Horrifying report on China/did anyone watch Planet in Peril last night?

restrangled

From the most digusting, filthy food growing conditions of which more and more of our own food is contaminated with to abuse and consumption of exotic animals, especially the endangered. They are the worlds biggest contributors to the decline of endangered animals and are creating more.

750 large bears were shown in cages with huge metal tubes inserted into their stomachs to suction out bile every day for old Chinese medicine recipes. It was so heart breaking, I am absolutely sick.

I started looking around the house and I can't believe how much is from China. I don't know how, but I am going to avoid buying anything from China if I can help it.

r.

BlackSwan of Memphis

Go a step further...

google sweatshops.

People Need to be aware of the reason we get things so cheap in developed countries and how big the consequences are for workers everywhere. It would and should affect our purchasing habits and our political views.

jeanniebeanz

It would and should affect our purchasing habits and our political views.

It should, but it won't. People want their cheap crap and they are willing to turn a blind eye to any kind of abuse if the prices stay low. If people really cared, there would have been public outcry and real action long ago.

J

eclipse

The majority of consumers are ignorant of all of the pain and suffering of those sweatshops and the plight of animals in China and elsewhere

http://www.wspa-international.org/

If it was in our face, we would be less likely to buy from those companies that bought from sweatshops, etc.

restrangled

When enough people start getting sick, and not just the pets things might change. Most of the honey, 50% of all garlic, any freeze dried berries in your breakfast cereal all come from China. Freeze dried coffee, powdered choclate, and many of the sweetners. Frozen vegetables, some fruit but no apples, just apple juice. Rice flour, wheat flour. This list goes on and on and the FDA can do little to check what comes in.

All these products wind up in products made here in the U.S. but are not identified on the labels. It's not required.

Its too bad people don't see the water these items are getting irrigated with, the banned chemicals being used etc.

r.

BlackSwan of Memphis

jeannie: you're right, you are absolutely right. <<shrug>>

eclipse, thank you for the link! and yup, if it were in our faces daily, it might be different. Endangered animals, hurting animals (cosmetic industry as well as the pharmaceutical like R brought up) it's all happening on a daily basis. And what people are more concerned about is the latest trend....and it is so stinking easy to get caught up in it....

marmot

Guess what, America and Britain used to be like that too. Okay, maybe they didn't have bears with drip-tubes, but think about the history of western culture. Entire species were almost wiped out during various stages of technological advancement and colonial expansion.

Whales almost went extinct so that people could have lamp oil and corsets.

Beavers were slaughtered by the millions to fuel a felt hat fashion trend that lasted more than a century and whose aftereffects shaped North America.

Bison were pushed to the brink of extinction first to supply leather for drive belts during the industrial revolution, and then just as a big f**k you to the plains people to see if they could drive THEM to extinction also.

Up until the early 20th century, the wealth of America was built on the back of child and slave labor.

Industrialization, mass consumption, globalization and a disposable lifestyle has led to America becoming hated among many developing countries.

Now the Chinese are in their own bratty child phase of development and the western world feels threatened.

Karma's a bitch.
(even though I don't believe in it)