April 29th, 2006 by Hoopleton

Another day passes and another pointless little argument starts about what is and isn’t American. Sure people are dying in Iraq. Of course terrorism is on the rise. Yes we’re approaching hurricane season and are still completely unprepared. But what’s important is the Star-Spangled Banner. More precisely, what language it should not be sung in.

George W., the man with seemingly endless amounts of time on his hands, has entered the fray over Nuestro Himno, a Spanish-language version of the Star-Spangled Banner (now on your local radio station), saying that the national anthem “ought to be sung in English.” He then added, “And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”

Should we revoke Bush’s citizenship now, or later?

Yes, even as I type these words, Senators and Congressmen are eagerly forgoing their vacations to take a position on this hot-button issue. Sen. Lamar Alexander said he would introduce a Senate resolution Monday “giving senators an opportunity to remind the country why we sing our national anthem in English. . . . We are proud of the countries we have come from, but we are prouder to be Americans.”

Who needs to balance the budget? Who cares about immigration law? No time for dealing with rising oil prices! Our elected representatives don’t have time for all of that. They need to vote on a non-binding resolution reminding our citizens that our national anthem should be sung in English. Hazzah!

I’m sure there couldn’t have been a better time to bring this issue to center stage. After all, Monday is set for the largest immigration protests since the issue began being debated. And today is the day that Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia have signed a three-way trade agreement in the hopes of isolating the United States, of which Fidel Castro said: “Now, for the first time, there are three of us – I believe that, one day, all [Latin American] countries can be here.”

I’m sure that all of Latin America will be there sooner than Castro realizes, especially as our politicos seem all the more eager to flex their anti-Latino muscles. Yup, saving the anthem from those little brown people couldn’t have come at a better time. How dare they? Don’t they know translating anything American is unpatriotic? What’s next? A Spanish Pledge of Allegiance?

Don’t they know English is the official language of… oh, wait, we don’t have an official language in this country do we?

Yes, another wonderful national debate has begun. I for one have no problem with the old Star-Spangled Banner going Spanish. Let’s face it, we have a hard enough time singing it in English. Maybe the new version will have a little more pop.

April 27th, 2006 by Hoopleton

As a recent birthday present a friend gave me Bernard Goldberg’s 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37). The book is another “fair and balanced” look at the most dangerous people in the United States. Dangerous not because they are likely to create record deficits or lead America into a war without planning for peace or because they use religion for political gain, but because they are creating a culture of hatred and spite. Anti-American Americans.

Not surprisingly, Goldberg, the man who accused the media of bias, sees liberals as the reason for all of our ills. His targets go beyond the usual suspects (Teddy Kennedy, Hillary, Jesse Jackson and Michael Moore), but also list off notables such as Noam Chomsky and Janeane Garofalo. In Goldberg’s opinion these are the people destroying the fabric of America (Will and Grace encourages adultery, for example). These are the people who are bringing vial language and customs into politics (although in Goldberg’s intro Cheney gets a pass for telling a Senator to go ‘fuck himself’).

What astounds me about Goldberg is not that he attacks liberals. Fine. Whatever. Another hack job. Another pundit skirmish. What astounds me is that he is so clearly in denial that I can only assume he is suffering from some sort of disorder. He is so hypocritical he cannot see how his own book only adds to the tension (100 People Who Are Screwing Up America? Hello?).

Among the names in his top 100 are Ken Lay (former Enron CEO) and Judge Roy Moore (who refused to remove the Ten Commandments from his Alabama courthouse) just to give you two examples. I suppose this is Goldberg’s attempt at being unbiased, but to name Lay and Moore while defending the Bush administration (or at least not mentioning the Bush administration) seems a bit, well, is “blind” the right word? How about comatose?

To make no link between Kenny-boy and George W. Bush is like saying that Barnum and Bailey were two guys who sorta knew each other. To ignore the fact that Judge Moore’s crusade to defend the Ten Commandments was shaped by the Right wing in this country is even more ridiculous.

Obviously it goes without saying that Goldberg has anger issues. There is something clearly wrong with him. I won’t even get into the finer points of his attacks on certain people to show how clearly inaccurate they are. But to write a book like this and mention Ken Lay without a word about Bush is absolutely amazing. Is he saying that the ex-Enron CEO who was on Bush’s shortlist for Sec. of Energy is a liberal? Wow. Is Judge Moore? Was David Duke running as a Democrat?

