Babies and the U.S. Constitution: Immigration Witch Hunt 2.0
Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce announced recently that he intends to overturn the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. On hearing this, the two questions that might leap to your mind are “Can he do that?” and “Why on earth would he want to?”
The answer to the first question is easy: No. A state cannot overturn a portion of the U.S. Constitution, and in this case Pearce has selected a particularly hard target. The second sentence of the amendment reads: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Clear enough. This law is saying, “Back off, states. Don’t even think about messing with me.”
What Pearce and his cronies can do, of course, is start another protracted legal battle, like the one currently raging over the law Pearce authored, SB 1070, a fight that will end up in a Supreme Court test. But even with the Court slanted as it is today, it is unlikely that it would attempt to overturn an amendment to the Constitution that has withstood repeated challenges since it was passed in 1868.
Now the second question. Why would a conservative like Pearce, or his U.S. Senate counterpart, the repulsive Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, want to overturn this amendment? Aren’t they the guys who are constantly talking about protecting the sacred Constitution?
Not in this case—because there are babies involved. Pearce calls them “anchor babies.” Graham terms them “drop and leave babies.” And as far as these two are concerned, it’s open season on these children, the sons and daughters of undocumented workers in the United States.
“Anchor baby” is a racist term that implies immigrant women illegally cross the border (specifically from Mexico, although all Latinos fall into the Pearce/Graham crosshairs) specifically for the purpose of giving birth. They then have produced an “anchor,” a child which will guarantee them U.S. citizenship and carte blanche to a whole array of services paid for by U.S. taxpayers. These babies must be stopped, they insist. And the only way to do it is to rescind the 14th Amendment, which guarantees that any person born on American soil is automatically a U.S. citizen.
The original purpose of the 14th Amendment was to confirm that all enslaved people freed by the Emancipation Proclamation were in fact United States citizens. And the “hands-off” portion of the law was to protect it from Southern states attempting to pass their own laws depriving former slaves of these rights. Subsequent attempts to overturn the Amendment—such as one to prevent the children of Chinese railroad laborers from becoming citizens—were stopped dead in their tracks. There’s no reason to believe that this racist panic will play out any differently than the others did.
But in the meantime, a shameful new chapter in the undocumented worker witch hunt gives us a snapshot of how the radical right is whipping up panic over this issue. To listen to them talk, you’d think that immigrant robo-babies rocket directly from the delivery room to federal offices to secure for their parents what Pearce calls “access to the great welfare state we’ve created.” And the devious parents give birth to these children merely to grab benefits for themselves.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Having a child in the United States does not protect undocumented workers from deportation except in an extreme circumstance: for example, if the child was on life support, receiving complex medical care, and the removal of the family would endanger the life of the child. The odds of any protection from deportation, therefore, are slim to none.
Secondly, while it is true that an American-born child can potentially secure citizenship for his or her parents, it is a lengthy process filled with difficult requirements. The child must actually have reached the age of 21 before parental visas can be applied for. The child must be living in the U.S. and meeting stringent income requirements. And the undocumented parents must have returned to their native country for at least 10 years prior to the visa application date. If they are found to be here without legal documentation, they are barred from the procedure despite having a family member to sponsor them.
This is hardly the “anchor baby” cakewalk that the right-wing media describes.
Hate groups like FAIR and racist politicians like Graham insist that immigrant parents come here solely to have these babies. This, too, is not borne up by research. If a family must come here and cannot wait for the current Draconian process to grind forward (many visa categories have backlogs of 7 to 14 years, for a start), a pregnancy only adds to the stress. Such was the case with my grandmother, who was pregnant with my mother when her family fled to America. The difficulty of their entry into the United States and her lack of prenatal care caused her to die not long after my mother was born. Pregnancy is actually an added hardship for many immigrants.
In other cases, once a family is here, they might feel that they are, for the first time, in a safe enough environment that they can responsibly have a child. Although undocumented immigrants endure many difficulties and financial hardship, often their life in the U.S. is still more secure than it was in their native countries.
But recent research shows that two main reasons that immigrants come to the States are to earn an income and to be reunited with family members who are already here. It has nothing to do with babies, the timing of having babies, or securing rights via babies, despite the endless Fox News chatter.
