HERD ABOUT IT? by ana grarian
We in the US, we who export our money, resources and young men and women around the world to wage war, have been uniquely exempt from the daily ravages of war. We have not experienced daily bombings. We don’t go through tedious checkpoints. We can drive from coast to coast without worrying about landmines or IED’s. The lights turn on 24/7/365 at the flick of a switch. Heck, most of the time we just leave them on: lights; TV’s; computers; all burning the midnight oil, coal and natural gas with impunity.
Remember our reaction to the isolated incidents of September 11, 2001? The first real attack on our shores since Pearl Harbor. Now just imagine that was happening every day, and that many of the bombings were perpetrated by a ‘friendly’ nation that was ‘helping’ us to free ourselves.
Or perhaps less controversial. Let us suppose that in addition to our humanitarian wars, we accepted refugee populations on a significant level.
NYC – let’s take those tired and poor yearning to be free and put them up in Central Park. We’ll actually need a bit more than that – like twice as much, an area say from Lexington to Columbus Avenue the length of the park. So we will need to commandeer a few more of the city’s parks. This will actually be quite a bit easier than at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, NYC has infrastructure, water, housing. 130,000 folks should do well there, just another rock concert – with no end in sight.
While we in the US fret over the decision to buy another pair of $100 shoes, or cable vs satellite, people around the world are struggling for existence, in a large part, because of the decisions made by western nations. Much of the problems in the Middle East are exacerbated, if not primarily caused, by International Corporations, the World Bank and the IMF. Not to mention, but I will, the problems caused by the artificial political divisions imposed on them after the World Wars.
Now there is considerable evidence to say the initial cause of the Syrian disaster may be agricultural and an impact of climate change.
Imposing industrial methods of farming to produce non-traditional crops for export, in fragile environments is a recipe for disaster. Years of drought and a push to produce wheat for export, and then the sale of that wheat when the country was already in need of food created a tipping point. (sounds a bit like Ireland in the 1800’s) The flood of destitute and hungry farm families into the cities, which could not absorb them, created a powder keg of unrest.
This IS happening in the US. As industrial agriculture continues to drive farm families and their neighbors out of rural America into the cities that cannot (or won’t) offer enough of them more than low wage jobs, tension on housing, transportation and services increase. If we add in the possibility of real food shortage from drought, flood, pesticide failure, and crop blights it is possible to foresee similar population shifts and social pressure here in the US, in the not too distant future.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-23944110
If we are to believe all we are told, still: Osama felt he was reacting to an invasion if infidels. Then we confirmed by invading. We encourage a form of internationalism, and even on a more national level, that makes consumers have to sterilize their own food and takes jobs to support countries that use slave and prison labor. Lesson learned? Use prison labor ourselves! (See article posted.)
Our “solutions” are to create problems then offer “solutions” that make it worse: a tactic refined by the Bush family… re: arming Saddam then going after him, supporting Osama and friends because we hate the Soviets despite Gorby’s warning, “These are people you DON’T want in control,” then: 9/11, the Taliban.
There are evil people controlling what we do as a country who have no interest in freedom, justice or what’s right: just control and profit.