Goldberg is nuts. Certifiable maybe. To go on in the introduction of his book about his criteria of hate mongers and not mention Ann Coulter or Bill O’Reilly at all? Can you say BIAS?

Wow!

At the end of the book Goldberg asks his readers to add other names to the list (perhaps so that we know who to send off to the camps later).

You know, Bernard, I might have a name I’d like to add.

April 22nd, 2006 by Hoopleton

I’ve always liked This American Life . I like it still.

But I’m developing a severe problem with Ira Glass.

Ira, if you’re reading this, please take no offense, but lately you’ve made itch a little.

I think this condition stems from the most recent broadcast of Ira’s show (April 21 st ) in which he told the story of Erin Einhorn’s strange journey into Poland. Erin is a writer. Erin is Jewish. And the journey was strange because she went to Poland expecting to run into a severely anti-semitic world. What she found instead was a Polish population searching out, if not embracing all things Jewish.

Fine so far. Confusion was expected. The picture started to develop.

The basic plot was this: young Poles find Jewish things hip. What has developed in Poland is a population that is eating at Jewish restaurants, having Jewish cultural events and displaying Hebrew tattoos. At a jazz club you can hear songs from Fiddler on the Roof . The streets of the old Jewish quarter in Krakow ware packed with tourists. When meeting Erin, young Poles would say, “You know, my grandmother’s best friend was Jewish.”

With me so far?

Both Ira and Erin were confused, even insulted maybe, at these odd idealized, packaged versions of pre-Holocaust Jews. The reason for the confusion is why Ira makes me itch.

Here’s an example…

Erin, in an attempt to explain Polish attitudes and the entire weird Jewish-Polish fad, started likening Poland to Santa Fe. She said it was a lot like the marketing of Native American culture. Indian crafts. Indian dances. Indian architecture. All of this in Santa Fe being marketed, celebrated and sold by non-Native Americans. “After we’ve driven them off the land,” Ira Glass added.

Here’s the thing. Poland had Auschwitz. Nearly all the death camps were in Poland. Poles were anti-semites. Collaborators. They were happy to see the Jews go.

At least that’s the message one got from This American Life. At least those were the sentences thrown around throughout the broadcast.

“And what did grandma do when they came to take away her best friend?” Erin said.

I’m itching already, and maybe to explain why I should mention a recent news item first.

From Reuters:

WARSAW – Poland is trying to change the name of Auschwitz concentration camp to emphasize that Nazi Germans, not Poles, were responsible for the most murderous centre of the Holocaust.

The government has asked the United Nations to change the name of its World Heritage site from “Auschwitz Concentration Camp” to “the Former Nazi German Concentration Camp of Auschwitz”, despite criticism of the move by some Jewish groups.

Warsaw is incensed by references in foreign media to the “Polish concentration camp” and “Polish gas chambers” to describe the Nazi Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps.

Is it making sense yet?

Ira? Do you understand?

Let me put it simply…

There was anti-semitism in Poland. There was not as much as in France per se, but it was certainly there. And when the Germans came in and built the GERMAN DEATH CAMPS, there were Poles who did some collaborating. True. All true.

But Ira Glass makes it sound as though it was the Poles who were doing the exterminating. From his tone. From his references to Polish death camps. I got the sense that maybe Poland was actually allied with Hitler, instead of being one of his victims.

Poles cannot be and should not be equated with white settlers and the genocide of Native Americans. It should not be implied that the death camps were Polish, or that Poles eagerly helped the Germans in filling them. Poles died in those death camps too. Three million of them.

Here’s a little tid bit that maybe you don’t know, Ira…

Poland was unique because it was the only Nazi occupied country in which saving a Jewish life was punishable by death, and yet, today Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, names over 5,000 Poles among its “Righteous Among the Nations” – more than any other nationality – for saving Jewish lives during World War II.

And after all of this, to have the gall to ridicule Poles for being interested in Jewish culture? For idealizing it? For celebrating it?

Why is it so hard to understand? Poles and Jews shared 600 years of history, if not more. The Soviet-imposed Communist government did its best to wipe out memories of Jewish culture.

