Is it possible to be a good Democrat while also owning an iPhone?

[apples and oranges]

Knowing what we know about the Apple sweatshops, and the late Steve Job's anti-union stance, how can anyone here justify owning one?

[Warren DeMontague]

1. There may be one or two people in the US who own *no* stuff made in China

under similarly questionable conditions, but not many more.

[Zalatix]

2. No phone is made in the USA.

I would be glad to scale all the way back to Google Voice or Skype.

[glowing]

3. I hope so... I have one.. Lol

Seriously, what electronic doesn't come from sweat shops these days... Instead of crucifying the actual device, push for Fair Trade Agreements that uphold labor and environmental laws that we would insist for ourselves..

Kind of like "Do unto other's as you would have done unto you"... It's kind of a Golden Rule type of issue. What we can do with these devices is help to connect ourselves to one another neighbor to neighbor around the world to insist that the 99% of the world has a better shake...

[Codeine]

4. Which American-made, union-made mobile should I be using? nt

[frazzled]

5. How about Kindle, PlayStation, Xbox 360, Wii, etc.?

They're ALL made at Foxconn. 40% of the world's electronics are made there. (The other 60% are mostly made in other Asian factories that treat their workers just as badly.)

So this is really about Apple, isn't it? The Apple bashing has been going on since the early 90s. I remember when everyone used to scoff at Apple computers, because they were for "babies." Then everyone adopted the Mac operating system schema, and people had to turn to other things.

The Foxconn controversy is not going to cut it, though--because most of you typing out your screeds on another product are just as guilty as we who rely on Macs.

[apples and oranges]

31. Apple has billions in profit

They could switch to American factories if they wanted to.

[frazzled]

36. And these others don't?

Here is a list of the major customers of Foxcomm; they are all highly profitable. They could conceivably all bring these jobs home to their respective countries if they wanted. So don't make this an Apple issue alone:

Acer Inc. (Taiwan)
Amazon.com (United States)[24]
In 2011, Amazon and Foxconn formed a joint-design manufacturing company. The move was meant to produce an Amazon branded smartphone sometime in 2012.[25]
Apple Inc. (United States)[26]
ASRock (Taiwan)
Asus (Taiwan)
Barnes & Noble (United States)
Cisco (United States)
Dell (United States)
EVGA Corporation (United States)
Hewlett-Packard (United States)[27]
Intel (United States)
IBM (United States)
Lenovo (China)
Logitech (Switzerland)
Microsoft (United States)
MSI (Taiwan)
Motorola (United States)
Netgear (United States)
Nintendo (Japan)
Nokia (Finland)[26]
Panasonic (Japan)
Philips (Netherlands)
Sharp (Japan)
Sony Ericsson (Japan/Sweden)[28]
Toshiba (Japan)
Vizio (United States)

[quakerboy]

41. Im pretty sure that Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Amazon also make profit

and could, were they willing to make slightly less profit, start American factories to buy their components from.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. all the phones are made in shenzhen or its equivalent

you think the 'android' lines are different to work on than the 'iphone' lines?

[dkf]

7. Under your standards you have to be pretty much a technological illiterate.

[pnwmom]

8. Yeah, as long as you don't shop at Walmart, too.

Can you be a good Democrat while buying anything from China?
While anything you don't know the exact providence of?
While living on the grid?
While mucking up the air with pollutants?
While using a sewer system?
While eating meat?

There are so many things a good Democrat can feel guilty about . . .

[ddeclue]

9. I believe that there may still be some Motorola phones made in the USA (IL and FL??)

[pipi_k]

17. Actually...

Motorola can kiss my ass.

I bought one about four or five years ago that didn't even last two years. What pissed me off was that I hardly used it and took very good care of it.

One day it just died for no reason.

Since then I've bought phones made in China.

No problems. One I even passed down to my daughter when her phone broke.

Motorola...ptui!

[ForgoTheConsequence]

10. That's tough.

Its almost a must to have a cell phone these days. It however isn't a must to get a new cell phone every year just because APPLE tells you that you need it. It also isn't a must to worship a company like Apple because they have sold you a progressive image. My cell phone is 5 years old, it works fine. It doesn't have a glowing Apple on the back of it though, so I guess I lose some cool points there. However I sleep better at night knowing I don't buy into the consumerist nonsense that so many "progressives" have gotten caught up in.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

18. I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to offend you, I know your type and the persecution you face on a daily basis.

