It usually takes me days to get through the Sunday paper because I’m often so easily distracted. This week I was working backward - the A-section being the last to read. Switching between the paper and my computer I read a Mother Jones e-mail referencing a series of articles on the hazards of manufacturing plants in China.

The article in Sunday’s paper is the first in a series of four articles by Loretta Tofani (the whole series can be found here) who spent 12 months in China researching the story. Although many of the Chinese laws regarding occupation safety and exposure limits are stricter than here in the U.S., China has much less enforcement. Obviously there’s a whole range of issues that contribute to the working conditions, but one of those is the lack of organized labor. While organized labor in the U.S. is just a shadow of what it used to be, it’s still enough to keep most Americans safe from businesses that will exploit workers as much as they can. Obviously there are some glaring exceptions to this, but it’s not on the same scale with China.

Where business fails, should it not become the responsibility of the government to protect their people from harm and exploitation? Especially in a “communist” country like China? Yet the government of China does not seem to care. Do you have enough faith in your government to think that they would protect Americans from exploitation for the sake of a buck? If so, it’s time to come out of your little bubble. All over the country there are people - maybe they’re not all citizens, but people nonetheless - who are being exploited so that millions of lower-middle class and middle class Americans can save a few cents on a head of lettuce or a tray of strawberries at the Wal-Mart.

A free-market, job-choice argument can be made for what amounts to unethical, immoral behavior on the part of businesses and the people and governments that turn a blind eye toward this, but that’s a whole other argument for another time. I’ve recently been reminded of another instance where our government has disregarded the people, and has in fact put them directly in harms way under shaky pretenses. No, I’m not talking about he war in Iraq here. Carla does a great job of keeping us informed and reminded on this front. I’m talking about the nuclear weapons testing in southern Nevada done in the name of “national security”.

Heather and I are season subscribers to the Plan-B Theater company, and our first show of the season was ‘Exposed’ written by Mary Dickson and excellently directed by Jerry Rapier. Exposed is a true story of Mary, her sister Ann, and the many people in Mary’s world as she tries to expose the gross negligence of the United States government as it performs nuclear weapon testing - knowing full well the consequences to the “low-use segment of the population” around ground zero.

I don’t plan on giving a full review of Exposed here; you can find that other places. But I do want to mention that it was one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had in a very long time. If I didn’t worry about taking the seat from someone who hasn’t seen it already, I’d see it over and over. (As it is they’ve added another showing, which at the time of this writing is probably sold out).

It is truly scary to think that our government, who has the explicit duty of protecting it’s people, would knowingly test weapons that severely change and even end the lives of the very people they’re charged to protect. What’s worse, they then spend millions in litigation and still continue to deny almost all culpability. The government may call the people affected a “low-use segment of the population”, but they’re still people. Americans! Heather and I were two of the few in the tiny theater that had not been affected by the decision of our government to allow nuclear fallout to contaminate the country.

The people who were depicted in the play sat down afterward to answer questions, and I have to say, they are a truly brave and patriotic bunch. They reminded us that even though a movement of vocal, angry people were able to stop the Divine Strake test, it’s far from being the end of the fight. When our government so blatantly disregards the welfare of our brothers and sisters, and continues to try to do so, it’s time to sharpen our pitchforks.