I'm sorry that you have gotten such a bad impression of "lean manufacturing." Please don't confuse bad management with lean.
Lean, done properly, respects people -- not threatening to move your jobs over to China. Those kind of threats have nothing to do with Lean. That's just cruel, incompetent management.
I posted about your stories on my blog about Lean Manufacturing:
leanblog.org | Lean Blog: Two L.A.M.E. Tales | Lean Manufacturing | Lean Healthcare | Toyota Production System