Which brings me back to the issue of Relieving Global Poverty. As the
United Nations has so aptly put it, one of the greatest crises facing
future generations of humans is the "slumization," as I've put it, of
the entire world. As the world gets more crowded and the struggle for
resources, food, shelter,, energy, etc., continues, more and more of
the cities EVERYWHERE are beginning to resemble the crowding and
squalor and ill-humor of a Dickensian London. I keep expecting the
Artful Dodger to show up on my block these days. Oh wait, the Untied
States made him their President.
The larger issue here is the distribution of resources in this ever-crowding world.
IF there had been no NAFTA, for example, which – while enriching a
number of corporations plundering resources in this hemisphere –
eliminated the markets for small, family farmers in Mexico and ranchers
in Canada – there would be no reason (think: millions of men) for
Mexican men seeking ways to a) support their families and/or b)
eventually bringing those families to the US permanently. Let's connect
the dots on this one.
We moved the demand for men to work farms – now invalidated by
companies like Archer Daniels Midland – raising corn, as one example,
forcing them to find themselves another market. The labor demand moved
to US agribusiness. IF YOUR FAMILY WERE STARVING, what would you do?
That's only one industry. I could list more. There's the construction
industry, which I first entered when I was still in college, worked
here in Texas when I first met my ex-wife, have worked in California
and New Orleans. When I was seriously considering moving to Mexico a
few years back, I was advised that I should be good at masonry. Why?
All the masons and drywall hangers who had lived in the mountains of
Mexico, where I wanted to live, had moved here to the United States.
How could that be? Hmmn. Suburban sprawl? No way. That's not even
possible.
Look around at construction sites where you are, be it Tampa, Raleigh,
Phoenix, New Orleans, or Austin. What language are all the workers
speaking?
NAFTA, of course, has NOTHING to do with it.
More to the point of this editorial is this:
Do
the vast majority of the citizens in ANY of the countries signatory to
the North American Free Trade Agreement feel that they are better off
today than they were pre-NAFTA?
I rest my case.
There are two other issues I wish to discuss:
In my – sometimes allowed by various publishers – technology industry
pieces over the last decade or so, I've taken the almost Lou Dobbs
stance on the myth of the need to increase H1B visas.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, these visas, which are hectored
every year by the largest and richest companies of our technology
industry here in America, based on the claim there is not enough
high-tech talent to go around in our domestic employment base. Since
this is my magazine, I don't have to mince words about it – as I often
did in my Day Job articles: it's a lie and sham.
The Real Deal was and has always been that by bringing over foreign
workers, from India, Pakistan, even Ireland, they could hold that visa
over their heads – basically rendering them indentured servants – and
paying them far less as programmers, software designers, etc., than
they would have to pay a US worker with the same skill set.
Like I said, this is about connecting the dots.
Why does the Customer Service or Tech Support person I telephone when I
have a computer problem tell me his name is Brad or her name is
Angelina but still have a pronounced India accent? I guess I was
calling Bangalore rather than Redmond or Rochester and I didn't even
know it.
The Good News is that there is now a thriving industry for classes in
India to teach Brads and Angelinas to recognize and replicate the
various inflections and idioms of this bastard language called English.
The Bad News is that various people are put out of work and effectively
having their wages lowered in the United States while having the same
skill sets.
Harvey in Redmond, you see, could have done the same job. But he would
expect a wage equivalent to maintaining his life in such a city or a
nearby community. Brad in Bangalore is moving up in the world for a
quarter of what Harvey's wage might be.
The moral of the story is that corporations, unlike many individuals,
no longer have a NEED to recognize nations or national borders and
ACTUALLY PROFIT from recognizing how atavistic the whole notion of
nations has become. While nation states, in complicity with their media
outlets and lack of TRULY EDUCATIONAL INFORMATION, give up their
citizens to drone-age and peonage. Hmmmmn,
The slumization of the world. That was another dot.
The slumization of the world is now in full-force.
It could easily be argued, at the advent of the 21st Century, that the
entire point of nationalism is to keep people divided enough to be
easily and readily exploited and plundered, much like other resources
such as water, food, shelter, etc.
The missing part of this analysis/equation that you are not often made
privy to is that the new corporate-nations need YOU as much as you need
them. Without your willing compliance, the machine would grind to a
halt. You must believe that you need them more or the whole system
fails to work. The existing equation works in their favor, of course.
Imagine: IF you took common cause with working people all over the
world, instead of insisting on your own single-selfishness, an organic
balance of actual supply and demand might be restored.
In such a process, you would suddenly have a say in how other resources
– besides your skill set, your training and experience – would be a
factor in the process. A balance of power, as Metternich or Kissinger
might say, would be established. If people had the same rights as
corporations, more people might have good food, clean water, shelter
and clothing. Your children might have a chance at a decent education
and a sustainable – in fact, a hopeful - future. Hmmn.
That is why I am a radical.
I am not finished with this Jeremiad yet.
War creates POVERTY. War leaves you with a new horde of widows and
orphans who must be supported or fend for themselves. War deprives you
of a generation of men who would have been there to support their
families, begin new productive families, start businesses, and conceive
new inventions. In short, war steals the wealth of the world.
War, as Vietnam and the first Gulf War have now demonstrated to us,
leaves you with junkies and alcoholics – suffering from shell shock
(what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) to care for the rest
of their lives or leave homeless on our streets. It's easy to call them
"Bums," because you weren't there, isn't it?
War leaves the ones who aren't physically maimed and don't succumb to
drugs or alcohol waking us up in the night, in our homes, screaming in
their sleep.
This is not to mention the cost of reconstructing devastated cities and
devastated lives, enhancing the great mass of refugees who seem to be
the legacy of this new century.
War is NOT about patriotism or "Support Our Troops." War is about
amputees, widows, bereaved mothers, lost fathers, sisters you will
never see again, daughters who bought the claptrap of being a good
citizen, only to find that it was all for corporate profiteers.
WHEN!
When are you going to get that through your heads?
War is about
destroying, not enhancing, the wealth of nations.
Logic and common sense dictate that any people who really care about
justice, about the future, about love, repudiate war. War is not a
video game. War is not glory and honor. It is what we should work to
avoid. Jesus never raised a knife or a sword, Christians. Buddha sat
under a tree. Gandhi proposed that non-violent resistance was the moral
high ground. I could go on but why belabor the point?
Every time you advocate for war, you are not
only
depriving yourself, you are turning your back on your own humanity.
That makes me sad. I had thought you were better than that.
Give Peace a Chance.
I'd like to remind you that the Focus Issue 2007 at my own Web magazine is Relieving Global Poverty. I'm proud, therefore, to recommend you to MORAA GITAA's article, the first in our series, which is featured as our Lead Story the 5 February 2007 edition.
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