>Blame who you like. I responded to a suggestion that sweatshop workers should be grateful for the opportunity to work, which was presented as "US aid", and that they should say "no thanks" if they do not want this aid.

Actually, the U.S. aid and U.S corporations doing business overseas were 2 separarte issues. However, I think you and Jim Nelson are right about the Wal-Mart in China issue. I think I am just getting a little defensive about the attacks on the United States. Clearly, Wal-Mart should have done something about the conditions at that factory. I don't want

>Whether the situation is caused by the Chinese Government, Iraq, Martians, greedy first world consumers, whoever... the fact remains that these peoples' suffering is real in 2003. And we are benefiting from it- both in the fat profits for our corporates, profit that increases our nations' power and wealth, and in the slight savings (generally only a few pennies) that we enjoy when we buy shoes and t-shirts.
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>Over the next 5 years, members of many 3rd world communities will get access to the media and will learn how we live. Some will decide they love us for the aid we provided to help lift their standard of living towards our own; others will hate us when they realise the extent of our wealth and our financial enjoyment/moral indifference re their plight. Ask yourself how you would respond if you worked in a sweatshop to support 2 sisters and an aged mother, then one day you saw "Friends" or "LA Law" at the communal TV and realised how "generous" the wealthy world has been.

I am going to disagree with you here. When I see very wealthy people in this country, I don't expect them to give me their money. Those people may have inherited it, may have won the lottery with it, but most of them worked hard for it. It wasn't handed to them.