I don't really know anything about this, but I heard it on NPR, twice in one year. So it's important.
Some of our tax money, which should all be used buying important things like the loyalty of Iraqi Shiite sheiks, is instead being diverted to subsidize American cotton farmers. This makes it economical for them to grow cotton while the price is low, and encourages the price to go even lower. Cotton farmers elsewhere, such as Africa, where a family's entire income may be dependent on the yield of five acres of cotton, cannot sell at a profit. Their children don't get to go to school and don't have shoes to wear if they did, all so some Americans with new Dodge pickups and steel sheds to park them in can still make a living growing cotton just like Pappy did. African cotton farmers don't like this. They think it's unfair. They suspect America's incredible might and power has something to do with why they are getting so badly screwed. It makes them wonder if Americans are really as nice as they want everyone to think they are.
We are, aren't we?
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8 comments:
Okay, my firsat reaction is to say that taking care of our own doesn't mean we donj't give a sghit about anyone else. I guess Bono is right, we Americans don't give the rest of the worlsd diddly-dick. Cuz we're selfish, and mean, and just plain assholes.
If the world would stop trying to subsidize African nations, they could begin to have some hope of developping some self-sufficiency.
Yeah, it's an alien concept to those who feel the rest of the world needs to be coddled.
I found you. I linked you. There is no escape.
If the world would stop trying to subsidize African nations, they could begin to have some hope of developping some self-sufficiency.
Puckey. All we've ever really subsidized over there are the local inheritors of colonialism. Quite naturally they've enriched themselves but not their countries.
Why do we have to subsidize our own farmers? If they can't compete in the world against dirt-poor Africans and South Americans, too fucking bad. Don't come crying to dear old Uncle Sam!
Oh, I should have mentioned that i agree we should not be subsidizing American farmers. But guilt over the plight of other copuntries' farmers isn't my reason why. Let Amaerican farmers bust their humps like the rest of us TAXPAYING citizens.
Buy organic! Buy local! Down with big corporate farms!
...Americans with new Dodge pickups and steel sheds to park them in can still make a living growing cotton just like Pappy did...
BTW - SF Chron columnist Mark Morford has a funny piece on Kellogg's Organic Rice Krispies and corporate farming. I'd link it (but I can't f**king remember how...)
The cafeteria here, which is run by a major corporation that bought the contract from my major corporation, has a Buy Local day where they feature fresh veg from local producers only. I'm all for it but I don't understand.
World trade rules were bludgeoned through first the GATT, and then the WTO, by the rich nations: essentially the US and the EU, and screw the rest of them. In a free market, which is what we all claim to support, such behaviour would be unfair competition. But the world market is anything but fair. It's entirely skewed in the direction of the rich North.
What this does is it makes it impossible -- not difficult, but impossible -- for producers in Africa, say, to make a living either now or in the future. It cannot be done. So they're maintained in a position of recipient nations, going cap in hand to the rich nations for support in coping with a situation the rich have deliberately created.
You could perhaps imagine the analogy of a brutal husband who severely limits his wife's budget to prevent her ever being able to attain any level of independence from him, for fear of what she would do with such a gift if she had it.
The analogy of pimp and whore also works. Needless to say, it has nothing to do with "taking care of our own". That's the sort of analysis you get when you don't find out about a situation, and don't think about a problem.
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