Healthy Relations for a Better World

North Bay Progressive
December 2005
by Stacey Meinzen

As the holidays jog towards us on the calendar, the advertisers are sprinting after us, imploring us buy.  We are trapped between the swiftly approaching obligation of gift exchange and a dizzying array of purchasing choices that leave some of us wondering if we are going to turn into plastic before the year is over. Why are we buying gifts anyways? Is it merely to carry on tradition? Is it to be gratified by those receiving our gifts? It is a societal expectation?  Maybe it’s all of those things.  Perhaps, however, we could make it into something more meaningful.  Perhaps shopping at the holidays could be an expression of gratitude towards ALL of our relations.  Our relations with our loved ones, with the people who make the clothes we are wearing, with the farmers who grow the coffee we drink, with the artisans who create the décor in our homes, and with our larger home, Earth.

 Sonoma County Nonprofit Daily Acts (www.daily-acts.org) has just the event to help build those healthy relations, and they are imploring us to build. The Daily Act’s Fair Trade Shopping Day on December 3^rd is a great place to find a loved one a gift that ripples out in all directions:  Into the hands of the recipient, into the pockets of your community, into the hearts of those that make a fair wage through its production, and into a more equitable and just future for all of life.

 When we buy cheap items from large chain stores, the cost appears to be minimal, but that is only because the true cost is not transparent.  According to Co-op America (www.coopamerica.org), corporate greed and global competition to produce goods at the lowest possible price are the main reasons for the existence of sweatshops. As retailers compete with one another by seeking lowest-cost workers, they put pressure on suppliers to keep their costs down, and they encourage consumers to buy more at "discount" prices. The result is forced overtime, low wages, punishments and fines for slow work and mistakes, worker intimidation, child labor, and other abuses.  According to Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org), Fair Trade provides a sustainable model of international trade based on economic justice. It means an equitable and fair partnership between consumers in the Global North and producers in the Global South -- and is an alternative to sweatshop production.

 A fair wage is not the only casualty of buying from store chains.  Because products are produced cheaply abroad and shipped from foreign countries, it takes a tremendous amount of fossil fuel to land them on our doorstep. Between global warming and peak oil (see www.museletter.com), we have plenty of reasons to start buying products produced locally. If the prospect of running out of fuel is not enough to stop a person from buying cheap goods produced in China, then perhaps the health of our local economies is.  When we buy cheap goods from big box stores, our money is funneled out of our local economies and consolidated among a small number of retail giants, with the vast majority of the profits going into the hands of a few corporate executives.  As Catherine Austin Fitts points out in her theory of Tapeworm Economics (see www.solari.com), when we allow our money to leave our communities, we are vulnerable.  We are driving away our assets at the expense of economic security within our communities.

 Daily Acts Fair Trade Shopping Day will start in Sebastopol at Taylor Maid Farms’ Organic Coffee and Tea. While tasting the delicious coffees or teas they will be joined by Mark Inman, President and Green Buyer for the Farm. Mark will discuss what the Fair Trade label means, what criteria is behind the certification, and how it improves the lives of farmers, weavers, and artisans producing these goods around the world.

 Daily Acts will also visit Kindred’s Fair Trade Handcrafts where they will meet store owners, Lien & Martin Cibulka, who buy and decorate their store with beautiful hand made works of art from all over the world. There are hundreds of lovely gifts ranging in all prices, and you usually know who the artists are and where they live in the world.

 Next stop will be Indigenous Designs.  The company protects the environment by replacing toxic, non-sustainable synthetics with organic natural fibers and dyes, while following Fair Trade principles. Indigenous Designs is a wholesale outlet, only opening its doors twice a year for great retail sales. This is one of those times, and they mark down the prices as much as 70%.

 Many of our relations in modern life are unhealthy or even dysfunctional.  Often we have no idea who produced our food and clothing and we may not even know what is in the food we are eating.  Never before has a human civilization been so out of touch with the source of their food, clothing, and other basic human needs.  However, once we are aware of why things are so cheap at the discount store, we have a choice to make.  We can fund suffering and pain with our purchasing decisions or we can fund ethical business practices that enrich lives and communities.  The choice is ours.