Maybe finding Jewish roots is more than just a bane attempt at a generation trying to distinguish itself. Maybe celebrating Jewish culture is more than just a cynical attempt at making money off the dead.

Maybe Poles are trying to reconnect with a culture that was part of their own after decades of silence. After a traumatic event with which they were never allowed to cope.

What can I say?

I’ve always liked This American Life . I like it still.

But maybe Ira Glass should stick to diagnosing American lives and leave Polish ones alone.

April 16th, 2006 by Hoopleton

In commemoration of this pagan holiday we turned into the celebration of Jesus’ departure and subsequent return, I would like to offer a historical lesson from a pagan culture.

Ancient Athens was the powerhouse of the classical world until first Alexander and then those pesky Romans decided to consolidate their interests. History books tell us that Athens lost its supreme superpower standing after it was defeated by rival Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. In reality, however, for Athens the die was cast earlier. It happened not by disease or famine, but by rhetoric.

The Sophists came around in the 5th century BC, just as Athenian hubris was at its maximum and lust for new conquests began to grow. These sophists were teachers of rhetoric. They charged huge fees for their lessons and had egos to match. The form of argument that they espoused relied on a form of flawed logic, usually predicated on conditions that weren’t necessarily true. The rhetorical skills that they employed created a culture in which double-speak, misrepresentation of facts and spin fractured Athenian democracy and instituted an elite group of megalomaniacs at its head.

It was sophistry that convinced the people of Athens that Sparta could be defeated. It was sophistry that convinced them to reject peace offers. It was sophistry that later condemned Socrates and many other great minds to death.

Argument, where logic and reason were replaced by egoism and spin, undid one of the most accomplished cultures of the Western world.

America today can learn a lot more from ancient Athens then it ever could from ancient Rome. Examples of sophistry go beyond media spin alleys and justifications for war. They surround us in all forms and soon even ordinary people begin to think in utterly illogical ways. At times it’s hard to listen to our political leaders and our national spokespeople and not wonder if the entire system has somehow, somewhere along the line, not gone stark raving mad.

Last month a good example that went unnoticed by a great many people slid across the newsprint.

A federal report written by the Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service reported that for the first time since 1998 the United States created more wetlands than it lost (wetlands, natural water areas used by wildlife and vital to the ecosystem, have been declining for decades due to pollution, erosion and construction). In fact the report stated that the US had a net gain of some 192,000 acres. The problem with the report is that this figure relies on reclassifying what a “wetland” actually is. The new, redefined wetland includes golf course water traps, artificially constructed runoff ponds, sewage treatment plants and even swimming pools (none of which serve any of the functions of a natural wetland).

This sort of redefinition, misrepresentation and lying is sophistry, and once it begins in the political world it trickles down to all of us (my favorite example, in keeping with the previous example, has got to be the idea of “net carbs”). If we’re not careful. If we do not stem the tied of sophistry in our society soon, we may either find ourselves in an unwinable war far more costly than Iraq, or living in a culture that cannot possibly function under the weight of its own bullshit.

Hell, we’re probably already there.

April 15th, 2006 by Hoopleton

Benedict Anderson called nation states “imagined communities.” We think of them as natural entities, as though if you were to see the planet from space you would see the borders of every country neatly drawn out below. In the same way we accept our economies, the silent engines of the world, as real, as tangible. We have built massive cities. We have diverted rivers. We have changed the rotation of the Earth and even planted our flags on at least one extra-terrestrial body. Our footprint is, although minuscule when considering the vastness of the universe, unmistakably large in our own eyes. This is not even to mention the complexity of our cultures, subcultures, clans and tribes. We have splintered off into a million little pieces, in fact over six billion of them.

An amazing thing, that is all, in the end, kept afloat by illusion. Begun, oddly enough, because someone, some ten thousand years ago planted a seed in the ground.

We were hunters and gatherers for tens of thousands of years. Moving across the planet, following along with the flows of the ecosystem. We had few concepts of ownership, none of property. According to Anthropologists, there was little strife. There was little stress. Hunters and gatherers even enjoyed more free time than we have today.

And then one day someone planted a seed in the ground. Once they did that, they were suddenly forced to stop moving. They had to protect “their” land. “Their” crop. Small settlements developed into villages, towns and eventually cities. A few farmers protecting “their” land, turned into warriors, militias and eventually armies. New specialties developed. New trades. New technologies. Individualized cultures. Religions. States and governments.