And what about that gravy train of welfare handouts that “anchor babies” supposedly secure? The list that’s waved about by conservative politicians includes free medical care, free education, and untaxed income. Although it’s true that undocumented workers, like most lower-income people in the United States, have access to public schools and Medicaid, they pay far more into the system than they ever take out in benefits.
In one estimate, these workers pay approximately $90 billion in payroll and other taxes, and use about $5 billion total in services. Undocumented workers also contribute approximately $7 billion a year into the Social Security system, money they will never be able to reclaim later in benefits.
Conservatives who scream about taxpayers funding free schooling for immigrant children conveniently forget that property owners also pay taxes covering American children whose parents are unable to own property—and that the schools recoup benefits from larger student populations in terms of more state and federal funding.
When Arizona passed SB 1070, politicians declared that the law was essential because border crossings into the state had reached epic proportions; Senator John McCain said it was “the worst I have ever seen.” This manufactured crisis was masking the real truth: that the Arizona-Mexico border was more secure than it had been in decades, with numbers of apprehended immigrants down 60 percent from 10 years ago.
In a similar manner, the “drop and leave baby” crisis is a fiction to support a specific political agenda. And the rhetoric surrounding it would be comic if its intent was not so ugly. For example, Glenn Beck declared in June last year that the United States was the only country in the world that granted jus soli (“the justice of the soil”)—a ridiculous lie, since birthright citizenship is currently the law in 33 countries around the world. Debbie Schlussel has been warning about Al-Qaeda sending women here to “drop and leave” future terrorists on American soil. These “terrorist babies take root,” she claims, even after their parents leave the country.
Listen closely. If you do, behind these ravings you’ll hear echoes of Senator Edgar Cowan, a 19th century politician who thundered that if the 14th Amendment was not overturned, America would be overrun by Mongol hordes. The history lesson here: rabid racists will use any argument, no matter how absurd, in order to rationalize their actions.
The U’wa in Colombia, the Ogoni in Nigeria, the Quichua in Ecuador, the Cree in Manitoba, the Subanen in The Phillipines and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula—these indigenous peoples are among the many making a stand against resource extraction companies that are devastating their lands. The environmental destruction wrought by these corporations threatens to further pollute the world’s water, air and land. As caged canaries warned coal miners in times past, these and other indigenous people are proclaiming the danger—some are dying in the process.
Who are these companies? The long list of names frequently morphs because of buy-outs, mergers and start-ups trying to escape previously tainted reputations. A special threat to the UP, new Canadian companies come and go thanks to the ease with which they can be listed on Canada’s stock exchange. Even more frightening are the environmental damage and humans rights abuses committed by the established companies at work in Michigan today.
As mentioned in GRIID’s previous post, Rio Tinto/Kennecot has one of the worst records in the industry. Our indigenous neighbors living in the UP are currently experiencing Kennecott’s special brand of terror. This company will construct its new Michigan sulfide mine by blasting directly through the heart of sacred Eagle Rock. Kennecott has already bulldozed, degraded and fenced the area surrounding Eagle Rock as well as parts of the pristine Yellow Dog Plains, as widened roads and power lines are readied for the mine’s operation.
Kennecott “helped” rewrite Michigan mining law as a prelude to this disaster, with what it seems, a lot of “insider” cooperation. As mentioned in GRIID’s first article, Kennecott hired Governor Granholm’s contact and communications point person on metallic sulfide mining Matt Johnson as its PR point person for the project, raising suspicions of insider influence. And, DEQ Office of Geological Survey geologist, Joe Maki, remains in charge of inspecting the mine, even though he “lost” negative reports about its future impact during the approvals process.
While we should expect better from our State agencies and businesses, we cannot expect better from Rio Tinto/Kennecott. Rio Tinto’s history of abuses goes back to the 1930s, when the company engaged fascist General Francisco Franco to court martial and shoot miners rallying for improved working conditions. In Apartheid South Africa, the company paid migrant black workers less than minimum wage and, in Nambia, investigators found working conditions akin to slavery.
Since Jan 30, 2010, Rio Tinto’s Boron, California laborers have lived without a paycheck. The company locked them out when they refused to agree to a contract that turned their good jobs into part-time, temporary or contracted jobs.
