thepriceofjustice&fairtrade

Am I the only one who sees the irony/hypocrisy exhibited in anti-globalisation protests?
Why is it that the doors of Starbucks businesses are seemingly kicked down with the soles of Nike trainers made in sweatshops in Indonesia?
Is that supposed to compute?

I was pondering the justice/fair trade movements - and please excuse my current pessimism - but does it not appear to be a bandwagon designed to alleiviate a certain level of guilt induced by the materialistic and consumeristic lifestyles that we lead in the developed world?
"Buy Fair Trade coffee" and "Don't buy Wal Mart". Fair enough, I don't want to knock it, but if you will allow me...

I have come to suspect that these efforts are half hearted conscience-pleasers, otherwise mostly unrelated to the roots of justice and fairness.
Why do I say that?
I say it because suscribing to this limited ethos of "justice" is convenient.
Buying fair trade coffee often enough means reaching for a different brand on the shelf, and possibly shelling out a few extra pennys.
Buying clothes not made in a sweatshop might mean reaching for something different off of the rack or avoiding your local Wal Mart store (like we all know we should) in favour of a different warehouse conglomerate.
I believe that this kind of sacrifice is convenient, and therefore a popular.

But how many of us log onto the internet with Microsoft software, check our email at Yahoo, and Google search the football scores whilst swigging back on a can of coke?
These multimillion dollar corporations cooperate with regimes such as the one in China, willingly assisting in surpressing the opportunity for freedom of information and human rights change for millions - nay 1.3 billion - Chinese citizens in return for large financial reward.

Why are issues like this not taken seriously?
Because they are inconvenient.
Realistically, if you had to rearrange your lifestyle around issues such as the Chinese one, life in our technically advanced society would prove very difficult, and incredibly inconvenient to say the least. It would probably prove hard to make a living.
And that's what grates me most about the Fair Trade bandwagon.
If you really care about the root of the issue, live it as a lifestyle.
Otherwise doesn't it just sort of appear to be an odd mis-match of whatever you feel like being "just" about at the time.

That's why I have no time for antiglobalisation activists unless they live on a commune, farm the land with bark; stinging nettles for clothing.

Am I being too harsh?