when the truth becomes a lie

Mike Daisey, a story-teller/monologist who was recently featured on This American Life criticizing Apple and "exposing" their seemingly atrocious labor practices, has now been publicly exposed (also on This American Life) as a "liar." it turns out that Daisey fabricated a majority of the vivid and extremely personal stories he shares in his one-act, The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. (and Ira Glass is ostensibly pissed!!)


while this perhaps causes some Mac enthusiasts to rejoice, i am personally unswayed. and while i believe in the importance of journalistic integrity, i also hate to see a well-meaning story-teller publicly (albeit gently and rightfully) skewered at the hands of Ira Glass. the thing is, while it is now clear that some of what Daisey said was not 100% true or accurate, in the sense that it did not happen in the perfect story, movie-like way he describes in his monologue, there were essences and bases of truth in what he said. and while i was initially somewhat upset with Mike Daisey for seemingly misleading lots of people, i think the work he did was extremely important, if only because he personified and made tangible/personal the human injustice problems underlying the manufacture of our first-world luxuries. he exposed and made visible the human factor that is sacrificed at the altar of Commodity. granted, the details of Daisey's stories were tweaked and altered to achieve maximum impact, but sometimes the greater "truth" is best achieved thru some tactful lying. this brings to mind the chapter of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried in which he describes the difference between "truth" and "story-truth" and how sometimes you have to build compelling stories around a truth to give the truth even more truth. in both cases, the "truth" being served justifies some lying, wouldn't you agree?


furthermore, the "truth" in this situation is arguably subjective and particularly difficult to determine. as someone who works in a chinese manufacturing company, very similar to ones that work for Apple and FoxConn, i have seen the way these internal audits are run. i've also seen how things in the company are done, from concealing misdeeds, to ensuring "outsiders" don't see the true operations of the company. i would not be at all surprised if it turned out Daisey's translator was paid off by someone from FoxConn to make adjustments to her story. she might even feel some fear in being complicit in Daisey's takedown of FoxConn and Apple. furthermore, i'm struck by how strange and very messed up it is to hear multiple American journalists working somewhat hard to justify the working conditions in China, basically to the effect of "oh, it's China, and they do stuff like that there. we can't compare working conditions there to America, that just wouldn't be 'fair.'" statements like these, by Americans working really hard to justify a shitty system of labor and economics that makes profit and products on the backs of unprotected and un-unionized foreign workers, make me extremely angry all over again, and make me realize just how important Mike Daisey's work was, and make me sad that now it may be forever discredited for being a "lie." it's clear, from hearing so many Americans rushing to defend Apple in the wake of the original story and even more fervently after its retraction, that the problem with America and capitalism and all of its conveniences, is that products such as the iphone are an entity more real than the workers who make them. this is a serious problem. Daisey's stories were important, because they forced us to care about something we previously took for granted. we'd never before thought to ask ourselves who the person behind our iphones/ipads/ipods was, never thought to question the existence and practices of the supply chain that supplies an endless number of goods to enable our very convenient, modern lives, and never thought to question our own place in that economic ecosystem and the moral implications of such a passive stance. the really sad thing is that now that Daisey has come forward for fabricating his story, 


when i listen to the retraction episode, i'm struck by how badly Mike Daisey wanted his American audience to feel something, to feel empathy for the Chinese factory workers, to feel some sense of consumer conscience and responsibility and feel incited to change. even if he achieved this in a deceitful way, is it so bad he tried to get us all to feel something, and do something about it?


even if the details of Daisey's story are not completely true, the truth underlying his story is, and that has yet to change; the working conditions at Chinese factories such as FoxConn are not fair, and the subpar working conditions continue to be condoned and widely practiced because companies like Apple have not yet taken adequate action to prevent and stop them, and because American customers have yet to express their demands for change.


what follows is an excerpt from the end of the retraction episode i find particularly pertinent: 

Ira Glass: But to get to the normative question that’s kind of underlying all the reporting and all the discussion of this, the thing that we all want to know when we hear this is like, “Wait, should I feel bad about this?” As somebody who owns these products, should I feel bad? […]

Charles Duhigg: Let me pose the argument that people have posed to me about why you should feel bad, and you can make of it what you will.
 And that argument is there were times in this nation when we had harsh working conditions as part of our economic development. We decided as a nation that that was unacceptable. We passed laws in order to prevent those harsh working conditions from ever being inflicted on American workers again.