The floodgate is open
Sorry to say, Rio Tinto/Kennecott is just one of many mining companies poised to strike at Michigan’s resources. Now that the flood gate is open, Rio Tinto/Kennecott is planning several more mining ventures in other areas of the U.P. A slew of other mining companies are already surveying for new mines: Bitterroot Resources, Cameco, Aquila Resources, HudBay Minerals Inc. and Orvana. Bitterroot Resources and Cameco explored the U.P. for uranium in 2008. Orvana has a current U.P. mining project, Coppperwood.
“(Even though) It is not in a reactive sulfide body. . . our concern with this project is that it is so very close to Lake Superior. It is also near where the old White Pine mine was, which is of some concern because while mining, the company hit an old sea bed which introduced salt to Lake Superior,” says Teresa Bertossi, organizer with Stand for the Land. “Also, the Copperwood project is of concern because the ore body likely runs under Lake Superior, which means mining could take place under the lake.”
Bertossi expects Aquila Resources and HudBay Minerals Inc. to be the next corporations to submit applications to mine the U.P. in a project they call The Back Forty. “This mine would be in a reactive sulfide ore body. It would mostly be a zinc and gold mine. It would be partially open pit and underground,” Bertossi says. “The mine project would be located within a few hundred feet of the Menominee River and near the Shakey Lakes Savannah. The company is also proposing to use on site cyanide leach processing.”
According to May 2010 testimony collected by Rights Action and students from the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), HudBay is one of several Canadian mining companies directly involved in violent, illegal forced evictions, gang rape of several women and assassination in Guatemala.
Rio Tinto/Kennecott is no stranger to human rights abuses
As was mentioned at the beginning of this article, Rio Tinto/Kennecott has a gruesome track record of environmental contamination and human rights abuses around the global. One of the more famous cases was the company’s role in the CIA coup in Chile in 1973, a coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende and put in power the brutal dictatorship of General Pinochet.
Kennecott became a financial backer of the military coup when they discovered that the Allende government wanted to nationalize the mining industry, something that the Nixon administration was also adamantly opposed to. The CIA backed coup resulted in the murder of an estimated 30,000 Chileans, with thousands more being tortured and others fleeing into exile.
Back in the US
Michigan isn’t the only target for destructive profiteering by mining corporations. For example, in Lynne, Wisconsin, citizens are fighting Tamarlane Ventures Inc. In Minnesota, they are taking on Polymet in that state’s Arrowhead region. While the company names change from state to state, their methods are similar. They line pockets, influence laws, promise jobs and paint a rosy PR picture in local media.
“We need jobs in the UP, personally I would love to be able to make a good living here, but we can’t trade our heart and soul to bring them here. We need our representatives to get off of their duffs and use their heads to bring long-term jobs to the area. If we can subsidize foreign mining companies, give them our land and minerals for pennies, we can subsidize a more sustainable and versatile economy,” Bertossi says. “Michigan needs to stop using the UP as a resource colony. We have to protect our water, our greatest asset in this region, and the risky mining ventures currently proposed here cannot coexist alongside clean water.”
What can we do downstate?
Jessica Koski, organizer and Keweenaw Bay Indian Community member, suggests organizing meetings and informational workshops; starting grassroots organizations; hosting a film screening of Mining Madness or Water Wars; writing to elected officials, the EPA and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources & Environment; writing op-eds and letters to the editor in local newspapers; informing family and friends about the issues to spread awareness; taking a trip up to Yellow Dog Plains to experience the beauty of the area and visit the new camp.
“I think one of the most important thing down-state folks can do is demand that upcoming politicians looking to be elected stand up and take an important stand for the health and environment of people who live in the U.P., and that they don’t put our abundant freshwater resources at risk of acid mine drainage and contamination from mining,” she says. “If an incident such as the oil spill in the gulf or in Kalamazoo happens here in the UP with the Eagle Project, it will be too late as irreversible acid mine drainage makes it way towards Lake Superior.”
Gone Camping – GRIID will resume on August 12
We are fortunate enough to take a little break from cyberspace. GRIID writers are off for the next week or so. We’ll resume posting new articles, news dissection, Media Bites, and all things Indy Media when we return. In the mean time feel free to look at our archives or better yet, enjoy some of the remaining summer days.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Henry David Thoreau
The Rich Are Giving Their Money Away?
