Here’s a follow-up on the origin of my EFF hat. Apparently the EFF didn’t even consider where the hats were made when they started, which is pretty normal for most folks. They simply searched for the best deal. It sounds like they have a decent amount of hats stored up still that they will continue to distribute rather than dispose of; that makes sense. In fairness to the EFF, my impression is that these were part of bulk order a while back. Possibly before China got really draconian with beefing up the firewall and shutting down netcafes, and maybe even before the blog explosion of the last two years which they’ve fought desperately to control.
It just shows, it’s difficult to know where products are made and it’s difficult not to support regimes that you don’t agree with or that violate human rights. Other big exporters, such as Indonesia and Malaysia also have their own human rights issues. We could also resort to saying buy American, but then we’re also deluding ourselves to a degree. I suppose at least with capitalist countries you’re not really supporting the oppression like you may be with communist nations. Intuitively I would think that shopping at Ikea would be fine, but I just looked a few Ikea picture frames; made in China.
Thanks to whichever one of my blog readers gave the helpful pointer to the EFF. I noticed that they looked at the weblog entry from last night and in the email they made a comment about persevering after no response. Thanks to the EFF for taking time to respond. You guys and girls rock. Thanks for fighting the good fights.