So now it's War on Dollar Stores.

In China, the fake meds, fraudulent foodstuffs and tarnished toothpaste scares are making very real the danger of turning this whole trade imbalance thing into a global economic disaster of epic proportion. Not only for poor people but for those who enable the low-income lifestyles that some world manufacturing standards have become incongruent with.

Luckily, many of you have been privy to other familiar -- and also catchy -- Wars on. Honestly, who but the criminally elite could forget the political box-office tallies of War on Drugs or the equally memorable War on Terror? These were blockbusters in their own right but War on Dollar Stores will own the trilogy like The Two Towers owned LOTR.

See, just because social inequalities may force you to discount shop, it doesn't mean you have to like it. Or should anyone else for that matter.

Who then, or what, is to blame for the implosion of consumer relations with Our Good Friends® The Chinese?

The Consumer - Incandescent light bulbs sort of fuck up the hydro grid and sometimes fakes get made with poison. What's the problem? Consumers seem to like the idea of buying four of 'em for a buck. Thing is, being the low price leader on environmental decay doesn't seem to be helping out with carbon footprints or cancer. If we want to regreen the earth, we need to get more environmentally sustainable products into the hands of educated consumers who can afford them. A dollar store is more likely to sell a recycling bin than encourage the use of one. WTF?

The Chinese - In China, they found a guy who the government there managed to sentence to death for his role in overseeing pharmaceutical production scams. Harsh. For 'the Worker' or Communist, global perceptions of the sweatshop laborer need to be squashed like beef at a block party. More importantly,as serious as the matter is, nobody should to be killed. The tragedy of dead dogs and cats is enough. We don't need to be adding humans to the list.

Culture - The disposable lifestyles forced upon the poor are made worse when the products that are most affordable and widely available are the most poorly manufactured. This plastic broken shit is loading up the landfills. As freedom-quenching and democratically liberating as it seems to drive forty yards across the parking lot to China Buffet once done flipping through decals at Dollar USA, there simply has to be a better way to bring people together other than feeding them and jamming 2 for $1 firecrackers into their hands before heading home to watch 'the news'.

Santa Claus - The Santa I know would never stuff a sack full of lead-soaked toys down any chimney. It's hard to celebrate and justify excess living during the holidays when so many people have so little.

Michael Bay - Putting him on this list is topical and trendy if not a slightly transparent attempt to get people who give a shit about international trade tariffs to read this far into this. But seriously, what does Michael Bay have to do with tariffs? Americans have a lot more clout when the entertainers step in to get political and wave the tariff flag. It only took a few puffs of smoke from a cigar-chomping Gov. Schwarzenegger to help enact criminal legislation against Chinatown DVD pirates in Canada. If Bay and Spielberg sick the robots on Beijing, all bets are off.

Now before anyone starts firing up the ol' shoe factory downtown in anticipation of a rush to buy local, remember that up until a generation ago, America was the world's sole consumer shopping superpower. Yet as the trend experts, business elite and alcohol-soaked professors have reiterated to us time and time again, for globalization to be efficient and equitable (and to provide developing nations with the basic resources they need) a more modest standard of living for Westerners must be accepted.

In reality, boycotting products for being MADE IN CHINA at this point seems like an exercise in futility. Imagine a dog getting angry because it's chained to a doghouse outside. The dog is angry to be chained, so it stands in the rain, boycotting the doghouse and getting soaked and sick in the process. Furthermore, the Boycott China thing would be more palatable if those trumpeting it didn't have at least a hint of racism in their cries.

Educating ourselves as consumers is ultimately the best way that global citizens can work together to ensure that manufacturers provide us with sustainable and safe products. Demanding more details about the things we buy -- country-of-origin labels on food and access to production and cartage data on goods -- will naturally lead to more informed choices about with whom we spend our money worldwide.

If they can do it with Fair Trade coffee, they can do it with chainsaws.