Most of the country has probably heard by now that Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and numerous other billionaires are planning to “give away their money,” as many media outlets have reported.
The Grand Rapids Press wrote, “Billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett pulled off quite a coup when they announced that 40 of the richest U.S. citizens will give the bulk of their wealth to charity.”
But before we all get teary-eyed and canonize these people as saints, it would be useful to ask a few questions. Two basic questions that any reasonable journalist might ask could be 1) how did these people make their money to begin with, and 2) what does it mean to give their money to charity?
These are questions not asked by the Press reporter. Instead, she writes, “If you had a fortune, would you give it away to a favorite cause? Or would family be haranguing you for their cut of the pie? Tell us what you would do, if you had more money than you knew what to do with.”
First, this is a ridiculous question to ask people, since 99.9% of us will never be billionaires. Second, the question merely distracts us from asking more fundamental questions, thus never encouraging the public to think about wealth creation and philanthropic funding.
Wealth Creation
Quite often we are led to believe in the myth that wealthy men made their fortunes on hard work and ingenuity. For instance, J.P. Morgan made his first fortune selling defective rifles to the Union Army during the Civil War. He bought the rifles for $3.50 each and sold them for $22, thus making $18.50 on each rifle. Morgan also avoided military service during the Civil War because he could pay the $300 fee that allowed him to save his skin.
Modern day robber barons are no different. Bill Gates made his money off of computer software and technology that was first subsidized by taxpayers. Early research and development for computers was done through the US military at taxpayer expense. Once computers became more user friendly, people like Gates were given rights to “develop” what the public paid for.
Warren Buffet made his billions through the stock market, which is now being seen by more and more analysts as a very large ponzi-scheme. Buffet didn’t make anything or sell a product, he just figured out a way to fleece the public through speculative capital. Others on the list of those “giving away their” wealth are David Rockefeller who inherited wealth from generations of oil monopolies and political deals.
So, the idea that these billionaires are giving up “their” money is a matter of perspective. One could certainly argue, as I do, that this money really belonged to the public in the first place. Much of the wealth made by billionaires was either subsidized by the public or was made on the backs of laborers who do the real work that creates wealth.
Who Gets the Money?
The second basic question we should all be asking is where is this money going that these rich people are now “giving away?” First, it should be noted that they are not really giving it away. They will all make more money on their tax returns than any of us will make in a lifetime.
Second, many of these billionaires already have foundations through which they will channel this money. Foundations are a wonderful way for the wealthy to hide their money so that the IRS will not tax it. More importantly, foundations are a way for these elites to use their money to influence society, even engage it what some analysts refer to as social engineering.
Since billionaires have made their money off of a political and economic system that benefits the minority, they are not likely to donate money to entities or causes that will undermine the systems of power they benefited from. Some excellent work has been done on this topic and I would encourage people to read Joan Roelof’s book Foundations and Public Policy. Another good source that questions the benevolence of philanthropic giving is a collection of essays by the women of color collective known as INCITE!. Their book is entitled The Revolution Will Not Be Funded and is a critique of what they refer to as the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.
Both Roelof’s and the women with INCITE! argue that much of the money that is “given” by rich people is used for either conservative causes, which blatantly support their politics or liberal causes, which do not seek to change the system, only provide some form of assistance to those who have been negatively affected by the current system.
When looking at the list of billionaires who have pledged to “give away” their money, we could mention that one of them is Thomas Monaghan, former CEO of Dominos Pizza. Monaghan is notorious for donating millions to far right religious causes, such as anti-abortion and anti-gay efforts. Monaghan also was a big supporter of the arch conservative Catholic Bishop in Nicaragua in the 1980s, Obando y Bravo, because the bishop was anti-Sandinista and anti-liberation theology. (For more on Monaghan, see The Religious Right in Michigan Politics.)
