Tags
CAFTA-DR Free Trade Agreement, Central American Refugees, Choices and consequences, End violence and wars, Human extinction, Humanitarian Crisis, Importance of history, Refugee children in the USA, Transnational corporations
Illegal Immigration or a Humanitarian Crisis?
American Protesters against influx of Central American Refugees
Murrieta – California – July 2014
Photo Credit: Politicus USA
Our choices, our behavior, our actions have consequences. Some good. Some bad. Some consequences take more than a lifetime for manifestation. That’s why it’s important to study history. History that distorts the truth is useless and harmful for learning.
In high school, I hated studying history. I saw no connection to my life. I finally get it. Everything that’s assailing us today has its roots in the distant and recent past. Not only have America’s foreign policies supported dictatorship governments that heap hardships upon their citizens, but we also have trade policies that affect local economies and peoples’ livelihood.
Consider the current overwhelming number of unaccompanied refugee children arriving at America’s southwest borders. The majority of them are fleeing gang and state violence in their homelands in Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. These three developing countries are part of the six-nation CAFTA-DR Free Trade Agreement with the United States, fully implemented in 2006.
Inconsequential? Coincidental?
The world we live in is of our own making. We set the course decades ago. Securing our borders with more troops will not resolve the humanitarian crisis we helped to spawn.
The same can be said for other war zones in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. Set in motion by some bad decisions in the past, Israel and Palestine are locked in a brutal war with no end in sight. Iraq, Syria, and neighboring countries are torn by sectarian violence where allegiances between opposing groups are convoluted. The people of Ukraine are at war among themselves: Should they hold on to their Russian roots or believe in the promises of the West?
The only winners in all this violence and human misery are the transnational corporations. They supply the arms, provide medicines for the wounded and dying, take care of reconstruction, and finance it all.
When will we learn that violence and war do not resolve our differences?
It’s time to take stock of what we are doing to jeopardize the survival of our species. It’s time to work together or face the consequence of our own extinction.
Continued violence or cooperation? It’s our choice. Choices have consequences. Inaction, too, has consequences.
When will we learn?
Three Worlds One Vision 
We’re forgetting one main fact, we were all immigrants at one time. Can we, with a clear conscious mind deny that right to others?
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So true, Norman.
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Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Thanks for re-posting, Cyril. Have a great week!
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You are right about our human dilemma, in my opinion. Part of the problem, I think, is that we are the same human flesh, blood and brains of ancestors who existed thousands of years ago, but now have technologies able to accomplish both great and terrible things affecting enormous numbers of people, other species, and the planet itself. I have no certainty what the USA might do to better the conditions in various Middle East countries, remedy the crisis in the Ukraine, or influence the awful conditions in those gang/corruption dominated Central American countries you mentioned. We are not in a position to impose our will in any of those places without terrible backlash, even if such imposition were justified by international law and/or morality. Granted, we have made significant policy mistakes, but these are easier to see in the rear view mirror than looking forward. It may be that we should first do a better job of solving our own national problems and leave the responsibility of other national problems to the nations involved. At the same time, to do this would be turning our backs to the tragedies unfolding in those places. As a therapist, a wise old joke comes to mind: “How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?” One, but the light bulb has to want to be changed. Foreign policy experts might ask themselves the same question with respect to whether they can impose solutions on others who don’t wish to be changed. In any case, I am no such expert, but share your concerns.
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I share your view, Dr. Stein: “It may be that we should first do a better job of solving our own national problems and leave the responsibility of other national problems to the nations involved.” Cutting our military spending and focusing on the human suffering in the United States would be a great start.
“At the same time, to do this would be turning our backs to the tragedies unfolding in those places.” I don’t agree here. A lot of the division and violence worldwide has American fingerprints. Divide and rule.
Freedom and democracy cannot be won with warfare. Try using divisive violent tactics on your adult children and see where they will get you.
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Just one point of clarification. By “turning our backs,” I did not mean to suggest any particular solution, military or otherwise. Actually, I had something more humanitarian in mind. You are certainly right when you say a parent’s divisive tactics are destructive, and I would add, at any age.
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I wonder what the original inhabitants of north america are thinking?Remember when the europeans were coming to their country in droves.First they welcomed them and fed them .Then looked what happened after
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And so the wheel turns…
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If you believe there were civilizations before ours, then you would believe that we will be extinct some day; which is what I believe. I would suggest reading the following to expand the discussion:
Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, and Globalization and Its Discontents by Professor Joseph Stiglitz [Nobel Prize in Economics]
Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia U and the World Bank’s former chief economist says: ‘[The New Development Bank -BRICS] is important in many ways. It is helping to finance infrastructure, adaptation to climate change – all the needs that are so evident in the poorest countries. It [also] reflects a fundamental change in global economic and political power. We’re in a different world, but the institutions have not kept up.’
– http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Stiglitz-Supports-the-new-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Economy-Economics-World_World-Bank_World-Bank-140718-722.html
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Clyde, according to my understanding of the emergence and evolution of humankind, ancient civilizations and empires have arisen and passed away, but our species survived in other parts of the world.
Our civilization is different. We have global reach. Our lifestyles threaten all ecosystems, as well as the finely tuned climatic system that makes life on our planet possible.
I agree with Professor Stiglitz about the importance of the BRICS New Development Bank. My concern is that the G7 will sabotage its work in bringing about meaningful change in the majority developing world.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I’ve added it to my reading list.
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Thanks for the clarification, Dr. Stein.
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Dr. Stiglitz is an excellent economist and an excellent thinker. You should also be able to find his essays and reviews in print and online newspapers and journals regularly.
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Thanks, Angela.
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