Via Alison Hallett at Blogtown, PDX comes this link to Mike Daisey's latest blog post, in which he responds to his TAL appearance and bemoans that people are using the fact that he fabricated parts of his story about the work conditions at Apple's suppliers in China—and then lied about those fabrications—so that they can "return to ignoring everything about the circumstances under which their devices are made."

His post is infuriating in a thousand ways, but to begin with, if it's true (and that's a BIG if) that the story of the labor conditions in Chinese electronics factories is fading from the headlines in favor of the story of how he made a lot of it up, IT'S HIS OWN DAMN FAULT. If he wanted to shine a light on these practices and effect change, he could have done it without lying about it, and then this distraction wouldn't exist.

If people want to use me as an excuse to return to denialism about the state of our manufacturing, about the shape of our world, they are doing that to themselves.

No. They are not. YOU are doing it. YOU did it.

People don't "want to use" this as an excuse. All of the good reporting on this issue has been undercut because of what he did. The story has changed because Daisey wasn't honest about it, and that has undermined the credibility of the story elsewhere. What's "especially galling" is deflecting the blame onto others for this hopefully temporary change in focus.

Hopefully people will continue to care, and things will continue to change, but it will be IN SPITE OF what Daisey has done here, not because of it. The truth now has to overcome the lies, and that's nobody's fault but his.