Fair Trade Products

[brother_dour]

There was an interesting piece on Rock Center this evening (NBC's newest 20/20 slash Nightline slash 60 Minutes type show). It was about a dedicated physician doing a lot with a little in Honduras, but it was also about lobsters and fair trade products.

Apparently a lot of men of the Mosquito Coast tribes of Honduras make a living by diving for

Comments

[karcy]

I think what makes it so frustrating for non-US people is that we're tied to America, whether we like it or not. Entire countries rise or fall by what goes on in Wall Street. The only truly isolated economy is North Korea, so not much of a choice there.

It's true that many countries don't have good governments, and thus not good policies. But that doesn't mean that the people stop feeling the difficulties of being inevitably bonded to one country.

I feel so strongly about the need for countries around the world to stop its reliance on the US by diversifying it's market options, I almost supported Ron Paul, until I found out that he meant non-interference in the Federal sense.

[karcy]

(By the way, this comment was just a reply to your last paragraph, not your entire entry.)

[brother_dour]

Speaking of Ron Paul and economic ties: Ron Paul has about one terrible idea for every good idea he has. One of his terrible ideas is this notion that economic isolationism is even possible- from what I've heard he doesn't mean just on the Federal sense. I get the impression that he means economics, too. The problem is, we're all pretty much players in the same global economy and there's no way now to unravel those threads. As you said, there's only a few exceptions to this rule (and those tend to be in pretty terrible economic shape, like North Korea

[karcy]

I don't think you're aware of the nature Americana affects local cultures, values, and the hierarchy of entire societies, else you wouldn't talk about American dominance in the free market as the alternative to imperialism that easily. When I compare the experience of being colonized by the British to the experience of being dominated by America either directly or indirectly, there's very little difference. Actually, military threat was smaller under British rule, although they did introduce one of the crappiest systems of race hierarchy I've ever seen. And the model that you're suggesting is really very colonial -- that is, America is the benevolent oppressor