Both Ends Against the Middle

My tale begins with the death of a child. In Minnesota, a four year old boy swallowed part of a charm bracelet. The bracelet was a promotional giveaway that came with the purchase of Reeboks shoes. The promotion had been ongoing since 2004. The charm contained more that 90% lead.

Lead binds to other metals molecules found naturally in our bodies, like calcium, iron and zinc. Once bonded, lead makes the molecule change or function differently, such as not producing the proper enzymes and messing up the formation of hemoglobin.

The symptoms of chronic lead poisoning include neurological problems, such as reduced cognitive abilities, or nausea, abdominal pain, irritability, insomnia, metal taste in oral cavity, excess lethargy or hyperactivity, headache and, in extreme cases, seizure and coma. – Wiki

No parent wants to watch their child suffer like that.

Naturally the basic reaction to this sad story is to get the lead out, so to speak. Go after the manufacturer, and recall the product. In America, we expect accountability. Reebok stepped up and recalled the charm bracelets. The bracelets were manufactured in China.

Now let’s fast forward a year, and take a look at our Antagonist in Chief. President Bush has allied himself with China on this one. Despite the fact that lead based paint, and products with lead in any levels above 6 parts per million are outlawed in our country in order to protect our kids (and have been for decades) , Bush thinks it’s just too onerous to hold our importers to the same standards.

The Bush administration has hindered regulation on two fronts, consumer advocates say. It stalled efforts to press for greater inspections of imported children’s products, and it altered the focus of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), moving it from aggressive protection of consumers to a more manufacturer-friendly approach. — McClatchy

Gee, if we had regulations, we might piss off China and they’d have to sell their lead filled useless crap to … Who? Who is going to want it if we don’t? Who has a market size sufficient to make us tremble with the thought that we can’t HAVE lead filled useless crap?

That’s bullshit, and we all know it. We’ve been dealing with a market based economy for 230-odd years now, and the better mousetrap wins. If we tell China to make it safe or take it elsewhere, they are going to look at the size of our pie and MAKE IT SAFE.

Duh.

What kind of an American puts the market interests of a foreign power over the health of American children? Maybe it’s somebody who has already bought up a huge chunk of Paraguay, isn’t all that smitten with America, finds her constitution to be an inconvenient doctrine, and her laws inapplicable to him. Maybe it’s someone who thinks kids are easy to mess with because they’re powerless?

Why, it’s the guy who orchestrates this:

Administration officials outlined the new standards in a letter sent to state health officials on Friday evening, in the middle of a month-long Congressional recess. In interviews, they said the changes were aimed at returning the Children’s Health Insurance Program to its original focus on low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage.After learning of the new policy, some state officials said today that it could cripple their efforts to cover more children by imposing standards that could not be met. – NYT

George W. Bush thinks foreign powers should be able to sell poisonous stuff to your children and that it’s up to you to be diligent. His position is that despite the fact healthcare is out of reach for more middle class Americans everyday, your individual state governments shouldn’t be allowed to craft programs for their citizens to cover their kids because it might set a precedent that “he” was weak on the healthcare issue. Sorry, but I think any attempt to look at this at any level beyond self perception is futile. Our president doesn’t do a damn thing for the good of the country, IF he thinks it looks like he had to reconsider his original position.

He’s willing to gamble the lives of our kids for his ego. Maybe you didn’t want to stand up when he lied to you about his reasons to invade Iraq; maybe you didn’t want to kick a fuss when he spied on you illegally. Perhaps you didn’t think protesting the hijacking of the Department of Justice was worthwhile. Hopefully, this kind of thinking doesn’t extend to your irreplaceable children.

The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick and the needy, and the handicapped. — Hubert Humphrey

This government can convene on behalf of a brain dead woman, but thinks you should not only be happy that 60% of the toys in this country come from China but that Chinese lead is okey dokey. They think kid’s healthcare is unimportant because they might look like wing nut backsliders, and appearances outweigh need. Basically, your kid eats lead, you can’t afford the care and they die a horrible death, but China makes money and Bush didn’t lose face. That’s a win-win in Bushworld. The fact kids can’t vote is just icing on top.

Both ends against the middle? Time to push right the fuck back.

Crossposted at Bring It On! in the National Blog
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[tag]BIO, Bush, Politics, Healthcare, China, Lead, Toys, Health, Kids, Trade[/tag]