“Imagined communities.”

And even though these nation-states were essentially invented in order to protect the food that was being grown, today we accept them as natural, inevitable and eternal.

April 7th, 2006 by Hoopleton

What amazes me about the American public is how willing we are to accept that politicians are screwing us. Or to offer a more nuanced point of view, that politicians are corrupt, immoral, lying, inside-dealing bureaucrats, who would sell us all down the river if there was just enough money in it. What amazes me even more is that beyond our mistrust of our representatives, we are also very eager to agree that they are wholly incompetent.

The recent storm about Cynthia McKinney (who hit a cop and called it racism) is a good example. As Jon Stewart put it, a woman who is obviously “bat shit insane.” And then of course Tom DeLay, who decided to resign not for getting his hand caught in the cookie jar, but to spare voters from, as he put it, personal attacks by “cheating liberal Democrats.” This was only in the last two days people!

Our political representatives (not all, but certainly a sizable majority), bring such a disease of stupidity and crookedness to our public sphere that it amazes me that the whole thing hasn’t completely crumbled yet. This is a group of people who instead of limiting spending and making multi-billion dollar corporations pay their share, would rather raise the cap on how much in debt we can be (the new level is 9 trillion dollars). These are the same people, by the way, who spend most of their time on tax funded vacations, reelection campaigns and only really show up to vote when it’s time for a pay increase (brilliant system, I wish I could take paid time off work to reapply for my job and then decide when it was time for me to get a raise). Lobbyists, usually former staffers or former elected officials themselves, bribe, yes bribe, these representatives of the people in the name of whatever-in-the-hell-entity pays them enough (can you say conflicts of interest?). The whole lot of them can’t think much beyond the election cycle and when they do it seems to be completely centered on how to make a bigger mess of absolutely everything.

To think that these are the most qualified people for the job is complete idiocy. Bush is an easy target of course, and it goes without saying that he’s made things worse, not better (conservatives, you know I’m right, if for different reasons), but one great example about POTUS is not the war, the deficit, his inability to veto anything, spying on Americans, Katrina, etc. The best example of why Bush is supremely unqualified is the very obvious fact that whenever he gives a speech, his manner and his way of talking point out quite clearly that he just learned the topic a few hours or days before and is really excited to explain it (as though no one knew about it before). People, please, let’s face it, the guy is slow. Nice, I’m sure. Great guy even. But the best person for the job? Out of the whole United States? He’s not even the best person from Texas. I might even hazard a guess and say there’s someone more qualified in Crawford (population 705).

I can go on, but I think that regardless of your political persuasion, I need not try and prove how idiotic and corrupt those in charge are. And please, don’t try to list exceptions, because in the end both the Republicans and the Democrats are fundamentally the same party and they are, at present more than at any other time, destroying us.

Clearly what we need in this country are massive changes, so, here are a few I’d suggest first:

THE ELECTION PROCESS

1. Even, Mandatory Public Financing. And I know what some of you might say, “But we have public financing.” Well, not really. Public financing as it exists today is optional, and if accepted puts limits on raising and spending. As in the last Presidential election, neither Bush nor Kerry accepted public financing and – tada! – we have a one billion dollar election in which none of the four major independent candidates had even a pitiable chance of raising one percent of that of either the Republican or Democratic machines. Same thing happened in the 2000 election in which Ralph Nader was limited on not only how much he could raise but also on how much he could spend. Which brings up another problem. The Dems and GOP have machines that make matching them in donations impossible. They can refuse public financing and have no limits. Practically no bounds.

So, we need mandatory, even public financing. A set amount of money. A set amount of caps. And not just for the candidates, but for the parties as well. If someone wants to donate, fine. $100.00 maximum for every individual and corporate or special interest entity. No exceptions. No loopholes. And you might ask, “but who qualifies for public financing?” The answer is simple, if you get enough signatures on a petition, let’s say a few million, maybe even as low as one million, you get to run (for President — lower offices would have lower requirements obviously). And why shouldn’t we put tax money into elections? It doesn’t have to be much, as my second point illustrates:

2. Equal airtime for all candidates. During an election, the one with more money gets more face time. Indy candidates are cut out completely, because again, they don’t have the green.