It really is a shame. Someday Apple users and consumerists all around this great country of ours will break the chains of oppression and be free to worship the shiny glowing Apple, and be free to wait in line for the new Samsung Galaxy cell phone without being heckled and called "losers" by passersby and be free to text and walk at the same time without being called a "jerk" when they run into people. For that is how they were created by their maker. Amen.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

27. What?

I'm in jail? Huh? Because I don't own an Apple product?

[LanternWaste]

57. When lacking in substance, we often attempt to make up the difference with melodrama

When lacking in substance, we often attempt to make up the difference with melodrama. And although it's both petulant and ineffectual, more often than not, we rationalize to ourselves that self-defined clever rejoinders are both valid and relevant.

While it may appear to work very well on AM radio talk-shows, it does a much less than adequate job in reality.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

59. The substance was there.

It appeared to escape you however.

[itsrobert]

11. Is it possible to own an Iphone without being an Apple Apologist?

Apparently not. The ends justify the means.

[Hissyspit]

15. Is it possible to go into an Apple discussion thread without someone pretending that Apple is the

only evil technology corporation?

Apparently not.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

19. Who said that?

Quote them.

[Gman]

12. Too many people associate being a good Democrat with progressive values

as conservatives do the same with the GOP. Being progressive and being a Democrat are not necessarily the same thing. While both share some common values, there are other issues where they split. Labor issues come to mind immediately. Often the different groups in the Democratic Party have conflicting goals (Keystone Pipeline) that makes, for example, saying being against the Keystone Pipeline is a progressive value and a Democratic value when Labor is one of the 3 pillars of the Democratic Party and many in labor support the pipeline.

As for iPhones, sure you can be a good Democrat and own an iPhone.

[phleshdef]

13. Not owning something because it was made in China changes nothing. We need better laws.

Nothing will actually change until we actually take a stand against sweatshop labor enterprise in the form of legislation. Thats about as silly as free market fairy nonsense. The rest is just a bunch of fruitless grandstanding meant to make people feel like they did something fucking decent (while accomplishing nothing at all in the process).

[backscatter712]

14. Don't fall for the GOP's tu quoque argument.

For those of you with an insufficient understanding of Latin, or logical fallacies...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Tu quoque (play /tuːˈkwoʊkwiː/),[1] or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a kind of logical fallacy. It is a Latin term for "you, too" or "you, also". A tu quoque argument attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting his failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's point of view on an issue on the argument that the person is inconsistent in that very thing.[2] It is considered an ad hominem argument, since it focuses on the party itself, rather than its positions.

[TreasonousBastard]

21. Is it possible to be a good Democrat while owning anything?

[Shankapotomus]

22. When important resources are controlled

by semi-ethical corporations with virtual monopolies on production and distribution, it is not so much a crime to use those resources as it is to not point out the questionable means of production and publicly call for changes. We all here object to companies benefiting off of slave to slave-like labor. The more egregious consumers are the ones who utilize such products and don't vocalize their issue with it or take no issue with it at all.

If you can get off these products of questionable means of production, by all means, go for it. But whether you can or not the point is to keep pushing these companies to change, keep exposing the abuses. They won't like the hit to their image and perhaps that will induce change.

As far as Apple is concerned, as bad as it was for them to accept such labor and for this long, now that it is becoming publically exposed, I don't expect Apple would tolerate operating with this contradiction much longer without resolving it in some way.

[Zalatix]

44. Semi-ethical? I'd say unethical by design. n/t

[Shankapotomus]

52. Yes, I agree.

Poor word choice on my part.

[RebelOne]

23. I guess I am a good Democrat because I do not own an IPhone. n/t

[Whisp]

24. yes

if we had to exclude everything corporation money grubbing from our use and lives we would be naked and sitting out in the rain. Don't feel guilty - use your iPhone to call people up and tell them what a selfish ahole Jobs was.

