|
This program ended December 31, 2007. To Whom It May Concern: I am the owner and operator of two popular and successful gaming stores in Toronto known as the Hairy Tarantula (and recently, the “HairyT West”), and I am writing you regarding a matter of grave concern. Today in China, the communist government brutally suppresses a large and diverse group of people who practice a form of spiritualism known as Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa (the three principal tenets of which are: truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance). Recently an international spotlight has finally been shone on the abhorrent abuse that includes the internment and imprisonment of thousands upon thousands of extra-ordinary citizens AND THE HARVESTING OF THEIR LIVING ORGANS FOR RESALE! The Chinese government spends enormous resources promoting Falun Gong as an evil cult and claims that the organs they sell come from “executed prisoners”. This is a modern day equivalent of the Roman practice of throwing Christians to the lions (and our alcohol-withered livers in need of replacement make US the hungry beasts!). I have noticed with some despair the increasing trend of North American companies in dealing with the Chinese government. Popular rhetoric claims that by dealing fairly with the Chinese government they will learn the value of human rights. I suggest what has occurred is the loss of our own humanity instead. If you deal with the devil, then perhaps you deserve to burn in hell… What is a conscious retailer to do, knowing that more and more of his livelihood is based on slave labour and brutal oppression worse than that depicted in a Steven Spielberg movie!? What to do, knowing that at this rate, all my goods will be made overseas and will sit on my shelf, available for sale to a massive market of unemployed gamers and comic collectors?! Well this letter is a friendly but firm statement of intention. We know that all that is needed for evil to succeed is for good folk to stand by and do nothing. This is what the Hairy Tarantula has done, and what we are going to continue to do – it’s known as the “M.I.C.KEY Program”, and that means that since August of last year we have been putting identifying stickers on all hand-painted-in-China Hasbro D&D and Star Wars miniatures, and WizKids HeroClix packages. We collect 10% of the sales of these products and donate them to charities that assist the persecuted practitioners of Falun Gong in China and also here in North America, where Chinese governent goons harass and intimidate immigrant Chinese families while our sell-out governments ignore the problem and count the cash. I hope that you have been so busy that you only just heard of this. I’m very glad to have brought it to your attention. I am going to be including this letter with any purchase made at either Hairy Tarantula store, and posting it prominently on our website. Thousands of people will be able to read this, and I plan to follow up by informing them of any responses or lacks of response that I get from the companies that I send this letter to. My aim is to correct a grevious wrong, and my strategy is to refuse to believe that we are powerless to effect change. You are getting this letter because your company deals with manufacturers in China, presumably to save money. I encourage you to consider the OTHER factors besides the cash, such as morality and quality, and spending money locally. It is Canada Day today, and I began this letter basically on the stroke of midnight, by some quirk of timing. Canada means a lot of things to a lot of people - to me it means fairness, and that is an integral part of the way I run my business. In fact, the primary tenets of Falun Gong are the same as my approach to business and life: truthfulness (first and foremost), compassion, and patience/fortitude/forbearance. I can’t live with myself if I don’t do everything I can to wake people up to this horror! So here in the land of the free – for now but not for long at this rate – I encourage you to CUT ALL BUSINESS TIES WITH CHINA UNTIL SUCH A TIME AS THEY CEASE PERSECUTION OF FALUN GONG AND RELEASE AND REUNITE ALL IMPRISONED FAMILIES AND GIVE AN HONEST ACCOUNTING OF THEIR TERRIBLE CRIMES. Note that this will likely require a “regime change” to quote modern parlance, although the popular approach is certainly doomed to failure. Give it some serious thought and then get back to me. I’ll post all replies promptly. Meanwhile, here at the Hairy Tarantula, we’re going to spend July making sure that everyone knows that the Hairy Tarantula would like to know what your plans regarding China are, and that after one year of the M.I.C.KEY program, it’s time for much more direct and sustained action! In August we’re going to pick on someone new; kind of like a petty communist party official in some Chinese province might extort a successful business. That company will have either provided an outrageous response, or simply been deafeningly silent. Either way, in August the stickers are going on another commie-loving money-grubbing immoral companies’ products – unless a miracle happens! That’s not good for image and sales, because while previously I was donating a percentage of sales, I can’t afford to do that with everything being made in China now! I’m going to raise the price and donate the extra instead. The effect will be to slow sales of brands made with slavery and divert sales to products made in places with human values entrenched in their constitutions. Without the aforementioned miracle, September will see a continuation of the revamped M.I.C.KEY program – another manufacturer will be selected to get stuck! God forbid, again in October, then November, and so on. At some point if we’re still alive and dealing with the communists in China, the Hairy Tarantula may simply go out of business because there’s so much stuff that’s a little overpriced with a sticker saying “Made in China – 10% of sales donated to end the communist persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese government”. If that is the outcome, at least I’ll be able to sleep at night, even if it’s under a bridge. I hope in that case you’ll be able somehow to feel the same! Yours faithfully, Here are some things you can do to learn more: |