Originally Posted By yoho33 Hey all, First I just want to say that I love Disney, especially its theme parks. I can't even begin to list all the great memories Disney has given my family and I, as we shared time together in its parks. For that I am truly grateful! However, it is because of this that I am concerned about their business practices and would like to do all I can to encourage them to set an example and precedent for ethical business that respects the dignity of the human person (including the poor). Disney has given many rich families and their children great opportunities to enrich their lives, they now have an opportunity to do so with the poor... provide them an opportunity to work in safe, respectful environments that will help them to accumulate the financial wealth they need to look after their families and provide their children with opportunities to learn, and grow. But right now, they have chosen to exploit the dire and desperate situation of the poor, enslaving them to long, horrendous working conditions which pay them so little that despite all their work, they still remain in poverty... all in order to make a larger profit! Disney owes its workers more than this! They owe them justice! As Disney fans we have a unique passion with the company, one that I believe could do great good in encouraging Disney to do the right thing - to stay in improvised countries while working with its contractors to clean up their factories and finally guarantee that human and worker rights will be respected! For more information you can check out: <a href="http://www.maquilasolidarity.org/campaigns/disney/report.htm" target="_blank">http://www.maquilasolidarity.o rg/campaigns/disney/report.htm</a> Please, in this year of making a “Million Dreams Come True†lets brainstorm ways we can encourage Disney to help the poor work toward seeing their dreams come true aswell! For more information you can check out: <a href="http://www.maquilasolidarity.org/campaigns/disney/report.htm" target="_blank">http://www.maquilasolidarity.o rg/campaigns/disney/report.htm</a> Thanks! Contact idea to get started: Disneyland Resort, California: -contact Disneyland Guest Services, telling them that as a Disney fan, you are concerned about the origin and conditions under which the products offered to you are made. Ask them to offer more ethical choices for you, your family and all of Disneyland’s patrons: -e-mail form: https://secure.disney.go.com/disneyland/en_US/help/contactUs?name=ContactUsPage -phone number: (714) 781-4565
Originally Posted By disneydad109 Why don't you ask the wonderful folk in China to tell Disney to clean up those substandard working conditions. I am sure the goverment of China will be right behind you in this nobel act.
Originally Posted By yoho33 I would love to see the government take a more active role! It would be amazing if they cared for their people and enacted legislation to protect them. Unfortunatley though, we know that such is not the case in impoverished countries, especially ones such as China where there are unbelievable abuses against humanity. Unfortunately, the situation over there is more complex for the people involded. Besides government corruption, there is the corruption of first-world corporations. People and the workers have tried to protest, but these corporations have found a way to trap them. Linked below is an article that reports such protests by female wrokers in a factory Disney operates in Bangledesh."When the women stood up for their rights and denounced the violations, Disney responded by cutting and running, pulling its work from the factory and dumping the women on the street with nothing, penniless, facing hunger and misery." In other words, they again exploited the desperate, dire situation of these people. They are so desperate for money that having the little bit they get taken away can be downright fatal for them and their families... Disney recognizes this and rather than extend the ideals they presume to have for families in the first world to those in the third world, use their wealth and presence in third world countries as a way to help, they expolit and trap these people, and all for what? To find cheap labour, while over-pricing their merchandise, resulting in a much larger profit. And as people who support such a company and buy the merchandise made under such conditions, we too, are part of the problem and, thus can, and should be part of the solution...
Originally Posted By disneydad109 I am sure that all you say is true but sadly no one will ever lift a hand to correct them. The nations of the 3rd world have always been worse to their people than anywhere else. I have lived in a number of 3rd world places as a missonary and they don't more more money what they need is healh care, food,clean water. It would also be nice if their fellow citizens would stop killing them for any reason they can think of.
Originally Posted By yoho33 Well, I’m not sure about that…I'm lifting a finger, as did you when you went over as a missionary, as could we all if we only took the time to do so. True, these people do need medical care, water and food. However, what those things are, are a need. A need that, ultimately, is indicative of a larger problem (i.e.: why they don't have these things), nor is it a solution. Perhaps getting more money from their employment won't help in a large scale way, but if companies such as Disney offered employment opportunities for adults, and through that provided an income that allowed for families to live off the earnings of its parents, then we'd see families that could afford to have their children in school, being educated, rather than being sold and exploited. In turn, they'd then have an upcoming generation of people who could become the very doctors, and farmers that could provide the medical care and food that these communities and people so desperately need. Likewise, they could also be a generation less willing to kill each other for no reason, because rather than grow up in an degenerative environment where the human person was used and exploited, they would have grown up in an environment where they were respected and given an opportunity to be more than their predecessors. In that light, it's little wonder there is such disregard for the human dignity in a country where the human person is denigrated both internally by their own people and externally us and our corporations that go in and tell them they are merely a tool…a means to serve our end, rather than respect them and treated as the dignified people they are, or at least should be.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Please, go tell someone who cares dude. I am ocnvinced there is absolutely NOTHING I can do to make any difference in the problem you present at all. Plastic bags don't bother me either. What can I say, I am a good Republican. Now had you come in here talking this stuff about Wal-mart, yeah I'd be on board with that.
Originally Posted By yoho33 But what is the difference to you between Disney and Wal-mart? If you care not about this issue in relation to Disney because you are convinced there is "absoutely nothing you can do" then shouldn't that reasoning extend to other enterprises such as Wal-Mart?
Originally Posted By RoadTrip You probably would have been taken more seriously had you posted at this site a while before signing up to advance your cause. No matter how worthy the cause may be, you approach to it here on LP has probably turned people off more than anything else.
Originally Posted By yoho33 I can see the signing up part, but is there anything else in my appraoch that you think may have turned people off? Honestly, I would really like to know. This is an issue I care very deeply for, and do have hope for, so I definitley want to keep trying... if you can help me to learn to do so more effectively, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks!
