Pete McMartin just wrote of Campbell's press conference last week: "It was the first time I'd heard a politician draw a direct line between western democracy and the importation of cheaply manufactured brand-name running shoes..."
Public policy and public investment in our "democracies" is being directed into domestic infrastructure that supports a consumer society, a "rich" consumer society reliant on poor communities with labour and environmental standards that we would not tolerate.
Our local governments are caught up in the same economic vision for Canada. Metro Vancouver's incinerators are the Gateway Program for garbage. Like roadways conveying goods (and consumers) to market, the incinerators will create more and more "induced" consumption.
