We’ve all heard it: the same ranting about how tiny, poor children work for hours upon hours a day in sweatshops for pennies to make our clothing. But it’s easy to brush it aside. We don’t know who these children are, and quite frankly, it’s so impossible to find clothing that isn’t made in a sweatshop. The shirt tag is so small and easy to ignore; some of our feeble friends even cut it off.

On the other hand, how can you sleep at night knowing you’re walking around in something that was made by people for practically hardly any wages – just enough money so people can afford food, shelter and make it to the next day? How can you look at yourself in the mirror?

The common argument for sweatshops is that at least the people working in them have a job. It’s said that if it wasn’t for Gap or Nike building some sweatshop in Nicaragua or Mexico, then all those people would be unemployed.

That doesn’t make it the right thing to do though.

Not to mention, if you (the U.S. resident) buy clothing made in the United States, then you’re supporting your own economy; you’re putting money back into your country. People can work in factories in the United States and make a living wage, instead of being either unemployed or flipping hamburgers in McDonalds for minimum wage.

Because of recent backlash of buying clothing from sweatshops, several companies have come up with the great idea of moving factories to the Marianas, a group of islands near Indonesia under American control. Many of U.S. laws in the States, such as a minimum wage, have not yet come into play in these areas. “Socially conscious” companies, such as Gap, Target and J.C. Penny, have flocked to these islands. There, they can make clothing with “made in the USA” labels, while at the same time paying slave wages.

But workers from nearby countries are promised high wages. In return, their companies pay a fee of about $7,000. The employees work to repay this fee, making them into indentured servants – or basically slaves.

According to Web research, they often must sign “shadow contracts” and waive basic human rights, including the freedom to join unions, attend religious services, quit or marry. Other sweatshops exist in our very own USA, in such places as New York City or Los Angelos. Often there, new immigrants lured by the promise of a better life are kept locked all day in factories illegally, subjected to terrible conditions and pay.

So you must be thinking, how do I, a confused and befuddled college student, find clothing not made in sweatshops?

First, I’d like to suggest you try this new spiffy World Wide Web thing. Enter the Internet superhighway and go to sites such as Buyamerican.com, unionjeancompany.com and americanapparelstore.com. Each has clothing often made in the continental USA – by union workers who get livable, fair wages.

Moreover, companies like New Balance make many of their comfortable shoes in the United States, some even in Massachusetts, according to nbwebexpress.com. This is unlike Nike and Reebok, companies that don’t make a single shoe in the United States, but can justify charging around $50-$70 a pair.

If you still fear the unpredictable Internet, you can walk over to the University of Massachusetts UStore. The people working there are fairly polite, and all the clothing is sweatshop free. That’s part of the reason it’s so expensive. Most of the UMass clothing is made in the USA, and the clothing that isn’t made here is at least made by people who are fairly paid.

Across the country, the American textile industry has almost completely collapsed, as companies make more profits by paying their employees in China next to nothing. The U.S. factory workers, then, can only find lower paid retail jobs where they make much less an hour, and have less money to purchase things.

The prices don’t even go down when companies move their factories abroad. Abercrombie and Fitch, if anything, constantly jacks up clothing prices. At the end, what goes around comes around; the jobless factory workers have less money to spend on your goods and services.

Who are we to complain about horrible ways people live in the world or the world’s terrible conditions and poverty when we’re causing it? This is not a democrat or republican issue, but something that both sides should be interested in. Next time you need some new clothing, I urge you to try being a bit more patriotic, and perhaps think about your school spirit.

Gilad Skolnick is a Collegian columnist.