Don’t Buy Chinese Products
I once created a post on my blog at the Catholic company I work for, in effect declaring how silly people are who refuse to buy Chinese made religious goods, reasoning that when we purchase Chinese products, we are supporting people who would otherwise have no income. Asserting we are not supporting the regime when we purchase Chinese products. I also rationalized that the Vatican knows the plight of the underground Chinese Catholics, and is working diplomatically to ensure their freedom. (How effective has that been?) I was wrong.
On the news today, the promotion of fashion with fur trim or lining on winter coats, marketed by Saks, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Target, etc. as fake fur, is actually dog and cat fur. Okay. Whatever. We in the West raise animals for their fur, and we use it. What we did not realize about China is the way in which these people take the fur.
The animals are skinned alive. In one video, the dog being skinned is licking the attacker’s hand begging for mercy - while the man is skinning the dog. Supposedly, the fur is a better quality if it is removed while the animal is alive.
I was so outraged, I wished the entire nation of China to be consumed in a holocaust. I hoped the people perpetrating this cruelty would go straight to hell when they died. Yet one less emotional may argue, these are just dogs and cats.
Sadly, this is what it took for me to acknowledge a nation which harvests organs from prisoners to sell throughout the world for transplants - killing the victim in the process - is in actuality a ruthless, evil regime. China is a nation wherein there is no morality whatsoever. To a white boy such as myself - it’s been a reality I consciously ignored. At times, I assumed a mental reservation, rationalizing that because they are so culturally foreign, I more or less accepted that they were a completely different humanity, if you will.
Shocking? It is difficult for me to admit it. Nevertheless, that’s what many of us in the West must have thought when we viewed reports of the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, or elsewhere. How else could we have ignored those events? These people just didn’t look like us, their villages do not remotely resemble our neighborhoods - they are primitive, the people are ”natives” - it’s almost as if they are not as human because they are not socialized as we are. Of course that is a false notion, yet I believe it’s the way Western people sometimes think.
Hopefully, we change our minds after we process the information, if indeed we allow ourselves to process it at all. Nevertheless, I think it is oftentimes our gut reaction. It’s our defense mechanism against the pain of acknowledging senseless suffering, as well as the brutality of human nature.
Sadly, this is the materialistic, consumer driven Western culture we live in; it is the status quo, and we are the market for this inhumanity. We selfishly demand -the immoral and ignorant supply.
The entire world contracepts and/or aborts human babies, and the entire world will soon euthanize the elderly just as generously, along with the insane and the disabled, so why care about the animals?
Jeffrey Dahmer and other serial killers once tortured and killed animals for fun - then they moved on to people. A world that can kill unborn children, a nation which harvests organs for profit from living persons, while it skins animals alive to satisfy human vanity and greed, is a world ready to exterminate anyone - in whatever manner that is efficient and utilitarian, best suiting the market economy.
And we support this when we buy Chinese products.
February 10th, 2007 at 5:31 am
Thank you for that, Terry.
Will Saks, Macy’s Bloomingdale’s and Target quit buying fur from China? Probably.
Will they quite buying other things from China. Certainly not.
I posted last week on how “environmentalism” has become the newest religion in these secular years.
Money is probably the oldest religion.
In the upper precincts of corporate management of those huge retail conglomerates a few hushed conversations were held when they heard about dogs being skinned alive.
Those ceased when the purchasing managers showed the bosses the numbers on their purchases of Chinese products. Boycotting China would cause all their stores to close within weeks.
China used to be the enemy until they began to learn marketing. Now they own us.
Someone who could skin animals alive or order that it be done is many steps removed from civilization and humanity.
February 10th, 2007 at 7:56 am
I just feel sick reading about the dogs. (I have 2 dogs, and the thought of anyone doing such things to such sweet, innocent creatures is absolutely…..&*(&%^&*^%*$%&*$)
And you’re right, Terry, in your observation of how Western society views the human rights violations on the other side of the ocean. We are a very ethno-centric society, with all our talk of “diversity” and “tolerance” and “causes”, etc. People do not understand what’s really happening and the battles being fought by others just like themselves. Western society is raging about “Global Warming”…and over in China, organs are being harvested from unwilling prisoners. People are being slaughtered by inhumane regimes. Christians are being attacked, raped, sold into slavery, butchered….the list just goes on.
All while America sleeps peacefully and turns Iraq into another Vietnam, including “baby killer” signs pointed at our soldiers. (I could tell you stories…)
February 10th, 2007 at 8:34 am
The human rights abuses in China are the reason our company won’t carry any products from there. It makes finding statues hard but we are willing to have that hole in our selection to avoid supporting forced abortions and various other Chinese norms.
February 10th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Ian - Thank you much for your comments. As a company we view your site, it is very nice. I wish that we would stop buying Chinese product as well. I know I will not order it, but I do not own the company either.
God bless you for your courageous stance, resisting the temptation of profit and greed - Our Lord will not abandon you.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I am so GLAD to see people talking about this!!!! So many of the “cheap” goods we get from China are made by political prisoners. What they do to animals is not too different from some of the horrific things that do to people!
February 10th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Terry, thank you for this post. I had no idea - and, last fall, I needed a new coat and was actually considering a few with fur collars - from Nordstrom! (Thank heavens I went with 100% wool.)
I also want to adopt a raccoon dog now!
One thing I do not understand is why Congress doesn’t simply outlaw the importation of any fur that is obtained through skinning the animal alive or other cruelty? Or, better yet, outlawing Chinese imports, period. (I KNOW why they don’t want to pass that law.)
It seems like the proposed legislation will not really address the most horrific issue, which is extreme cruelty to animals (rather than using cats and dogs versus minks or chinchillas).
It is so hard to find anything that isn’t made in China, but I am going to try a lot harder from now on to buy from elsewhere. Thanks again.
February 10th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Thanks for the compliment! I wish I could pay someone else to do the programming for us but we’re not there yet.
February 12th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Fur is wrong. Period. Over here we shove electrodes up the foxes(or whatever animals) rear end and fry their insides. Don’t buy fur!
February 12th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
What if you hunt the animal, kill it and eat the insides (like bear). Is using the fur wrong then?
I don’t think you can set a moral absolute on the use of fur.