The Outsource Olympics: United States Uniforms Made in China

Democrats and Republicans came together this week to be outraged over the fact that the United States Olympic Team uniforms for the opening ceremonies are made in China.

Part of me isn’t sure whether to be more surprised over the first part of that sentence or the second.

 It is an outrage that Team USA gear is not made in the United States, but where has all this outrage been over the last ten or fifteen years when a majority of the clothes that were made in the United States began to be made in the Chinas, Vietnams, and Honduras of the world, sending Americans to the unemployment line?

That our political leaders have chosen to be outraged over this brand of outsourcing foretells a rather hypocritical stance.

Factory workers and garment makers represent America 365 days a year instead of once every four years, yet because they’re not going to have the glare of an Olympic spotlight on them in two weeks, we apparently don’t have to care about them.

I love our Olympians, this isn’t anything personal, but there’s something really messed up in this country when it takes the Olympics to stimulate an outrage over a decades old practice.