Two International Crisises: The Business Is Broken, and So Is the Food

                These two things don’t have much in common, one is an economic crisis, and the other is an environmental and human rights issue, but nonetheless, they are both key to the survival of our nation as a whole, the overall wellness of the planet, and the right of all men to be free.

        
            The first, most pressing issue we face in these challenging economic times is outsourcing and the domestic hiring of illegal labor. But aren’t they really the same thing? They are a way for companies to pay lower wages to people, and in most cases, forego the business of paying payroll taxes in the States. This is loss of State, Federal, and sometimes, as is the case in Rhode Island, local tax revenue.

The “agreed upon” number of illegal immigrants in this country is about 12 million, but some estimates put that number at nearly 20 million! Now, we can’t assume that they are all working in these tough economic times, nor can we assume that they all don’t pay taxes. There are plenty of illegal immigrants in this country with real enough looking documentation to get a job on the payroll. So let’s just use half. That’s 10 million by the largest estimate. We’re rounding up.

If each of those 10 million paid $100 per week in payroll taxes, that’s a BILLION DOLLARS A WEEK in taxes spread across the local, state, and federal levels. The cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq approaches $1 trillion (That’s NINE zeros, folks! Write it down. It even looks big.) That’s just over $100 billion a year. We could cut that number by half with the FIFTY- TWO BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR we would get from taxing 10 million more people! (I changed the math in this statement the day after posting it. I was off by a multiple of ten!)  Not to mention, the windfall to Social Security and Medicare! I know of a couple of restaurants where a full third of the workforce is “under the table”!

The issue of illegal workers in the United States is a double whammy, because many immigrants in this country support families in other countries. They send money out of the country, by check, money order, or wireless transfer. I knew a Senegalese gentleman who sent as much as sixty percent of his pay out of the country! This permanently removes money from our economy.

Some may think that this is a veiled racist thing, but it’s not. I don’t want illegal immigrants of any color.  Canadian? Take off, eh! Irish? Erin go home! Japanese? Tachisaru mai kuni! The real problem is the employers who don’t think twice about hiring illegal labor. I wonder how it feels to fuck every American at once.

The second problem affects the entire food industry, and the way we’ve eaten and survived for thousands of years. Genetically modified foods are the number one reason to be scared shitless in America.

In an effort to make pest and herbicide resistant plants, chemical companies have altered the genes of crops using a host of methods, from using bacteria to actually ripping the cell walls of plants using electricity and inserting DNA. The Monsanto Corporation went in reverse. First , developing the herbicide Roundup, in the 1970’s, then creating genetically modified soybeans and canola that is resistant to Roundup.  (Canola is known as rapeseed to you Europeans. You can guess why we changed the name.)

“Sounds great! Saves time weeding the farm,” you say? While that is true, one of the most essential features to enduring foodstores  is the dance that all plant life depends on, cross-pollination. If these relatively untested GMO’s, as they are known, are allowed to cross- pollinate with naturally hand selected seed from farms, who knows what might happen? Well, some soy and canola farmers are finding out. When Monsanto finds its patented frankenplants, which are readily identifiable by genetic markers inserted into the plants genome, on a farm that hasn’t paid for the privilege of growing them, Monsanto threatens the farmer with legal action unless they pay up. Monsanto has learned how to acquire wealth through an act of nature! Good for them! What’s more, these companies also design their genes to be DOMINANT! Some experts believe that if any significant number of genetically altered salmon were to escape into the wild, the wild salmon could be extinct in forty years! Imagine a company that owns every salmon in the ocean! And what happens if/ when that gene marker shows up in you or me?

“But Dave,” you say, ”that is the stuff of wild Sci- Fi novels and movies.” Well, that may be true now, but if history shows us anything, science fiction almost invariably turns into science fact. The homeopapes of Philip K. Dick’s many worlds, are today’s internet. Cloning was the plot to b movies fifty years ago. Fifty years before that, atomic energy was a fantasy. And Jules Verne published “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea “in 1869, long before the modern submarine was thought possible.

Some European countries refuse to buy GMO’s from the states, and in some cases, won’t even allow them to be stored in their ports! The United States is one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t require genetically modified food to be labeled as such. So, if you have an allergic reaction to a GMO, there is no way for you to tell if it was the food, short of a DNA test. Just what corporate America likes. Zero culpability.

In an even more sinister twist, some companies have developed “self terminating seed.” This is a seed designed to self destruct after one growing season. The plant either will not seed, or its seeds will be sterile. Imagine a world where every plant, every year, will have to be purchased. The effect on the third world would be devastating. Maybe that’s what big business conservatives mean when they say “ownership society.” Everything must be owned by someone, preferably me.
You'd think the FDA would step in and have some type of oversight, but the FDA is run by former executives of some of these companies. The safety and longevity of our food supply is a national security issue. You think foreign oil dependence is bad? Try on foreign food dependence for size!

For more info on the worldwide food crisis see “Food, Inc.” And “The Future of Food” Both of these films will make you think twice about something that is essential to the survival of the race. Hope to see more of you at the farmer’s market!  

Love, Peace, and Bacon grease!