So, take back our PUBLIC airwaves during election periods. Sorry Mr. and Mrs. America, we’re electing the goddamn President and Congress, you’ll just have to miss Desperate Housewives (or maybe NBC will make it available for digital download). The public stations are owned by the government and should be given over to public time. Debates. Interviews. You name it (I’d personally cut out attack ads, but let’s not worry about that yet).

2b. Open, free debates. I’ve labeled this one “2b” because it’s tied with the media. All candidates that have qualified for public financing (under point 1) should be allowed into the debates. The reason usually given to deny them access is, “Since you haven’t gotten enough media exposure, you don’t qualify for media exposure (can you say catch 22?).” No more. Everyone is accepted. Everyone is free to participate. NO SCRIPTS! NO AGREED UPON QUESTIONS! For god sake, doesn’t anyone realize that men like Bush and Kerry know what the questions will be before hand? The politicians are driving the debate. In fact, they decide what the issues are (I wonder what we’d hear about in an open forum?). I for one would like to see a debate between Kerry, Bush, a Libertarian and a Green.

And you might say, “But think about how many candidates there would be. 30, 50, maybe more!” My answer to that would be, make it interactive. Spread out the debates over days, assign people by lottery and have Americans call in or log in and vote. Top candidates advance. Break it into rounds. Why not? You think our electoral process would be any less secure? I’d even be willing to give the top two parties in power a guaranteed spot in the final debate (incumbents go without saying). Hell, this way we could eliminate the goddamn primaries.

3. Instant run-off elections. The largest myth in America is that by voting for a third choice, you “Throw your vote away.” This lie has worked best for the Dems and GOP to keep power. With instant run-offs (advocated for by all third parties) people would have more choice, by giving them the option of ranking candidates. Here’s an example: Bush, Kerry and Smith are running. You want to vote for Smith but are afraid that if you vote for him (for the sake of argument – and only because he wasn’t even my second choice) Kerry loses a vote to Bush, thus helping Bush get elected. With instant run-off you could vote for Smith by ranking him your first choice, and Kerry as your second. If Smith doesn’t have enough votes to win, your vote is immediately handed to your second choice, in this example, Kerry. If you have more than three candidates, no problem, rank them, and the same will apply. Don’t have a personal second or third choice? That’s fine too, just vote for one person and you’re done.

4. Make election day a federal holiday. I know that having election day on a Tuesday is very convenient for everyone, but why not at least make it a day off? We could move it to a Saturday too. Or how about making it a day off for employees who actually go and vote? That of course would be asking corporate America to make a sacrifice.

5. No more electoral college. My Republican friends living in Illinois can’t stand that their state is blue before 1% of the vote is even counted. We all can’t stand that for that reason neither party ever bothers to campaign here. Why is it that residents in Ohio get Presidential candidates sitting at their diners and I have to donate thousands of dollars just to shake their hand for two seconds? Why is it that in the modern age when there’s little risk of Virginia attacking New York that a President can be President and lose the “popular vote?”

The electoral college has to go. It is undemocratic and turns our most important duty into a farce. If it’s gone politicians would have to speak to the whole nation and campaign everywhere. Make them really work for it. With demographic trends and people moving more than ever, an electoral college makes no sense at all.

If we were to use just these five ideas (six depending on how you look at it) in our major elections, suddenly voters would be more engaged, the Dems and GOP would lose some of their power, we would have more political discussion in this country and perhaps, just perhaps, we would have more honest and more competent people in office. Of course neither party would enact such laws, exactly because they would lose power, but it is possible to have these changes. We, the people, need to make our voices heard.

Believe me, it wouldn’t be impossible. We’ve done it before.

April 3rd, 2006 by Hoopleton

Why must the media keep us blind to what is happening? Partly the answer is conglamerization. Independent outlets disapear as giants like the News Corporation amass more and more voices. An interlaced bureaucratic web develops. Conservative in its ideology and business practices. Devoted to the bottom line and entertainment. For these media monsters the only public interest measure that seems to have survived is the maxim: responsible media should not spread public panic or inflame social tensions.

Partly also, the answer is that politicians have become masters of spin. In my brief stay in the Communications department of the Illinois State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, also the Republican nominee for Governor, I saw first hand how easily the press is pushed along. Potential scandals are nearly everywhere, but no one bothers to seek them out. Press releases are treated as fact.