When one takes a close look at the kinds of efforts that Bill gates has given his money to, it also peels away the thin veneer of benevolence. Michael Barker, in a 3-part essay on Gate’s foundation and politics, shows us that the software baron has supported population control projects and corporate agribusiness projects throughout Africa. Black radical writer Bruce Dixon also explores Gates’ role in supporting genetically modified crops throughout Africa, in what is called the new green revolution. Both writers make it clear that Gates is using his money to both benefit his legacy and more importantly to benefit systems of power that Gates is a part of.
We could go down the list and find many other examples of how this “pledge” by wealthy billionaires is in no way designed to redistribute wealth. Instead, the recent announcement by contemporary robber barons was a slick public relations ploy to justify an economic system that these people benefited from. Unfortunately, most of the major news media as played right along with them.
Mass Demonstration Planned in Benton Harbor on 8/10
On Tuesday, there will be a mass demonstration in Benton Harbor, Michigan to confront the opening of a new golf course.
Protest organizers from BANCO, state that the land that the new golf course has been built on was public land and that this theft of land is another demonstration of the power that the Whirlpool Corporation wields in the St. Joseph/Benton Harbor area.
BANCO has been fighting the dirty and racist politics of Whirlpool for years and is inviting people from the mid-west to come to Benton Harbor on Tuesday, August 10 – at 10am – and stand with residents who demand justice. People will meet at the Benton Harbor City Hall, 200 Wall St.
The golf course is owned by the Jack Nicklaus Corporation and is one of 345 courses the former golf pro owns around the world, with another 140 under construction.
This is not the first time that golf courses have been the target of protest. In fact, there is a global movement against golf courses because of the elitist’s appropriation of land, excess use of local water resources and environmental contamination.
In 1996, the Jack Nicklaus Corporation wanted to build a golf course in Morelos, Mexico. Zapatistas and their supporters protested this proposal, since the golf course would have been built on communal lands. Public opposition and the beating of 40 people at a nearby plantation by Mexican police were enough to force the company to abandon any plans to build a golf course in that part of Mexico.
BANCO wants to send a strong message to those who attend the opening on Tuesday, that theft of public land is not acceptable. For more information contact Rev. Edward Pinkney, 269-925-0001 or go to banco.org.
Anyone from West Michigan wanting to carpool or caravan down can contact Cole Dorsey coledorsey@gmail.com.
SOA Watch Activists Block Entrance of Military Base, Demand Withdrawal of U.S. Troops from Colombia
(This article is re-posted from SOA Watch.)
A group of nine School of the Americas Watch activists are currently in Colombia to confront the escalation of U.S. policy in the region and to express solidarity with courageous Colombians working for peace and justice. On Tuesday, the group set up a vigil at the Tolemaida military base, where U.S. soldiers are stationed.
Yesterday, two busloads of 65 activists from Justicia y Paz, the Movement of Victims of State Crimes, the Mothers of Soacha (who are seeking justice for their children who were killed as part of the “false positive” scandal), SINALTRAINAL, and others arrived to join the 9-member SOA Watch delegation, who proceeded to block the entrance to the base. Activists held banners denouncing US intervention in Colombia as well as Iraq.
Father Roy Bourgeois said of the action: “It’s a great joy to be in Colombia speaking with Colombians, with one voice, against U.S. domination and militarization. Our delegation has been deeply moved by the strength and spirit of so many Colombians struggling for a just peace in Colombia.”
The Tolemaida military base is one of seven Colombian bases to which the U.S. military has been granted access for 10 years under the U.S.-Colombia Defense Cooperation Agreement, which was signed in October 2009. The agreement has been met with opposition by Colombian and international human rights groups. It caused tensions in the region after a U.S. Air Force document became public that revealed that the United States military is planning to use the seven Colombian bases for “full spectrum operations throughout South America” against threats not only from drug trade and guerrilla movements, but also from “anti-U.S. governments” in the region.
Later today the SOA Watch delegation will leave the area and travel to Bogotá, is the capital city of Colombia. Tomorrow, the group will go to the U.S. embassy in Bogotá. Amplify the voices for justice and peace in Colombia by contacting ambassador Brownsfield now. Call the U.S. embassy in Colombia at 011-571-315-0811 and send an email by clicking on this link.
Media Alert – Stop Google/Verizon Deal
(This Media Alert is from the group Save the Internet.)
Google is about to cut a deal with Verizon that would end the Internet as we know it.
