I don’t mean life without the country of China. Every once in a while, I come across news stories that get very little press about some horrendous acts carried out by the Chinese government against it’s people. It goes beyond internet censorship that does get a lot of press, interestingly, to the point of what I would call mass murder. Often women are bear the brunt of these harshest of these acts. I won’t go into details here about the stories, but these stories usually touch me deeply every time.

Fast forward to my perfect little life (compared to, say, the life of someone living in rural China). I look at the bottom of my coffee cup to the inevitable stamp “made in China.” From clothes, to dishes, to furniture, so much of it is made in China, and my consumption, in some part, contributes to suffering of the Chinese people. I can’t do much about the top-end politics of how my countries interacts with the emerging super power, but I can do something about my habits of consumption.

I am somewhat aware of where the stuff I buy comes from. I have a mix of things that were a bit more expensive because they were made in Germany or Western Europe with explicit mention about the conditions in which they were produced, and I also have a lot of things made in China. I’d like to decrease that second part until I can live with the idea of contributing to the government of China. I also realize that things are less black and white than painted here (as Chinese prosperity grows, there may be more chances for people there to win their freedoms, etc), but I still want to cut back on consuming Chinese made products.

Any ideas out there? I find that, generally, buying less stuff is a good start, and when I have to buy stuff, I have to read really carefully. I used to think that sticking with major brands helped, but it doesn’t anymore. That little ‘made in China’ stamp has a way of sneaking in there when I thought I have bought something from elsewhere. Has anyone had success in this? It would be nice if they had something similar to ‘conflict-free’ diamonds for Chinese products.

As an aside, I saw a headline about some video the Glenn Beck is promoting about the ‘truth’ behind communism. Apparently, he thinks it is a big secret that Stalin was probably the worst mass murderer in history and the Che Guevara was an actual violent revolutionary. Long story short, from what I saw, the video kind of implied that communism is really bad and that the liberals (AKA Obama and elitists) have been trying to spread lies that communism is great and that Stalin is a hero!!!! OK, that last bit may just be my cynical extrapolation of where the video goes, but you get the idea. Anyway, I was thinking about the people this video was marketed toward (I suspect I am not one of them), and I wonder if the video will inspire them to take a similar stand against Chinese products since China is the largest communist regime ever. Will crazy-eyes Beck try to raise a boycott against Wallmart and most other discount retails who thrive off of Chinese imports? That would be an interesting twist. I suspect it will most likely be blamed on Obama and no one will be asked to sacrifice their cheap stuff, but it could happen.