Pitt student group's sweatshop protests lack imagination
[The Pitt News, Apr. 2, 2013]
Dearest Mother and Father,
I’m writing to thank you for helping me imbibe the fantasies that whirl around the minds of Pitt administrators. I now can safely put away my worries over the origins of University apparel.
What brought me to this point was my birthday gift, the state-of-the-art Dream Explorer 3000, and I can’t express enough appreciation for your generosity. Surely, it’s taken some time to get the hang of it, but after practicing I’m now able to don my 3-D goggles, plug in the dream coordinates of people I know and pal around with their ids and demons till morning comes, all with the ease of slicing butter. The Dream Explorer has taken me to fantastical worlds, for sure, but it at the same time has allowed me to clear up confusion — most notably the one I’ve had with Pitt’s administration.
Remember when I was so stumped as to why Pitt would feel “satisfied” with its dogged commitment to the Fair Labor Association, the supposed human-rights watchdog of the factories that produce Pitt apparel? Remember how I scratched my head when Pitt dragged its feet for months despite reasoned appeals from students who cried foul at the FLA, given its funding from and control by the very companies it monitors (Nike, Adidas, etc.)? The fact that the University of Pittsburgh, a world leader of academic thought and progress, was decidedly the last major Pennsylvania university to consider affiliating with the uncompromised Worker Rights Consortium once evaded my understanding.
Well, no longer, thanks to the Dream Explorer 3000. After traversing the collective dreamscape of Pitt administrators, I’ve seen that, in truth, conflicts of interest never hurt anyone. In full honesty, that bitter term ought to be renamed: Conflict of interest, no; confluence of interest, yes. If acting unethically boosts your profits, there’s no one better to police you than yourself.
It was tough getting to the dreams of Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey and Vice Chancellor G. Reynolds Clark, the two administrators most visible in the negotiations with students of Pitt’s chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy. My Dream Explorer requests had to first break through multiple layers of unconsciousness imposed by the Office of Public Affairs. But after finally grabbing my ticket stubs to the dreams of Humphrey and Clark, I stood on the precipice of a brave new world.
Occupying the Oval Office in this world is Kenneth Lay, beloved former CEO of Enron who neither defrauded investors nor died of infamy-induced heart attack in 2006. On the back of unprecedented public trust, Lay’s company, once devoted to only energy, commodities and securities, has grown to benevolently absorb all sectors of the economy. This is thanks to dutiful monitoring by Arthur Andersen LLP, the well-respected accounting firm that Enron paid to audit its books while Andersen sold consulting products to Enron. While prosecutors outside of the Humphrey-Clark dreamscape might call it a conflict of interest, this dynamic did not cause Andersen to overlook shadow companies that might hide massive losses and artificially inflate Enron stock value, which today triples that of Apple stock.
Over on the legislative side of the Lay administration, senators and representatives only introduce spending bills if they own stocks in the companies that the legislation benefits. Contrary from stifling competition, the personal profits that legislators stand to gain are seen as enhancing their ability to choose priorities, and no one is treated unfairly.
Neither does conflict of interest cause concern for science and health care. In the dreams of Humphrey and Clark, the cumbersome academic system — publicly funded dispassionate critique — has died, replaced by an industry system in which for-profit companies pay academics to research and physicians to practice. But who gives them their paycheck couldn’t impact the behavior of these professionals: The research findings are just as trustworthy, the drugs pushed on the patient are just as safe and no one dies.
Talk of death and suffering brings us back to the FLA: In the dream world, laborers in textile factories happily avoid terrible working conditions when the companies that benefit from those factories monitor them. Given the companies’ effective veto power over whether abuse charges get investigated, this “confluence of interest” in fact spurs nobility among the profit-seekers, who gladly diminish their bottom line by responding to every charge.
Of course, the students of Pitt’s AID chapter will tell you that the FLA finds fewer abuses in the same factories than does the WRC — a different monitoring agency funded and directed by students and universities — that the FLA doesn’t require factories to recognize unions and that the FLA praised China’s infamous Foxconn factories as an exemplar of humane industry when third-party reports of widespread abuses broke.
But they are only students. Personally, I find myself more “satisfied” with the dreaming of administrators — not knowing whether Pitt apparel came from abused workers is surely more inspiring than knowing it did.
Sincerely,
Cornelius Schaff
Sadly, Cornelius’ Dream Explorer 3000 malfunctioned upon his discovery of the true purposes of the Outside the Classroom Curriculum, leaving him suspended in Dean Humphrey’s dreamscape. Email his brother Matt at [email protected] with technical advice.
