By Paul Jackson paulconradjackson@gmail.com
I
make a point of never buying a product made in Communist China. Why? Because I want to keep Americans and Canadians - and Mexicans - in jobs. Seems to me only the meanest, grasping kind of person would try to save a dollar or two rather than buy products made in the USA, Canada or Mexico and keep their neighbors employed. Add to that, China has a terrible human rights record. And I never buy products made in Asian nations that employ child labor. Why? I’d say the answer is quite obvious. Only by letting these rotten countries know we are not going to deal with them will they be tempted to abandon the appalling slavery of children. Plus I never buy a product made
Paul Jackson
in a dictatorship, and that includes Communist Cuba. Again why? Because I believe in democracy and freedom of expression, and I ask - here I exempt Americans, but not Canadians, who have not only made Cuba their biggest winter tourist destination after Mexico, but also take in fully 25% of Cuba’s exports - why aren’t they concerned that the Communist government there throws into awful, awful prisons hundreds of men and women who demand only the basic rights and freedoms we in democratic countries enjoy? Why does the Cuban Communist government censure all newspapers, radio and television stations, and refuses to allow free elections? Answer, easy - because
they are scared if they eased these restrictions they would lose control. As they would. Thankfully, because Canada is over-flowing with its own oil, I never have to fill my car up with gas from a Middle Eastern sheikdom, or gas from Venezuela, run by that awful anti-American thug, Hugo Chavez. Remember pre-Second World War when some companies still happily did business with Nazi Germany, and post-Second World War still did business and brought products from the Soviet Union,
that had enslaved half of Europe. Also, frankly, I’ve found that products made in the USA, Canada - or Western European and other democracies - and these include democratic Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, are of better quality than products from the countries whose human rights records I abhor. Bottom line: I’d rather have a clean conscience, and try and do some good in the world, than be a penny-pinching, heartless individual. But, these are my values, and yours may be far different.
Saw you in the Ojo 31