[Norrin Radd]

25. What about this?

[MineralMan]

26. What computer are you typing your message on?

Check the labels. What you are asking is a stupid question. If you use technology, you're using stuff made in China. Where did you think it came from? That has nothing to do with the politics of the user.

[Initech]

28. I have one but want to ditch it for an Android or Windows Phone.

[Initech]

37. Too many dropped calls, lost data connections, server errors, you name it.

[SaintPete]

30. Of course not

and the very fact that you have to ask makes us doubt your good standing....

What city do you live in again?

[blogslut]

32. It's all the same Chinese sweatshop

...no matter the gadget. If you own a computer, cellphone, game console or any other device, it was made with Chinese labor.

Apple isn't the only company and it isn't the only company making billions of dollars by looking the other way.

[onenote]

33. Is it possible to be a good Democrat and also spend money?

That seems to be the unspoken subtext of some of the complaints about "consumerists". I don't buy a new phone every time one comes out, but if people who have the resources and desire choose to do so and it contributes to my local phone store having enough business to employ my neighbors, why should I be opposed to that?

[REP]

34. Why does anyone need to justify anything to you?

[fishwax]

35. lol yes

[MadHound]

38. Apparently so,

Since Obama gave his blessing by inviting Jobs' widow to the SOTU address.

[klook]

39. Hey, here's a link to the Obama 2012 campaign app!

I'm sure a few iPhone-owning (and iPad-owning) good Democrats will want to check it out.

[cbdo2007]

40. I don't believe you have to hold every single democratic viewpoint to be a good democrat.

[Dorian Gray]

42. War words!

[NeedleCast]

45. What Percentage Of Your Clothing Was Made in China?

Is it possible for people who wear clothes to be a good Democrat?

[fascisthunter]

46. why just the iPhone? What isn't made in a sweatshop?

Just look at everything you buy... not much is being bought from American manufacturers.

Another simplistic post.

[bigwillq]

47. NO

[closeupready]

48. IMO, no. I won't touch their products until there is confirmation that their subcontractors have

changed their ways. I will not support companies that help fuel sweatshops and subsistence labor.

[metalbot]

51. How did you manage to post this?

Presumably on a computer that was made by a collection of Asian subcontractors?

It's convenient to have some outrage at Apple about a phone that you don't own, but less convenient to be outraged at yourself for using computer equipment that you want to use...

[piratefish08]

53. must be on an old wooden American made model.....

[pacalo]

49. You didn't mention if you owned an iPhone or not & I'm curious to know.

[PVnRT]

50. To maintain PURITY, one must own and use nothing

Everything is bad and evil, therefore the only way to be a good liberal is to sit in the woods and do nothing.

Wait, you'd have to disrupt nature to eat and shit. Better to just kill yourself so you can't continue doing more harm

[closeupready]

54. Yes, that's exactly it. You nailed it.

[downwardly_mobile]

55. For too many, owning an iPhone AND being a Democrat are part of their "image" --

the image of being a certain type of contemporary upper-middle class American.

You can go down the list:

owning iCrap
shopping at Whole Foods, or at "CSA"s (not the Confederate States of America)
being rich but always dressing down
living in a "cool" neighborhood (or supporting a staycationing hipster young adult son or daughter in such a neighborhood)
used to think PBS was cool, now the cool channel is HBO
used to think Starbucks was cool, but that's too mass market now (it has to be Stumpytown or whatnot at a non-chain shop)
and yes, being a Democrat.

These aren't Democrats who are particularly progressive on economic issues, but they are, for better or for worse, Democrats.

Well, every vote helps, I guess!

[Kellerfeller]

60. I can see an argument for contempt

for most of the things on your list, even if I don't necessarily agree with all of them.

However, i don't understand the problem with "being rich but always dressing down ". Are rich people supposed to dress rich??

[raouldukelives]

56. Yes it is.

It's possible these days to support illegal rendition & drone strikes on civilians and be a good Democrat. Certainly owning a phone made by slave labor isn't a big jump.

[LanternWaste]

58. It's not a question of what we own... or even how much we may make.

It's not a question of what we own... or even how much we may make.

However, the relevant, ethical question is how we may or may not use our possessions and our income to better lift those around us.

"Sit, Ubu, sit..."