[The original question was: "... What do
>those of us who want to wear athletic shoes for basketball, soccer,
>cross-training, or any strenuous physical activity do when everything is
>made by either slave labor or the oppressed masses? When you look at the
>labels of any shoe in a foot locker or wherever, everything is made in
>China, Latin America, or SE Asia.]
Two weeks ago I bought a replacement pair of New Balance running shoes, my wonderful old US-made ones having worn out. Bought them at the same store, pretty much the same price and model. The new ones are from China. Every New Balance in the store was from China.
At what point do we move past the head-in-sand attempt to "boycott" Chinese, and move to a more sophisticated way of relating, progressive-to-progressive, with the new China? I don't know what this is, I'm no China expert, but I do know that it's time for a more constructive way of dealing with the China labor issue which faces the realities of where commodities are manufactured.