Croton’s Mayor Sells America Short

OP ED 

Lately, Leo Wiegman, Mayor of Croton-on-Hudson, seems to suffer from a chronic case of foot-in-mouth disease whenever he speaks in connection with the celebration of a national holiday.

The most recent example of this egregious tendency occurs in his posting on a new addition to the already rather long list of existing Croton blogs. In this, Croton’s mayor celebrated the 235th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by awkwardly extolling the virtues of interdependence.

Mayor Wiegman’s example of this nation’s global interdependence is his purchase of a pair of wooden Adirondack chairs made in China. Based on the photo of two  chairs that accompanies his message,  his interdependence is a one-way street.

As a sometime woodworker and to judge by the number of knots visible in the photo, it seems that the mayor got a pair of chairs made of low-grade lumber. In return, China got still-solid American dollars that it continues to regard as highly desirable.

To avoid any charge of misinterpretation of his twisted logic, the quote below is taken directly from Mayor Wiegman's Independence Day message:

“Why not celebrate the freedom we have to be interdependent? Interdependence has never been easier. Interdependence has never been more important. Interdependence is also pervasive.

“So let's embrace interdependence. So why the chairs in the photo?

“Someone in China cut the wood pieces for the nice Adirondack chairs that we just bought and assembled in our backyard just so we enjoy this weekend’s barbecue. I might add, someone in China also packed up the kit beautifully! The chairs were affordable and easy to assemble using the enclosed the pictogram instructions and just one screwdriver.

“Long live interdependence! Long live our liberty to be as interdependent on each other as our hearts may desire!”

I would remind Mayor Wiegman that at the same time some low-wage worker in China was cutting the wood for his chairs, someone in the United States was applying for unemployment benefits because the factory in which they worked making chair parts had been shuttered.

I would also remind Mayor Wiegman that at the same time some low wage worker in China was so carefully packing the component pieces of his chairs, someone in the United States was standing on a bread line or a soup kitchen line because the factory in which they had worked packing chair kits had been closed.

Adding insult to injury,  the materials in which Mayor Wiegman’s chairs were so beautifully packed were undoubtedly made from recycled American cardboard waste shipped to China in the empty ships that had brought the chairs as cargo from China to the U.S.

To anyone who would base a national value system on the interdependence of China and Walmart, I would remind them of the quotation frequently attributed to John Ruskin: “There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this person's lawful prey.”

So how about a few tears of commiseration, Mr. Mayor, for the innocent American victims of your vaunted system of interdependence?