And what has happened today is that rather than exporting that standard of life, which is within our capacity to do, we have exported harsh working conditions to another nation.
So should you feel bad that someone is working 12 to 24 hours a day in order to produce the iPhone that you’re carrying in your pocket? […] Should you feel bad about that? I don’t know, that’s for you to judge, but I think the the way to pose that question is… do you feel comfortable knowing that iPhones and iPads and other products could be manufactured in less harsh conditions, but that these harsh conditions perpetuate because of an economy that you are […] supporting with your dollars. […] You’re not only the direct beneficiary [of those harsh conditions]; you are actually one of the reasons why it exists. If you made different choices, if you demanded different conditions, if you demanded that other people enjoy the same work protections that you yourself enjoy, then those conditions would be different overseas.

Ira Glass and Charles Duhigg of the NY Times, discussing working conditions in Apple factories in China [from This American Life’s recent episode, in which they discover Mike Daisey fabricated parts of his story on working conditions in FoxConn factories in Shenzen, China].

This American Life examines a Chinese life on the assembly line

EVERYONE NEEDS TO STOP WHAT THEY'RE DOING AND READ/LISTEN TO THIS RIGHT NOW.

what does it mean for something, everything to be “made in china?”

fascinating/horrifying revelations of the factories and working conditions in china that make all the shit you take for granted.

Shenzhen is a city without history. The people who live there will tell you that, because 31 years ago Shenzhen was a small town. It had little reed huts, little reed walkways between the huts. The men would fish in the late afternoon. I hear it was lovely. Today Shenzhen is a city of 14 million people. It is larger than New York City. Depending on how you count it, it's the third largest city in all of China. It is the place where almost all of your crap comes from.

And the most amazing thing is, almost no one in America knows its name. Isn't that remarkable that there's a city where almost all of our crap comes from, and no one knows its name? I mean, we think we do know where our crap comes from. We're not ignorant. We think our crap comes from China, right? Kind of a generalized way. China.

But it doesn't come from China. It comes from Shenzhen. It's a city. It's a place.

Shenzhen looks like Blade Runner threw up on itself. LEDs, neon, and 15-story-high video walls covered in ugly Chinese advertising. It's everything they promised us the future would be.

[...]31 years ago, when Deng Xiaoping carved this area off from the rest of China with a big red pen, he said, this will be the special economic zone. And he made a deal with the corporations. He said listen, use our people. Do whatever you want to our people. Just give us a modern China. And the corporations took that deal, and they squeezed and they squeezed. And what they got was the Shenzhen we find today.

i find it important to emphasize, that my absolute horror and disgust in reading this is less directed at the Chinese government and the Chinese leaders or even at the Chinese corporate heads who allow this condone this sick, sick operation (though, of course, they are fault here as well). what horrifies me and disgusts me most is actually the fact that American people are totally ok with/ ignorant of / willfully ignorant about it. we condone this kind of human rights abuse, because we want our crap to be cheaper, and we always want more of it.

think about how amazingly, completely backwards and effed up this is:

As a creature of the First World, I expect a factory making complex electronics will have the sound of machinery, but in a place where the cost of labor is effectively zero, anything that can be made by hand is made by hand. No matter how complex your electronics are, they are assembled by thousands and thousands of tiny little fingers working in concert. And in those vast spaces, the only sound is the sound of bodies in constant, unending motion.

modern technology has advanced to such a degree that we (Americans) assume most things  everything is made by machines, even the relatively simpler things that used to be made by hand, like sweaters, and books, even our food. most people probably think we live in the mechanized future, where handcrafted things are a luxury, a long-lost artifact of history and ancient cultures and the pioneers. so in an age of inconceivably advanced technology, where the machines get smaller and more complex and powerful year after year, you would expect these machines to also be borne from the labor and precision of machines. but, in fact, Mr. Disney tells us, they are assembled by hand, millions of precise hands, working repetitively in an unending mechanical whir. and, in fact, these millions of tiny hands are actually cheaper and more expendable than those big machines.

what makes that such a perverse and deplorable realization is compounded by the fact that those big expensive machines are what put people in America out of work. and here is where i get really angry: in America, where we have labor laws and unions and it's illegal to pay your workers nothing and have them work endless days, the big corporations figured it's actually cheaper and better for business to bring in those big machines. that's what happened in the coal industry, and the automobile industry, and many other industries: human labor got replaced with non-stop, wageless, liability-free machines. other corporations, who couldn't use machines (such as computer manufacturers, i guess), shipped the jobs overseas, to China and India, where they could get human hands to build their products and still get paid next to nothing.