According to a front-page New York Times story, the deal allows “Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.”
It would create fast Internet lanes for the largest corporations and slow lanes for the rest of us.
That’s why we’re starting a mass protest by Google users to stop these two companies from joining forces to sell out millions of people like us who use the Internet.
Google’s motto is supposed to be “Don’t Be Evil.” But this deal puts the company in bed with the devil.
From the beginning, the Internet has been a level playing field that allows everyone to connect to one another and the world of content available online — whether it’s ABC News or your cousin’s wedding video. There’s only one Internet, and it shouldn’t matter who your provider is or whether you’re logging on from home or your cell phone.
This deal will change all of that, allowing Google and Verizon to pick what websites you can see over others. The result couldn’t be bleaker for the future of the Internet and for free speech and independent voices online.
Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google to make information freely available to everyone online. But this deal is a complete reversal that abandons their core principles:
Sign this letter and tell Google’s founders: “Your Verizon deal IS evil, and it must be stopped.”
It’s up to the millions of people who use Google every day to tell the company to do the right thing.
Google must walk away from this bad deal, and make sure Internet users everywhere can enjoy the entire open Internet wherever, whenever and however they want.
Coffee and Sustainability
People are fond of saying, “let’s get together and talk politics over coffee.” In some circles they say, “let’s talk about the politics of coffee.”
During the mid-90’s, there was a campaign targeting Folgers coffee because of its support for the Salvadoran military dictatorship. Some of us were involved in that campaign locally. I remember the president of a local peace organization saying at the time, “all boycotts are off in the face of addiction.”
Coffee drinkers have felt better about their addiction in recent years with the rise of Fair Trade Coffee, coffee which is purchased through a cooperative system where workers are treated with dignity and receive a fair wage.
There are numerous places that one can buy Fair Trade Coffee in Grand Rapids, both freshly brewed and by the pound. However, there is now another business approach to coffee, one that was featured in a recent MiBiz publication focusing on what the business journal called “foodpreneurs.”
This effort is called the Direct Trade Coffee Club and it has several new business partners in Grand Rapids, specifically the MadCap Coffee Company. The MiBiz article featured MadCap Coffee and spoke with the owners and one of the employees.
One of the owners (Chad Morton) says that he travels to Central America regularly to meet with farmers and to “advise them on how to make their crops better.” He also says that this is a justice issue “when you see a 10-year old kid in flip flops carrying 10-pound bags of coffee up a hill an adult can barely walk up.” Morton also says that the goal of the company is to educate coffee drinkers in Grand Rapids and to promote sustainability.
In one sense it is encouraging to see people think about how their consumer habits impact people around the world, but lets be clear about the fact that this is a business whose goal is to expand. A spokesperson for the Direct Trade Coffee Club admits as much at the very end of the MiBiz article by saying they are looking to other products like chocolate to market locally.
The idea of expansion or growth is fundamental within a capitalist model, whether you make bombs or sell coffee. If this is the case, where does one draw the line on how many bombs or how much coffee is enough?
People in countries throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia have been suffering because of the massive consumption of coffee from the rich nations of the world. The US consumes more coffee than anyone other nation in the world, a reality, which has dictated massive levels of coffee production in poor countries.
We all like to think that people in those countries grow coffee because that is what they want to do, when in fact coffee production has historically been determined by the demand in countries like the US. Coffee companies, wanting access to cheap land and cheap labor have often collaborated with brutal dictatorships to insure hefty profits (see Coffee and Power, Paige).
When the Fair Trade Coffee effort came on the scene it was motivated by a desire to not continue the unjust working conditions that coffee workers were subjected to. This is a natural reaction by people who are opposed to human suffering. However, part of the problem with this thinking is that it does not question the very nature of coffee growing and coffee consumption.
People in Latin America don’t grow coffee because this is a career choice for them, they grow it because they might be able to make a living within the current market system. Small farmers and small farm movements like Via Campesina would rather grow food for local consumption than luxury items like coffee, but are often unable because they can’t get a decent price for their food crops.
