] The tags on the $12 sweaters said %u201CMade in
] Indonesia.%u201D
]
] Sweat-shop labor. Multinational. The Gap (Old Navy%u2019s
] parent company). Shopping malls. All the reasons why such
] authentically middle-class-quality clothes were available
] for lower-middle-class prices. This, I realized, is The
] Gap%u2019s strategy: use globalization to make
] middle-class clothes available to the lower classes at
] Old Navy; solid middle to upper-middle class-type clothes
] clothes at struggling middle-class prices at The Gap; and
] yuppie/upper-middle-class-level clothing at solid
] middle-class prices at its %u201Chigh-end%u201D store,
] Banana Republic. Each offers you an affordable and real
] climb up the socio-economic ladder. Like Wal-Mart.
]
] Here a cruel and almost funny cycle revealed itself.
] Think about it. The $12 sweater in the Old Navy bin is
] made by grossly underpaid Indonesian sweatshop workers.
] Their exploitation allows me and the Latinos to stock up
] on nice sweaters for prices far less in real terms than
] these sweaters might have cost a decade ago. But the
] exploitation also feeds the resentment against America
] that draws Indonesians towards Islamic extremism. That
] extremism feeds terrorism, which leads to America%u2019s
] military response: war. The war is fought predominantly
] by America%u2019s underclass%u2014the very people who
] shop at Old Navy, the very people who benefit from the
] sweatshop labor that produced the terrorism that drew%2

Ames is freaking hilarious and insightful here.