Word: powerlessness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...faster China pumps out products, the more powerless and frustrated factory workers have become with chronically low wages, poor living conditions and disregard for their rights. Discontent has boiled over in a rising number of strikes and protests. Taiwan-owned Stella International's six Dongguan factories, which employ some 50,000 people making shoes for more than a dozen overseas companies, including Nike, Reebok, Clarks, Sears and Timberland, were hit by at least three disturbances alone last spring. Grievances included the quality of cafeteria food, overtime policies and holiday...
...done. It could easily have become a familiar legislative charade--a "reform" is passed, there's a nice bill-signing ceremony in the Rose Garden, various pols (including the President) get to take credit, but nothing really changes ... except for the accretion of another sedimentary layer of semi-powerless bureaucracy. In truth, it is impossible for Congress to reorganize the inner workings of the Executive Branch without the full support of the President, and I'm not so sure George Bush really favored either one of the attempted reforms...
Progressives generally want to use the power of government to help the powerless. This focus has led many progressives into electoral politics. But good elected officials and good policies only happen when the people demand them. As the labor movement has declined, the working poor have lost the organ that allowed them to express their voice. They have been unable to elect progressive politicians, and they have been unable to hold politicians accountable. While corporations hire more lobbyists to represent them, a smaller and smaller slice of working Americans have any organized body representing their interests...
...done. It could easily have become a familiar legislative charade-a "reform" is passed, there's a nice bill-signing ceremony in the Rose Garden, various pols (including the President) get to take credit, but nothing really changes ... except for the accretion of another sedimentary layer of semi-powerless bureaucracy. In truth, it is impossible for Congress to reorganize the inner workings of the Executive Branch without the full support of the President, and I'm not so sure George Bush really favored either one of the attempted reforms...
...Dealing with the Bush administration via Secretary Powell, after all, was a little like dealing with Iran via its reformist president Mohammed Khatami - a nice guy who speaks the same genteel language as his Western counterparts and is inclined to reach accommodation on most issues, but who remains ultimately powerless in the strategic decision-making in his capital. Still, Rice is unlikely to find European, Arab and Asian allies any more inclined to follow the policies of President Bush now that he's won reelection...