The reasons for not being able to make a living off of growing/selling food are historical and structural. Under a capitalist model one needs high volume in order to compete in the market, something that small farmers are never able to achieve. Add to this the fact that the US often dumps cheap food stables like wheat and corn into these countries through programs such as USAID and you have another reason why small farmers can’t compete. (For an excellent investigation of how USAID money is used see The Soft War: The Uses and Abuses of U.S. Economic Aid in Central America.)
Now along comes fair trade and direct trade efforts, which seek to go around these historical and structure factors, but these efforts do not address the more fundamental problems. For instance, lets say that all of the current land in the world that was used for growing coffee was all of a sudden transformed into fair trade or direct trade production. Would that alleviate the human and ecological damaged caused by the current forms of coffee production? There is no question that some of the suffering would be reduced, but is this really a solution to ecological and human rights around the world?
Coffee production still demands that is travels thousands of miles before it gets to consumers in the US, which necessitates massive levels of fossil fuel use. But the more important issue here again is growth. If coffee sellers in the US and other industrial countries want to expand their markets, it also means there will need to be an expansion of coffee production, which means more land is used to grow coffee. Considering that millions of people around the world have no access to land to grow food, does it seem like a sustainable notion to expand coffee markets?
And lets face it, those of us in the US who buy fair trade or direct trade coffee are usually in positions of privilege. Working class people and people who are struggling to get by are not likely to buy fair trade or direct trade coffee, simply because it is often twice as expensive as commercial brand name coffees.
If you are going to drink coffee it is certainly more humane to buy fair trade or direct trade, but if you are seriously wanting to look at what is means to be sustainable then we all need to continue to investigate these issues to see whether or not consuming luxury items can be label sustainable.
Afghanistan: a War Correspondent’s Viewpoint
(This interview was done by Ron Jacobs and re-posted from CounterPunch.)
Anand Gopal is a correspondent who has been covering the war in Afghanistan for several years. His current employer is The Wall Street Journal. Prior to that, he worked for The Christian Science Monitor. I met Gopal a couple of years ago and check in with him occasionally to get his viewpoint on the Washington-led occupation and war in South Asia. Most recently, I sent him a few few questions via email. The exchange follows. –Ron Jacobs
Ron: If you were to compare the situation in Afghanistan in summer 2009 with the current situation, how would you characterize it? For example, is there more fighting or less? Has the nature of the insurgency changed? If so, how?
Anand: It is six months into the troop surge yet we haven’t seen any drop-off in violence. Rather, the summer of 2010 is proving to be far more violent than that of 2009, which in itself is remarkable given that 2009 was the bloodiest year of this war. Look at the numbers: There is a 30% increase in the number of soldiers killed in June and July compared to the same period last year. The number of security incidents in the first week of July, for instance, is 65% greater than the same week last year (see websites like icasualties.org and indiciumconsulting.net for these numbers). This is easily the most violent summer in Afghanistan since the civil war days of the mid-nineties. Hope of peace amongst ordinary Afghans has plummeted to incredible lows.
The insurgency has changed quite a bit in the last year. It is more splintered movement, partly due to Coalition Force assassinations of commanders, and partly due to the arrest of the Taliban’s leader Mullah Beradar. Hundreds of commanders have been killed, but the Taliban has no trouble finding recruits to fill their shoes. The new commanders are younger and (often) more radical than their predecessors. At the top, after Pakistan’s arrest of Beradar (who was the day-to-day leader of the movement) in February has led to a power struggle between different insurgent leaders. None of this, however, has diminished the group’s effectiveness as a fighting force on the ground, as the above numbers indicate.
Ron: Now that General McChrystal is gone, is there any sense among the people in Afghanistan that you talk with—among the occupying forces or Afghans—that the nature of the war will change? Part two to this question: is there any sense among the Afghans you talk with that the US presence will begin to diminish next summer (2011)? If not, in what ways do these people see the war ending?
Anand: Most Afghans don’t believe the nature of the war will change. In particular, many Pashtuns in the south and east view the Americans as brutal, arrogant and deadly. For them this has less to do with this or that commander, but more so with the general thrust of the war and US policy here for the last nine years.