It seems that social unrest (reaching its heights in the 60s and 70s), maybe even the threat of all-out conflict (dating back to the Civil War), has filled media and politics with so much fear of breakdown that they rather keep us under informed than relay the truth. Both sides win. The media gives little time or real understanding to modern social movements, opting to distract us with suburban murders, abductions and culture wars. They can claim to have reported it and dismissed it, the details being lost in the 24-hour news cycle. The politicians simply want to hold on and centralize power.

Aren’t the Republicans the small government party?

And the people doing the masking? The spinners, the speech writers and reporters? What about them? Is it a conspiracy? Is it ignorance and systemic corruption?

Not really. They’re good people for the most part. But in a society where gaining wealth and power are more important than truth, it’s easy to lose one’s soul. It’s easy to abandon the ideals of youth when family and social responsibilities make a paycheck more important. It is also easy to start getting caught up in the ideologies of those you work for. After all, when you represent a thing, and people are quick to blame you for the system, the easiest thing to do is to defend your side. That’s it isn’t it? Sometimes good people find themselves under attack and retreat to those who are causing the corruption, becoming corrupted themselves.

How easily we sell our souls. But of course, what is the alternative?

“All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but blasphemy against the spirit shall not be forgiven – whoever speaks against the eternal truth in the spirit of men, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come – Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt; for the tree is known by his fruit. Oh generation of vipers!” — Jesus Christ

April 2nd, 2006 by Hoopleton

Ok…the immigration issue.

I have been complaining about us Americans. About how we do not take to the streets to defend our rights and freedoms, or to overthrow the current construct more generally. But of course we have been taking to the streets, if at least some of us. In recent weeks Latinos and their allies have been holding mass rallies throughout the country in opposition to proposed legislations that would essentially make 12 million people into criminals. LA was the site of the greatest protests, est. ranging from half a million to 2 million people.

As someone born somewhere else, I feel the need to say something.

When I came to America at age six I had a green card. We were considered refugees, escaping political censorship and persecution. By the time I was 18 I was a citizen. It took so long for my “naturalization” not out of a lack of will or economy, but due instead to bureaucratic hurdles. I myself was never an illegal alien, but I knew plenty. People from Europe, Canada and Mexico. I know some now.

The advocates for tougher border control and expelling those here illegally, tend to throw out many reasons. One woman I heard interviewed said, “they bring diseases.” For the sake of a real analysis, lets dismiss stupidity. Forget disease. Forget “stealing our jobs.” Let’s just generally eliminate xenophobia, despite the fact that only the Mexican border seems to be in question. So, the remaining reasons for tough immigration laws are these three:

1. Terrorism. An open border is dangerous.

All right, that may very well be a real concern. However, let’s be honest, we have enough resources right now to close the border. Enough money. Enough guards. Even if you see everything down, a terrorist, a smart one, will not need to swim the Rio Grande to enter these blessed shores. He’ll fly into JFK. Or take a bus from Canada. If you want to prevent terrorism (a threat that is not as large as we are meant to believe) you open borders with your neighbors, not close them. You work together to make sure those bad people don’t make it into any of your countries. A terrorist already in Mexico will enter the US, and he’ll do it by driving right through passport control.

2. Illegal immigrants are a strain on the welfare system. They don’t pay taxes, but take advantage of tax funded programs.

So, basically we should deny medical care, education and emergency services to 12 million people (if not more). That’s what we’re talking about. Because we all know illegal immigrants are not using medicare, welfare or social security. But are illegal immigrants that big of a strain by just using the services that they have access to? One argument I often hear is that over 40% of the prison population is made up of illegals. But of course that’s what happens when you make drug possession by some poor guy out on the street (for instance) punishable by a lengthy hard nose prison sentence, but you let the CEO of a corporation who defrauded people out of millions of dollars stay at a minimum security resort for a few months.

Getting beyond prison, what about companies like Walmart? You want to see a burden on the welfare system, how about a corporation that purposefully pushes down the wage of its workers so that they have to turn to welfare and medicaid? And by the way, Walmart is America’s biggest employer.