Dearest Mother and Father,
I’m writing to thank you for helping me imbibe the fantasies that whirl around the minds of Pitt administrators. I now can safely put away my worries over the origins of University apparel.
What brought me to this point was my birthday gift, the state-of-the-art Dream Explorer 3000, and I can’t express enough appreciation for your generosity. Surely, it’s taken some time to get the hang of it, but after practicing I’m now able to don my 3-D goggles, plug in the dream coordinates of people I know and pal around with their ids and demons till morning comes, all with the ease of slicing butter. The Dream Explorer has taken me to fantastical worlds, for sure, but it at the same time has allowed me to clear up confusion — most notably the one I’ve had with Pitt’s administration.
Remember when I was so stumped as to why Pitt would feel “satisfied” with its dogged commitment to the Fair Labor Association, the supposed human-rights watchdog of the factories that produce Pitt apparel? Remember how I scratched my head when Pitt dragged its feet for months despite reasoned appeals from students who cried foul at the FLA, given its funding from and control by the very companies it monitors (Nike, Adidas, etc.)? The fact that the University of Pittsburgh, a world leader of academic thought and progress, was decidedly the last major Pennsylvania university to consider affiliating with the uncompromised Worker Rights Consortium once evaded my understanding.
Well, no longer, thanks to the Dream Explorer 3000. After traversing the collective dreamscape of Pitt administrators, I’ve seen that, in truth, conflicts of interest never hurt anyone. In full honesty, that bitter term ought to be renamed: Conflict of interest, no; confluence of interest, yes. If acting unethically boosts your profits, there’s no one better to police you than yourself.
It was tough getting to the dreams of Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey and Vice Chancellor G. Reynolds Clark, the two administrators most visible in the negotiations with students of Pitt’s chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy. My Dream Explorer requests had to first break through multiple layers of unconsciousness imposed by the Office of Public Affairs. But after finally grabbing my ticket stubs to the dreams of Humphrey and Clark, I stood on the precipice of a brave new world.
Occupying the Oval Office in this world is Kenneth Lay, beloved former CEO of Enron who neither defrauded investors nor died of infamy-induced heart attack in 2006. On the back of unprecedented public trust, Lay’s company, once devoted to only energy, commodities and securities, has grown to benevolently absorb all sectors of the economy. This is thanks to dutiful monitoring by Arthur Andersen LLP, the well-respected accounting firm that Enron paid to audit its books while Andersen sold consulting products to Enron. While prosecutors outside of the Humphrey-Clark dreamscape might call it a conflict of interest, this dynamic did not cause Andersen to overlook shadow companies that might hide massive losses and artificially inflate Enron stock value, which today triples that of Apple stock.
Over on the legislative side of the Lay administration, senators and representatives only introduce spending bills if they own stocks in the companies that the legislation benefits. Contrary from stifling competition, the personal profits that legislators stand to gain are seen as enhancing their ability to choose priorities, and no one is treated unfairly.
Neither does conflict of interest cause concern for science and health care. In the dreams of Humphrey and Clark, the cumbersome academic system — publicly funded dispassionate critique — has died, replaced by an industry system in which for-profit companies pay academics to research and physicians to practice. But who gives them their paycheck couldn’t impact the behavior of these professionals: The research findings are just as trustworthy, the drugs pushed on the patient are just as safe and no one dies.
Talk of death and suffering brings us back to the FLA: In the dream world, laborers in textile factories happily avoid terrible working conditions when the companies that benefit from those factories monitor them. Given the companies’ effective veto power over whether abuse charges get investigated, this “confluence of interest” in fact spurs nobility among the profit-seekers, who gladly diminish their bottom line by responding to every charge.
Of course, the students of Pitt’s AID chapter will tell you that the FLA finds fewer abuses in the same factories than does the WRC — a different monitoring agency funded and directed by students and universities — that the FLA doesn’t require factories to recognize unions and that the FLA praised China’s infamous Foxconn factories as an exemplar of humane industry when third-party reports of widespread abuses broke.
But they are only students. Personally, I find myself more “satisfied” with the dreaming of administrators — not knowing whether Pitt apparel came from abused workers is surely more inspiring than knowing it did.
Sincerely,
Cornelius Schaff
Sadly, Cornelius’ Dream Explorer 3000 malfunctioned upon his discovery of the true purposes of the Outside the Classroom Curriculum, leaving him suspended in Dean Humphrey’s dreamscape. Email his brother Matt at [email protected] with technical advice.