From the point of view of the soldier, however, I believe that they do expect a change. There was a lot of anger and disgruntlement towards McChrystal from the military’s rank and file. In particular, many soldiers felt that McChrystal’s rules of engagement were too restrictive and put the lives of ordinary soldiers in danger. Whereas before soldiers were able to fire when they felt a threat, under McChrystal they had to take measures to ensure that there were no civilians the could be harmed–a difficult thing to do in the heat of battle. Moreover, while such rules existed for conventional soldiers, a different set of rules appear to have existed for the special forces, who seemed to have been free to attack whom they wanted as they pleased. This led to a lot of night raids that killed civilians, and also spawned an image that McChrystal’s special forces guys had free reign (keep in mind that McChrystal used to head the special forces) while conventional troops had their hands tied.
It may be too early to say exactly what changes will come about with the changeover of command. However, it appears that one big change is that Petreaus is pushing hard to expand the militia program in an attempt to replicate his successes with militias in Iraq. But militias in Afghanistan can be quite dangerous, especially in a country with recent history of warlordism and civil war. Another change is that Petreaus appears to be moving to ease restrictions on air strikes, which will likely lead to more civilian deaths.
Ron: The last time we communicated, I asked about the war in Pakistan? What can you tell us about that? We know that drone attacks continue at an even greater rate and that the US media has published allegations that there are some connections between Pakistan’s ISI and certain elements of the Taliban. Based on your knowledge, are those allegations true or are they merely an attempt to convince the US public that the war needs to be expanded in Pakistan?
Anand: First, it’s important to realize first that the Pakistani Taliban and Afghan Taliban are distinct organizations. The Pakistani Taliban is a broad collection of Pakistani groups and commanders, most of whom have been fighting against the Pakistani military during the last few years. These groups mostly consist of Pashtuns from the tribal areas and surrounding regions. It is also closely allied with an array of other groups, made up of Punjabis, Arabs and more. In recent times the Pakistani military has succeeded in weakening the Pakistani Taliban quite a bit in places like Swat and South Waziristan, thanks to a series of offensives.
The Afghan Taliban are, as the name suggests, mostly Afghan. Allegations that elements of Pakistani intelligence support the Afghan Taliban are undoubtedly true. The Afghan Taliban’s leadership is based in Pakistan, and the ISI supports the group in a variety of ways. There was ample evidence of this even before the wikileaks incident. Unlike most of the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban concentrate their efforts in Afghanistan, and in particular against the Afghan government and the foreign forces.
Pakistan is playing a double game in all of this. They are closely allied with the US, and get millions in support from Washington, but at the same time secretly supporting an insurgency against the Americans in Afghanistan. There are a lot of complicated historical reasons for this, but to make a long story short we can say that Pakistan views the Afghan Taliban as one of the best ways to safeguard its interests in Afghanistan.
It should be added, by the way, the Pakistan is doing now what it has done consistently for the last thirty years–supporting Afghan Islamist groups. What is new is the change in the U.S. position. For instance, whereas in the eighties Washington, together with Islamabad, funneled millions to Afghan insurgent leaders like Jalaluddin Haqqani, the U.S. has now stopped and is fighting Haqqani, whereas Pakistan continues to support him.
Are Oil Companies Greenwashing Gulf Coast Cleanup?
(This article is re-posted from PR Watch.)
Sandra Bullock, Lenny Kravitz, Harry Shearer and a slew of other celebrities jumped on the bandwagon to star in a public service announcement called “Be the One,” to support Restore the Gulf, a campaign to encourage people to sign a petition saying, “I demand that a plan to restore America’s Gulf be fully funded and implemented for me and future generations.” But when it was reported that “Restore the Gulf” was backed by major oil companies, stars started pulling their support.
“Restore the Gulf” is promoted by the America’s Wetland Foundation, which was reported to be a front group funded by BP, Shell, Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute and a host of other oil companies. Huffington Post wrote on July 29 that the situation has created “the bizarre spectacle of the oil industry using a perfectly-named front group to solicit taxpayer assistance for BP’s cleanup bill.”
Restore the Gulf operates “RestoreTheGulf.com,” which is not to be confused with the U.S. government-run site “RestoreTheGulf.gov.” America’s Wetland Foundation maintains that their campaign does not seek to get taxpayers to pay for coastal cleanup of BP’s oil disaster. Instead, the group wants a long-term commitment from the government to restore the Gulf’s wetlands.
Here is the commercial using media and sports celebrities.
