(Lethal) Toy Story

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It should come as no surprise that dangerous, lead-ridden toys have been manufactured in China, given this:

A U.S.-based workers' rights group said it found "brutal conditions" and labour violations at eight Chinese plants that make toys for big multinationals, and called on the companies to take steps for better standards.

China Labor Watch said in a report issued on Tuesday after several months of investigation that the manufacturers — which served a handful of global players, including Disney, Bandai and Hasbro — paid "little heed to the most basic standards of the country".

"Wages are low, benefits are non-existent, work environments are dangerous and living conditions are humiliating," it said.

It's bad enough, of course, that these toys were manufactured at all, much worse that they were exported to the U.S. and elsewhere, and ultimately consumed -- literally, in some cases.

But here's what pisses me off:

No one gave a shit about any of this, save for the few noble souls who bothered to pay attention to the labour situation in China, and the even fewer who spoke out and tried to do something about it. Consumers may plead ignorance, but is that an acceptable defence? How do you think all that crap is so cheap? If it's so cheap at Wal-Mart, how cheap do you think it was to manufacture in the first place? No matter, it would seem, as long as it's cheap. Consumers want crap and they want it cheap. Beyond that: out of sight, out of mind, not that it was ever in sight. Whether it's toys made in China or clothes made in some American protectorate in the Pacific, or some destitute location in Asia, people, many of them, children included, are being exploited, and abused, so that we in the West can have all the cheap crap we want. Go to Wal-Mart, or Target, or any other such consumer paradise. Look at the people there, the consumers, watch them closely. Observe as they raid the racks and stacks, aisle after godforsaken aisle, pushing their carts with determined abandon, piling high the booty of their deepest yet most ephemeral desires.

Do they give a shit? Hardly.

There may be ignorance behind their dazed looks and glazed visages, but, no, that is not an acceptable defence.

You've heard of blood diamonds? Call these blood toys. And the blood is everywhere.

And what of Disney and Mattel and Hasbro and the other toy giants?

"Instead of concentrating on improving product safety and workers' lives, companies spend their energy creating beautiful pamphlets on social responsibility, disputing critical reports and shifting blame," the report concludes, and there is no doubt, no doubt at all. Their "single-minded pursuit of ever-lower prices and neglect of other considerations," in mutualistic malfeasance with homegrown Chinese horrors, made this happen. Disney and its ilk may claim otherwise, talking the talk, deflecting charges, playing stupid, denying any and all responsibility, any and all knowledge, these multinational versions of Michael Vick, but, come now, what did they do before all this broke, before it became news, before the whole damned mess started to stink so much it could no longer be contained in those wretched Chinese factories?

Not much. Not much at all. Certainly not enough.

They were happy enough, more than happy, to rake in their massive profits at the expense of the exploited and abused, those beyond the reach of the media, those without a voice, those who don't matter, those about whom no one gives a shit, save the noble souls, just as Wal-Mart and its ilk were happy, more than happy, to rake in their own massive profits, just as consumers were happy, more than happy, to buy and buy and buy -- and yes, just as the owners of those wretched Chinese factories were happy, more than happy, to abuse and exploit so that massive profits could be made, including their own, and consumers could pile the booty without any twinge of their collective conscience, the dulled, narcotized conscience of our dulled, narcotized age.

And, really, no one gave a shit until one of us died, until it became a problem for us, isn't that the dark truth here? No one gave a shit about the abused and exploited, that they were dying, that they, the wretched, were being sacrificed for us, sacrificed so that we could satisfy the hollow cravings of our cult of consumerism, morphine for existential meaninglessness.

Lead in our toys! Say it ain't so!

We're shocked, outraged!

We demand action!

But the abuse and the exploitation? -- ah, well, no, we don't know nothin', nothin' at all, that all happens over there, way over there, in some faraway place, to faraway people, we don't know them, no idea, no idea at all, so what if the Chinese are fucking the Chinese, so what if those wonderful companies like Disney, those corporate benefactors that bring so much happiness to our children, that are so wholesome, so about American values, are playing along, enabling it, paying for it, supporting it, encouraging it, denying everything, so what if equally wonderful companies like Wal-Mart are selling all that crap, have you seen their prices, dirt cheap, reduced, on sale, where's my cart, huh, where's my cart, we need to pile up the booty!

And, for all the shock and outrage, what has changed? So some toys, a lot of them, have been recalled. The media are, at long last, paying attention, public awareness has swelled. And?

Go to your local Wal-Mart or Target or wherever they sell cheap crap, which is pretty much everywhere, these days. What do you find there? Is it empty? Are consumers staying away? Are they boycotting, making a statement? Has conscience won out over the mega-desire to acquire as much cheap crap as possible, as defining a desire as there is, these days?

No. No. No. No.

Life goes on. The buying goes on. The piling up of booty goes on.

The eternal recurrence of the same old shit without anyone giving a shit.

And elsewhere, too, around the world, life goes on, the same old shit, the abuse and the exploitation, the fucking and the fucking over, in China or on some Pacific island, to men, women, and children, excused and condoned, denial heaped upon denial, profits skyrocketing, happy, happy, happy, more than happy, brutality served with a global smile and a dulled, narcotized conscience.

And so it goes.