and the really terrible thing is, that China's and India's wages keep dropping year after year, to "stay competitive" with one another in the international market for jobs. so you see, this is a compounding problem that grows worse year after year, with no foreseeable end, because the trend in dropping prices of tech products comes at the price of workers' wages and working conditions.

but, slave labor does not necessarily have to exist in order for these markets to exist. if American companies, such as Apple, commit to fair labor practices (as Apple just did, in joining the FLA), they set the standard for business practices around the world. if American companies demand ethical practices from their suppliers and partners, businesses and employers around the world will change to meet the demand. American companies and American consumers need to demand and expect better.

way w k

(say it out loud: "way w k" = w'A W K = WAY AWKWARD!)

my initiation into LA denizenry:
moved into new apartment without a refrigerator (apparently all LA housing comes sans fridge. what do you crazy CA ppl do? why are you all so possessive of your huge ass kitchen appliances? if we could all just agree to leave those things behind, we could all have fridges in our new housing.)

sitting in apartment, roommate left to go to work an hour away, taking the car and the only working set of keys with him. thus, i cannot leave the apt to walk down the street to buy food from the store. working all night and all morning on my grad class's papers, i'm getting light-headed from lack of nourishment. between yesterday at 3 pm and today at 2 pm, i've only had one apple and a small box of raisins.

i look online for food that comes to me. i try Green Truck first (environmentally friendly organic gourmet food service based in Culver City! how delightful!) – BUT, they don't deliver on Mondays! bummer mother. so i try the next thing i can think of: Pizza Hut (haha, total 180).

so i'm on the phone with Pizza Hut. i give the guy my name and phone number and address. he makes some unintelligible joke about my name –
guy: "Stephanie Lee? Are you related to *mumble mumble* Lee?"
me: "what?"
guy: "mumble mumble"
me: no response
guy: "nevermind."

so i'm trying to get the cheapest pizza i can. i ask the guy on the phone if there are any specials, any $5 pizza deals or anything that will save my hard-earned (and quickly depleting) money. he asks if i have any coupons and i explain that no, i don't eat a lot of pizza and i just moved here, so no coupons or anything of the like. he asks me where i'm from, i say KY. he asks if i'm here for school and i say no, "i'm here to teach." he says he's surprised b/c i sound so young and at that point i'm wondering how the focus has turned away from the pizza and onto me.

i redirect: "so, how about that pizza?" and he says he'll give me the discount anyway and i wrap up my order. i don't feel good about giving him my credit card number and was really defensive when he asked for the expiration date. i'm thinking i don't want him to steal my identity after i reject him for a date. he tells me the order total and i say "great, thanks."

he asks me if i like going to concerts and i say yes as a knee-jerk (i'd just finished ordering tickets to a show at the Troubadour, so i have concerts on my mind). he says his friends are dj's and it'd be cool if i wanted to go to one of their parties some time. i tell him that'd be cool, my friend Tara is a dj too and she'd probably like to meet other ppl in the business. he gives me his phone number (which i write down without thinking but now keep so i know which call not to answer) and then tells me he'll call me some time. i tell him not to call after 10pm (thinking that a pretty unreasonable time), "because i teach in the mornings" (even though i don't start for almost another month). he says he'll only call on fridays. great...

i hang up the phone. i'm not even hungry any more. now i'm worried about this guy having my phone # and my address, knowing way too much about me without me really volunteering the information. i feel like my privacy has been violated. i feel sad, confused, overwhelmed. memories of a horrible experience in an airport hotel resurface. i feel guilty. i think about my boyfriend and how i miss him right now. i try to devise plans to diffuse the situation and avoid any further awkward exchanges. i swear off pizza delivery from now on (next time, i'll just wait until Tuesday and order the healthy stuff!)

Ben is coming to visit in just 11 more days! my family comes in only 3! i think i can be resourceful and clever enough to hold off any creepy advances from Pizza Boy until my family is in town (my mom just broke her foot. = fiberglass cast to groin anyone?). and then, if he is still persistent enough to call, i will take him up on the party offer, and bring Ben along. that should take care of things.

20 minutes later, the pizza came. i hid behind a wall while my roommate Michael picked it up. the delivery person was a cute little old lady. i asked her if the tip money went to her or the company. she said the company. i gave her a tip in cash, put it in her hands, and then told her to have a great day. she scampered away (thank god she didn't try to hit on me – i wasn't her type).

and the pizza? too salty.

