Posted by
Greg England on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 5:34:45 PM
I have just watched an excellent first part of a documentary by the BBC, entitled:
Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts
The basic premise is that six young westerners get to see how the other half live, by working in some Indian factories manufacturing clothes for a pittance. They start off in a clean factory (working extremely hard) but then end up in miserable conditions, sleeping on the floor between jobs (etc.)
Now I'm all for this. It's good for young people to learn how the world works, and to learn to count their blessings.
But as this is the Beeb, here's the catch.
The website associated with the programme, is hosted on a website that deals in eco-fashion. Clothes made out of hemp and bamboo, clothes made out of old garments, clothes made out of scraps of old clothes, shwopping parties where people exchange their cast offs ... necklaces made out of old magazines.
How exactly does all this liberal nonsense feed these poor people?
Furthermore ... given that the participants didn't even earn enough money to buy goods in the local Indian shop, just how far down the payscale were they by Indian standards?