3. Illegal workers push down wages for everyone.

Employers say they higher illegals because they need to compete in a global economy. And Eleanor Beardsley wonders why Globalization has a bad name. Maybe if Corporate CEOs and business owners could be thrown in prison for hiring illegals, and if the wonder that is free trade had some protections for the labor force, we wouldn’t have this problem. Makes you wonder though, doesn’t it? Why are all these illegal Mexican workers coming here if so many of our factories are moving there? Are the wages shit there too?

The bottom line is that America and Mexico don’t want to completely change the system because they both benefit from it. As do Republicans and Democrats. Globalization has created a need and is destroying people on both sides of the border. The process of becoming legal should be clear and existant, beyond lotteries and whatever few provisions are in place. I say, take down free trade, invest in our neighbors and open the borders. Create clear measures on citizenship. Above all stop punishing people for having been born somewhere else. Maybe it’s time we start thinking about whether immagined communities like our nations are even worth it anymore. Aren’t we all human beings?

April 1st, 2006 by Hoopleton

I was driving around town yesterday and through the haze that is the public radio spring pledge drive, I heard an update on the French student strikes on NPR’s the World (broadcast 3/31/2006). The brunt of the report was this: Chirac announced a sort of compromise. The law would stay, but be amended to create concessions. Well you know, if governments can’t make everyone happy they’d just rather piss everyone off.

But what I enjoyed more than the facts was the analysis by the American correspondent in Paris, Eleanor Beardsley. Eleanor first talked about the Chirac speech and then in a very annoyed, tired tone started talking about the students. About those protesting and why. In line with her usual contempt for things she does not understand, she first dismissed the striking students by calling them ignorant and then dismissed their convictions for much the same reason.

Eleanor said, “a lot of these young people…maybe they just wanna be out of class. I don’t think a lot of them know what’s going on. They just go out and they hear this is unfair, but a lot of people say that this will, that they are scared of globalization.”

Ahhh Eleanor. Yes, young people are just too stupid to know what’s going on. They’re just ditching class. All those millions of students from 86 universities across the nation who converged on Paris simply wanted to skip that damn econ exam. I’m sure you’re right. It has nothing to do with France’s revolutionary traditions, or the fact that French youth are much more politically active then young people in the States. Or perhaps that this law impacts them and their prospects for employment directly.

Eleanor went on to say, “They think that in America you can be fired at anytime and you don’t get any compensation, you know whether it’s true or not, they think you’re always living on the edge.”

Whether it’s true or not? Well, if it’s true then they have a point and are not a bunch of lazy stupid kids. If it’s not true then Eleanor has been away from America too long. Most people, unlike reporters living in Paris (that must be a tough gig) really do work paycheck to paycheck. In fact the biggest problem facing those out of college or living at a lower income is finding steady employment. It’s almost like, I guess you can call it living on the edge.

Eleanor rounded up her balanced analysis with this: “In France once you have an employer and a job you have security and you have rights. They’re really scared to let this go. But I have to say, I think globalization hasn’t been sold very well here. There’s this bad name attached here to globalization.”

Oh Eleanor…I love reporters who are such a perfect mix of ignorance and stupidity. Her report continued a little longer, at the amazement of people not loving free trade, but I tuned her out.

Eleanor, listen.

Globalization hasn’t been sold well in France and in fact hasn’t been sold very well anywhere. Even over a decade after the Seattle riots it amazes me how journalists have no clue why such big passionate crowds gather at every IMF, World Bank or G8 summit. Of course they don’t really report these protests anyway, but you’d think they’d have a clue by now. There’s enough literature out there. There are enough documentaries. There’s enough all over the web. Millions of protesters gather against globalization multiple times a year, every year.

So why all the protests? Why does globalization have a bad name?

Perhaps it has something to do with exploitation of the third world. Or jobs leaving to countries with seemingly inexhaustible streams of labor and few of those pesky personal freedoms that give workers notions of fair wages and safe working conditions (I of course mean our dictatorial oppressive trading partners in China among others). Maybe it’s about Corporate interests superseding human rights, environmental concerns and basic decency. Perhaps it has something to do with the dying gasp of people who want to be more than just consumers.

But hey, what the hell do I know? I’m probably just ignorant. Maybe Eleanor’s right. Maybe the real issue is just that globalization needs a better brand image.

To listen to the program (the world, 3/31/2006) go to theworld.org. To send Eleanor Beardsley your thoughts, write to theworld@pri.org.