-stef

keep on keeping on...

the media urges workers to cease their striking "for the sake of the children!" read on...

busy with finals and wrapping up business from the past semester and from the summer too. i just wanna make it thru the weekend, when most of my work will hopefully be done, and then enjoy hanging out without something hanging over my head.

so, for now, read (if you want) a paper i submitted in the past week on the state of labor relations in America today, and an indictment on Christmas.

-stef

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The Villainization of the Worker and the Cultural Power of Christmas

When I first read the BBC’s article “Show goes on for Grinch musical” (November 22, 2007), I was reminded of the movie Love, Actually (2003). The film, in case you haven’t seen it, is an examination of eight London couples’ relationships during the holiday season. In it, improbable romances take bloom “because it’s Christmas” (offered to the audience as an excuse, or a rationalization – as if to aid in the suspension of disbelief). The final message isn’t so much that “Love conquers all,” but rather that there’s only one thing more powerful and irrational than Love: Christmas.
The recent halt to the stagehand strike on Broadway reminds me of this tendency in our movies – aptly depicted in Love, Actually – and in our culture to mythologize and bestow power to certain symbols. I mention Love, Actually because of the important link between spectacle, commodity and culture that it makes explicit: the film fetishizes love and the spirit of the holiday season, succeeding in having the audience and its characters surrender themselves to the power of Love and Christmas, depicted as a set of performances and exchanges of codified behaviors. The commodity and its spectacle are conflated: Love is Christmas and happy endings. In a society whose culture is largely mediated, cultural values are often articulated and reproduced in the form of spectacle: “The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.” And Christmas is Capitalism at its most spectacular: the pageantry, the parades, the commercials, the camped-out shoppers waiting as if for a new Star Wars film, whole city landscapes turned into Winter Wonderlands. Citizens turned into mall zombies, as in George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978). These holidays are a holy daze.
This spectacularization becomes problematic because of its tendency to distract us from problems of lived existence. It is the tendency of the spectacle to replace reality with that of a hyperreality – “a world in which the spectacle defines, circumscribes, and becomes more real than reality itself.”
This is capitalism in action, enacted as spectacle, an illusion we uphold and defend at the expense of our fellow human beings. “The spectacle makes visible the world of the commodity dominating all that is lived.” This can be seen in the New York State Supreme Court judge’s injunction against the striking stagehands, demanding a resumption of their work “for the sake of this city.” The invisible force of labor in society suddenly made visible, it is imperative to the machine of Capitalism that labor protests be quelled as soon as possible, so that “life as usual” may resume. The article also mentions the popularity of Broadway among tourists, suggesting the need to end the stagehand strike in order to give them what they came for – an “authentic” NYC experience. The show must go on. Resume your positions. = The institution of Christmas exercising its domination by subjugating all other activities to its demands.
Within this dichotomy, the worker and his/her rebellion are situated in a position of delinquency, aberration, and worse – villainy. Anyone resisting or delaying the magic of Christmas is derogated – a “Grinch.” The story of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” exemplifies this mythology, telling of a bitter curmudgeon who experiences a “change in heart” due to the overwhelming spirit of Christmas. By withholding the popular Christmas show, the striking workers are depicted in a negative light, as challenging the very sanctity of Christmas itself. One of the article’s captions explains, “the musical is very popular with children,” the implication being that the workers are victimizing an innocent public by disrupting the holiday proceedings. “Do it for the children,” we say. Do it “for the sake of the city!”
This is an appeal to Christmas spirit: it’s a long-standing myth in American culture that Christmas is “the most wonderful time of the year,” a time for philanthropy, for goodwill towards all, and for outstanding miracles. The stagehand strike went against the imagery of jubilation and goodwill associated with the holiday season, but Christmas soon conquered and quashed its opposition. “The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life.” The BBC’s article depicts the labor strike as a deviation from shared cultural values and reasserts the language of Christmas cultural mythology, calling the continuation of work a “miracle on 44th street.” The myth of Christmas spirit manifests itself in this particular instance to bedazzle us and quell opposition to a general capitalist mentality. We, the readers, become accomplices in suppressing the rebellion of the workers, we defend the spectacle at all costs, complaining about TV show reruns or a Broadway-less visit to NYC, rather than caring about the actual workers themselves or taking the time to understand the issues for which they are striking. The spectacle of Christmas becomes more real to us than the reality of labor disputes and workplace inequities.
This illustrates the power of the spectacle over our lived experiences, the entrancing nature of spectacle to deceive and distract. Submitting to the power of Christmas and its spectacle turns this moment of rebellion and critique into one of irreverence and then irrelevance.

Works Cited:
Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard