Throughout history we have developed remarkable trading routes, relationships and sustainable systems of agriculture. The existence of the "market" and the art of economics, translated from Greek meaning the management of the house, are nothing new to human cultures.
Providing tables of food for everyone is as ancient and as important as talking and dancing. The historical difference today is in the nature of how we trade, our relationships to the land and ultimately how we live.
The market is no longer determined by those that grow the food or make the clothes but rather by large corporations driven by profit. Trading on a global level was not invented by multinational corporations. What they did invent was the beginning of unprecedented erosion of political and cultural rights on a global scale. The example of Enron serves our consciousness just as our alarm clock serves our morning-dried eyelids.
To regain a balanced system of trade and agriculture that is based on mutual sovereignty and respect, we must wake up to the smell of Enron and other companies burning our stoves. Monsanto, a chemical and biotechnology corporation based in St. Louis, is a perfect example of a company making billions off of societal destruction. Millions of our tax dollars buy Monsanto's weed-killing product, Roundup, to spray thousands of acres in Colombia. These fumigations are part of $1.3 billion dollar Plan Colombia, which we are told will help win our war on drugs.
The truth is these sprayings, whose toxicity has never been studied, are causing incredible damage to the health of the ecosystem and to the communities in Colombia, the majority being indigenous people. Like "smart bombs" - that are not all that smart - the impacts of these chemicals go far beyond the Opium poppy plants they supposedly "target."
Recently, Colombian leaders followed by human rights and health workers spoke to congress about the impacts on the Colombian peoples, food crops, water and skin burnings from these chemicals. We must not forget that Monsanto made billions by supplying the Agent Orange chemical in Vietnam. Agent Orange is responsible for thousands of birth defects in Vietnam and caused thousands of U.S. veterans to get an array of cancers.
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But Monsanto and Enron are not the only generous campaign donors whose role we should bring to the discussion table. Correction Corporation of America, one of the top five most lucrative constituents of the New York Stock Exchange, is a private U.S. company that makes money building and managing prisons domestically and across the world.
It is like a science fiction novel knowing that people get filthy rich by throwing people in prison, when our public schools can not even find extra chairs for students. It is surreal when an ad in Corrections Today magazine reads, "Inmates are built tougher than ever before. Fortunately so is our furniture."
What about McDonalds employing more people in the United States than the steel industry? They profess to represent the food of the free world while denying its employers in other countries the freedom to join a union.
Why are we continually blindfolded of the repercussions that many corporations have on our daily lives? Why is Enron's role in California's energy crises still hidden from our daily news?
In Narco, La., they have been struggling for the past 15 years to relocate Shell Oil Company's hazardous operations. Women in Guatemala, Mexico and the Akwesasne Indian Reservation in New York, are finding that their breast milk is contaminated with PCB's from eating the local foods.
Don't we need to start emphasizing and protecting our health, just as much as we emphasize and protect our economy. If Bush lived next to a uranium mine or depended on water being polluted by the oil company he or Dick Cheney own, do you think their policies around economic growth and progress would be any different?
by Maceo Carrillo Martinet
Daily Lobo Columnist
Comments or suggestions for Maceo Carrillo Martinet can be sent to conuco8@unm.edu.
