[Vision2020] The Auntie Establishment and Brother Carl Show(March 5, 2006)

[Melynda Huskey]

g. crabtree wrote:
> Mr. Campbell, I agree with you that this must be fairly complicated  
> or perhaps I'm just not very bright. Please help me understand. To 
> castigate Wal Mart because it sells items  that are made in China is 
> good and noble. To turn around and reward Whatever Mart with your 
> shopping dollar even though it sells the same items is no sin. This 
> seems to me to not only be inconsistent, but hypocritical as well. To 
> use your own analogy it would seem to me that you are saying, people 
> who do not stop at the grade school crosswalk  are a danger and then 
> you proceed to blithely  race through every other crosswalk in town.
I wonder if a better analogy might not be keeping to the speed limit?  
Let's say I've decided to abide by the law and never again exceed the 
speed limit.  I do my best to remain morally pure in this regard.  
Unfortunately, I find that in certain situations, context requires me to 
speed--city highway driving, for example.  Should I then decide that if 
I can't always keep within the speed limit I should just forget about 
it, speed whenever I want, and the hell with the consequences?

I think the point you imply, that we live in a world where poor choices 
abound, are even forced on us, and where nobody's skirts are clean, is 
quite true.  Simply by virtue of living in the U.S., for example, you 
and I benefit--whether we want to or not--from the historical and 
present-day suffering and exploitation of a great many people.  There 
aren't easy ways of abstracting ourselves from the moral dilemmas the 
world presents us with.

But must that imply that we can make *no* moral choices?  I choose to 
refrain from shopping at Walmart because it is a singular case--a 
retailer which dominates world markets to a larger extent than any 
other, and which does so in ways which contribute significantly, if not 
exclusively, to human suffering.  Walmart, to my mind, bears a larger 
burden, because it shapes the economy of this country, and of others, in 
ways that very few other corporations do.  Maybe my choice is largely 
symbolic.  It may even be, as you assert, that it's hypocritical, since 
I can't avoid being complicit in horrible things.  But if my choices are 
an hypocritical attempt to oppose sweatshops or a cynical acquiescence 
in human suffering for my apparent benefit, here's me preferring 
hypocrisy. 

Luckily, of course, those aren't the only two choices.

Melynda Huskey