Comercio Justo, or “Fair Trade” products are often seen in “socially conscious” retailers like health and “whole” food shops. It presents a novel approach to doing business that takes into account social and environmental factors in its pricing to consumers and directly compensates commodity food producers, like coffee and cocoa farmers. Here proponents explain the philosophy from several different vantage points.

Can an educated public really create a kinder, gentler, consumer society? Do informed buyers make decisions more sensitive to their world? Can you have your cake and eat it too? Some activists think that voracioius consumers need not be subdued, but only that their desires be tweaked, redirected…

Do those who control the wealth in a society also dictate its desires? In this segment we’re able to listen in on the discourse of Spanish intellectuals critical of the modern consumer culture, which they see as something of a Svengali-like oppressor and manipulator of the masses.

Can a consumer-driven market be replaced by an informed system of mutual cooperation by a like-minded populace? Is the market always at odds with the well being of the planet? Is it true that otro mundo es possible? Let’s find out what some experts think…

The game of brisca uses 40 cards known as the “Spanish deck.” One aspect of play involves using body language to reveal your hand to your partner. This is why the gentleman says “we blink an eye and we do like this…” He is making a joke about this body language/cards relationship when he says “your head aches when you have the ace of oros.”

The feisty Sevillian María La Mala Rodriquez talks about her career as a Spanish hip-hop artist. True to her “southern” roots, she often drops her “s” sounds, the way Carolina mentions in her clip on the various accents of Spain.