tyrannical juntas that ran the government, he was assassinated. Just days before, at Rio Sumpul, a combined Salvadorian-Honduran force (bankrolled by the US, of course) massacred over 600 people. Infants were chopped into bits with machetes, and the women were raped, tortured, and drowned. Then things really started to get bad. By 1981 the death toll was over 13,000. Here's a quote from Daniel Santiago, a Catholic priest who was working in El Salvador:
People are not just killed by death squads in Elsalvador--they are decapitated and then their heads are placed on pikes and used to dot the landscape. Men are not just disemboweled by the Salvadoran Treasury Police; their severed genitalia are stuffed into their mouths. Salvadoran women are not just raped by the National Guard; their wombs are cut from their bodies and used to cover their faces. It is not enough to kill children; they are dragged over barbed wire until the flesh falls from their bones, while parents are forced to watch.

Of course, it was worse in Nicaragua. When the Sandinistas worked on overthrowing the dictator Anastasio Somoza, they were trying to create a government that really cared about its people. Education, land reforms, you name it. Of course, that was not to be tolerated. George Shultz called it "a cancer, right here in our land mass." We sent massive aid to our buddies the contras (remember Ollie North?) while pressuring other nations to withhold aid. I have a friend who's father was killed there in the ensuing civil war.

The reason, as you so blithely put it,

[/size]

[size=-1]is because the United States wants it that way. The reason people have jobs there making a whopping 73 cents an hour is because our corporations (such as the United Fruit Company, which basically owns Costa Rica) can make more profit that way. The United States wants these countries to suffer, not only to be an example to any other upstarts like Nicaragua that want a better life for their people, but to make sure our corporate interests aren’t threatened. So do us a favor, Brave Sir Turkey: put down your crack pipe, toss daddy's credit cards away, and go out in the real world and do a bit more research.
[/size]

Well, I may be, but at least I'm a well informed asshole. YOU, on the other hand, are just some thinks-he-knows-it-all spoiled-brat asshole.
[size=-1]

[/size]

 

Nice history lesson. My civics teacher in 9th grade was nice enough to teach me all of that though.

Wanna know a funny fact? Most of the sweatshops in Honduras are owned by Asians (mostly South Koreans), not even the US!

Imagine that! Wow, it alone disproved your theory of US evil.

Is the US partially responsible for this? Sure... but the corporations are privately owned, not US owned... so you cannot blame the country.

...and yes, ofcourse, the US has a very bloody past in Central America, and every country in Central America is economically dependent on the US (and millions of dollars in debt)... but that is not the reason for the poverty in them.

Every country in Central America is growing economically and socially. Almost entirely because of the US.

Look at these figures:

Honduras GDP growth rate: 5.2%
Nicaragua: 3.7%
El Salvador: 4.2%
Guatemala: 4.6%

Now lets compare that to some very prominent countries:

USA: 3.4%
England: 2.7%
Japan: 2.8%


Wait... the economy of the abused, poor, US raped countries is growing faster than most world economies... imagine that!


Now child...

Hush.

 

Too bad you spent ninth grade whacked out on crack. And I'm so sure that the extra money is going to help the most needy in Honduras, right? Whatever.
As far as your asian-owned sweat-shops; what do they make, hmmmm? Lemme guess...products for the good ol' US of A.
Lemme give you a hint: you're in the wrong forum. Hippies don't support rip-off corporations.
You need to go to www.delusionalrichkids.com/forums

 

Oh man, great way of ignoring all the facts that I gave you and just being a plain old asshole.

Keep it us, maybe you'll end up dying old and alone... seems like it's your goal

 

hahaha you've got to be kidding me... this is still alive?

 

When you post any facts worth mentioning, I'll take note. I fail to see what the GDP of Central American states has to do with what I took you to task for, which, by the way, you still haven't answered. "The United Fruit Company controls the Honduran government to an unprecedented and and incredible extent" http://books.google.com/books?id=jnEm61Hj_GEC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=american+corporations+in+honduras&source=web&ots=OH-bK1rMt3&sig=z5B-YsX1ROfnoXtFg5CcGt67rg4
In one of your more foolish statements, you said:

You seem to miss the point that it is the American corporations that cause the misery and poverty in Central America to begin with. Here's a little essay about the Wal-Mart sweatshops: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1344754
In spite of all the evidence, you foolishly seem to think that American corporations are doing good for the people of Central America. Think about that next time you're using daddy's credit cards on your next vacation.
Everybody sing along!
Brave Sir Rubin ran away.
Bravely ran away away.
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Rubin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the braaaave, Sir Rubin!

 

Money controls the Honduran government, which is corrupt... if the money comes from gringolandia, so be it.

At the same time, this money also goes to the people, and it's the only money these people will ever see.

Lets say the corporations leave, what do you think will happen next? Can you suggest any survival skills.

I've been to Walmart sweatshops... really clean... not the best working conditions in the mass production area... but hell, they get paid well...

Doesn't this seem odd to you:

The Honduran worker does not complain about the sweatshops, only the stuck up American liberal with nothing better to do does.

By the way, I don't truly have a father, so there's no daddy's credit card

I dig the personal insults though, honestly.

 

Were you hatched? Oh........I get it, immaculate conception...........damn pavel you are full of yourself

 

Nope, alcoholism got him.

 

Well I feel like an ass now..........you took my witty remark and turned it into tragedy......sorry bout your pop, that babylonian water is some terrible stuff.

 

Haha, no worries... I know you didn't mean any harm

 

Oh, I don't think so. I think they get under your thin skin and rankle there.

And please don't play the victim bit. If you can't take the heat, get out of your Central American kitchen.

 

You really believe what he says? Rule number one: Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

 

Well I don't think the death of his father is a major personal issue to anyone but him, so I fail to see why he would lie about that........I have no reason to disbelieve him. Secondly, you shouldn't assume I believe everything I read on the internet, that's quite cavalier and disrespectful on your part.

 

Sorry, but I don't believe you. Haw haw haw!