.... Well, now we've got it and nine million recalled lead-painted toys, and nine mine fatalities within the week. Can we please make it all go away?
from OurFuture.org:
The Creative SocietySubmitted by Rick Perlstein on August 17, 2007 - 11:26am.
I woke up the other morning to a cascade of apologetics from a toy industry spokesperson interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition. She was explaining away the recall, this past week, of nine million Mattel Barbies and lead-painted toy cars manufactured in China. Groggily groping for the snooze button, I caught the tail end of reporter Renée Montagne's question"...really does seem there's an increase in problems with imports from China in this last year. This is, as I just said, the second recall in a month for Mattel. What's going on?"and the flack's pat response:
"Well, we do recall products on a regular basis. This year we've recalled over 400 products. Of those, 44 of those recalls have been of toys. Frankly, Renee, that is a lower number than the number of toy recalls we did last year and the year before. Nevertheless, it is something of concern to us. We look at it very, very closely. With respect to what's going on, as I'm sure your listeners realize, much of our manufacturing has moved outside of the United States and much of it is in China. So if that is where products are being made it is not unexpected that that is where the recalls would be occurring."And this, I thought to myself, was frightfully clever stuff. The reason crap from China seems so crappy is just because there's lots of crap being made in Chinanothing to do with the fact that, say, Chinese newspapers aren't allowed to report "negative news" about business, thus giving Chinese factories impunity to work whatever scams they can dream up without fear of discovery; or that Chinese factory owners who slather lead paint on toy trains are allowed to escort inquiring American reporters to jail. No: the fact that there were more recalled Chinese toys was just a function of the fact that there are more Chinese toys. Simple arithmetic. Move along. Pay no attention to the lead paint behind the curtain.
Mantagne followed up: "Consumer groups do say that Mattel is one of the most conscientious and rigorous toy manufacturers in the country so does this mean that if their products have problems, all products from China could be suspect?"
Great question. As Chaucer said: "If gold rust, what shall iron do?" ......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/creative_society?tx=3