658. Who Is Really Responsible For Killing The Workers In Bangladesh?

658.  Who Is Really Responsible For Killing The Workers In Bangladesh?

The tragedy in Bangladesh is once more revealing the cruel truth about capitalism.   

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22296645

How many more victims are going to die, before people learn to attribute deaths elsewhere to the western habits of careless and unreflected consumption?  

It is easy to blame the collapse of a building upon those responsible for the illegal construction and neglect of safety.   

The real culprits are here, between us, in all the rich countries.   
 

The wholesale merchants and the managers of the big chains of markets and stores are the real murderers, they are murderer by proxy.    They use their economic power to dictate the low prices paid for the production in Bangladesh and other poor countries.   Those who there attempt to cope by disregarding building regulations and the basic human rights and needs of the workers act themselves under pressure, they are the hired killers.  They kill others to avoid perishing themselves, even when they add own greed to aggravate the workers plight.

 
When workers are not directly killed as has happened now, those dictating the prices are at least armed robbers.   They use the weapon of giving the choice of fast starvation by not having any job at all, unless they submit to be slowly destroyed by harsh and unhealthy underpaid work.

If I buy a t-shirt for 5 €, I know that it has been produced by someone suffering in misery.   But if I would pay 50 € instead for a luxury t-shirt in a fashion shop, this t-shirt would have been produced by the same exploited people in the same misery.   The additional price would add to  the profit of the shop owners or of the shareholders, it would not reach the workers.   

There are some organizations attempting to bring fair trade products upon the market.   But these products are difficult to find.    Shop managers and retailers also have power.  While those, who dictate the prices to the producers, are the primary culprits, those who decide to sell products from exploitations instead of fair trade products, are accomplices to murder and robbery.  


These culprits do not allow a choice to the consumers.   What happened in Bangladesh recently, is only an extreme example, much of what else is consumed, is also produced by killing, damaging and harming people.  Only exceptionally extreme events make it into the media.  Often it is impossible to know the truth about how much suffering was caused by the production of other goods.    

If I wanted to live without harming and exploiting anybody anywhere, I would starve and freeze to death, because there would be nothing to buy.   The entire global capitalistic system functions because of the differences between the economic power of rich and of poor countries.   


Most of these culprits do not even have a bad conscience, and they do not feel responsible.   First they offer consumers no alternative and thus they can correctly point out, that the consumers profit from their success in enforcing low prices.  Instead of feeling guilty as murderers and robbers, they feel as the consumers' benefactors.   

Therefore I have no hope, that they ever renounce the ruthless exploitation, as long as they can remain in denial and let others do the dirty work for them.  


The best remedy could be some kind of legislation, making the import of goods illegal, if they have been produced by the violation of basic human rights.    But to press politicians towards any such initiative would first need a shift in the focus and targets of pressure groups.  
Right now, those groups fighting for nature, for animals, for ecology, are much stronger and much more active than groups fighting for an improvement of the situation of exploited humans.    

Whenever the plight of suffering people in poor countries is noticed and recognized, it is wrongly considered as a need for charity by those, who are underdeveloped and incompetent and have brought the plight upon themselves.
   
It is an outrage and it is preposterous at the same time.   People exploit workers in Bangladesh by stealing the result of their hard labor from them and by thus driving them into dire undeserved misery,  Then the same exploiters condescend to relief a fraction of this misery by deeds of charity to allegedly inferior and unable savages.    

What they call charity is in reality nothing better than the restitution of a tiny fraction of what has been stolen.

651. Modern Human Sacrifices

651.  Modern Human Sacrifices

I grew up here in Germany taking it for granted, that nature and forests are safe places.   As a child I had known of wolves and bears only from fairy tales as of a historical peril to humans in times long gone by.  I also took the general consent for granted that having eliminated all dangerous animals from densely populated Germany centuries ago was beneficial beyond doubt.  
I took this so much for granted, that I was not even grateful for the safety of German forests.  Today I am grateful to live, where there are no dangerous animals except those safely in cages in the zoo.  (It is bad enough, that some men are not better than dangerous animals.)  

But I do not take this for granted anymore.   I just watched a documentary about how humans are ruthlessly exposed to dangers by irresponsible people.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/predators-in-your-backyard/

"The cougar is also commonly known as a puma, mountain lion, mountain cat, catamount, or panther. The sub-population in Florida, which is the only population east of the Mississippi River, is known as the Florida panther.
At least 20 people in North America were killed by cougars between 1890 and 2011"

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_cougar_attacks_in_North_America

Preserving the wild life is certainly important, but it is immoral to force risks upon people, who suffer without a choice, and who have no option to protect themselves.   There should be barriers like fences separating humans from predators.   Those who enable panthers or bears to enter peoples' gardens are irresponsible and cruel.   When such beasts invade a backyard, the people are helpless victims of a situation forced upon them.     

Adding the dangers of wolves to the already existing danger of bears in Yellowstone Park is a different situation, because people have a choice to keep away from such dangerous areas.   But to make this a real option of safety, such parks need to be fenced in to guaranty the safety outside.  

When capitalists' interests are protected, the money to build a fence is raised, as shows the fence along the border between the USA and Mexico.   But to protect humans from being killed by bears or panthers brings no commercial benefits, thus people are not protected by fences.

 

I am very glad for the restricted legal access to firearms here in Germany.    But I have full understanding for anybody, who needs a weapon as a means for self-defense against panthers and bears.      

I consider the safety of the home from invading dangerous animals as a basic human right. It seems absurd, that shooting a panther leads sometimes to less tolerance and condoning than shooting a burglar.   

It is criminal to endanger people by forcing the access of dangerous beasts upon them.   It is a form of murder by proxy, if someone gets killed by predators like bears and panthers released near human homes.  

It is even a variety of human sacrifices.   In many cultures through history, humans were sacrificed to deities, who were considered as more significant and more valuable than the lives of the sacrificed victims.  
Bringing or allowing panthers and bears enter human habitats is a variety of sacrificing humans.   The deity is substituted by some more vague entity as is nature, the planet, wildlife,.   This entity too is considered as having more value and more significance than the risked life of individual humans.   

There is just one difference.   The sacrificing priests were themselves consciously killing the victims and feeling justified to do so.   Those sacrificing human life by imposing predators upon victims do not feel responsible, because the do not do the killing themselves and consider it only as collateral damage.
(I am wondering, how many of those, who welcome and protect the panthers in Florida, at the same time define abortion as murder.   For them, a woman is required to have any unwanted child, but if the panther would kill the child, they accept this as collateral damage.)