A few days ago they showed on Tv a documentary about the largest company in the world, Wal-Mart, and its destructive policies not only in the domestic front but also overseas. They say that they save $3100 per family per year. What they do not say is that they impoverish their employees, their families, and the communities, in which they open the stores, as they put out of business every single Mom and Pap store, destroying small businesses. They don’t believe in organized labor, they don’t provide health care coverage. They have the highest turnover in the US.
Some friends of mine on both sides of aisle believe it is wonderful to export jobs out of the US. I look at China, where American companies invest in slave jobs that pay very little more than the average Chinese job does. This documentary showed Chinese workers working 20 hours or more per shift, in inhumane conditions. I wouldn’t consider that an improvement of their standard of living. And it is very easy to say the amount of Chinese that are able to consume, that is a joke. When you have 1.3 billion people, by just having 1% of the population that can consume, that is 13 million consumers. What about the vast majority of the population in China, how do they live?
Let’s look at another good example of how we improved people out of the US at the expense of American jobs. Many Mexicans came to live right across from the US with plants being built by American companies. The areas where the people had to live had no running water, no public facilities, raw sewage, and companies would not hire men, only women. Do we call that an improvement in their standard of living. Those are not new consumers of our products. They can’t afford them.
CAFTA is another example of enslaving locals for the benefit of a few who reap the benefit. Those local people are not able to consume the goods they produce.
Once these people reach a level where they can see the benefit of their labor I don’t take their jobs seriously.
Companies don’t build plants to help people overseas, they only do it to save money on labor costs.
And it isn’t just American companies doing this. This happens in Europe as well. Western European companies build factories in Eastern Europe to save money, not to improve the standard of living of those people making the goods.
And it also applies with pollution. A Finish paper company built a paper factory on the banks of the Uruguay River. Of course they say that this will create jobs, but at what cost to the people, to the environment. If it would be such a wonderful proposition they would have built it in Finland. But why not export the pollution to the undeveloped world? The interesting thing is that none of the paper produced stays in Uruguay, it goes back to Finland.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Lieberman
As we read that Joe Lieberman says publicly that he will join republicans in a fillibuster to stop a public option, I stop to think after everything that Lieberman has done to betray the Democratic Party why is he still the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
As a democrat myself and as was one of the ones who said that after not only endorsing McCain but also calling Obama a marxist and a muslim, he not only should not have been offered the chairmanship, but he should have been cut loose by the democratic party. I always remember a friend of mine when I was growing up used to say if a dog bites you need to put it down, because he will do it over and over. And the democrats do not seem to learn with him.
The list of things he has done against the party seems to never end: during the time of the democrats in the minority he stopped several fillibusters, (bankruptcy bill in 2005, Bush federal judges in 2005), he voted to confirm Alberto Gonzalez, endorsed McCain’s position on privatization of Social Security, quit the Democratic Party after loosing to the primary in 2006, and ran as an independent, encouraged war with Iran, defended Anti-Semitic Pator John Hagee, voted against waterboarding ban, defends war in Iraq. He is wrong in every single position.
Friends of mine would probably say that Jesus would have been forgiving, and that Obama used that principle.
I say it is time to remove him from any seniority position he may have within the Democratic caucus. His positions are not in line with the Democratic Party, they are more with the republicans, so let him go and knock on their door begging for a position on their side of the aisle. He doesn’t deserve preferential treatment by neither Reid nor Obama in the senate. With friends like him who needs enemies.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Having the blues
I don’t know if things are affecting me more these days, or is it that I am getting old, or the fact that my last trip to Argentina was full of reunions of different types, but I have noticed my feelings to be a lot more raw in these last few days. They are not raw in the untreatable sense, but more in the melancholic side.
Things as irrelevant as the death of a musician that I met on a flight, but had left her influence in other ways, primarily through her music touched a nerve, and brought tears to my ears the first few hours after hearing of her death. I have always been what my wife would call a masochist. I’ve always thought of myself as a sensitive person. Music has always played a big role in my life since my early high school days, and even though I’ve never played an instrument, it has always been a factor for highs and lows. And these can come in many different ways, through Karen Carpenter singing “A Song for you” as an example, or The Beatles, Indian music, etc.
But because I have a different schedule than the rest of my family I listen to lots of music when I am alone. I also listen to music while I’m driving. My wife, there she goes again, would say that I am stuck in the ‘70s. There is some truth in that. I guess it’s because I grew up with it, and many times it has a special meaning for me, it represents a different time in my life.
I don’t complain about the time that I am living now, it is all I have, but looking back there is no doubt that those were easier days, primarily because we were irresponsible, we were invulnerable. I am thankful for those days, although I don’t long for them. I am conscious that the now is what I have, and I try to make the best of it.
But because every year once I get back from my home town, I go through a period that I would call bleeding, and I didn’t do it this year, I guess I am going through a little bit of the blues now. This year I thought I’m not going to allow this to happen. But sooner or later it had to catch up with me. I guess it will be over in a few days; in the meantime I will try to keep my mind busy with other things, like I always try to do.
I admit that many times I look around in the area where I live, and falling trap to stereotyping, which is funny because I hate it, I think that people are cold, to the extreme of insensitivity. I wonder if that is just a mask to hide their feelings and their vulnerability. And this is not only true with strangers, but with people that I have known for a longer time, some of them since I have moved to this area. In many instances, although I have known for almost 25 years, I still don’t feel that I know them completely.
I was talking to a former schoolmate yesterday, a person that I saw at the reunion we had this year in Argentina, and that before that I had not seen or spoken to in 34 years, and when I talk to her it’s like talking to somebody that I have never stopped talking to or seeing. I wonder why that is the case.
And I also think if it is my Latin upbringing, not because I am of Latin descent as I am a Celt and a Saxon, but I feel that there is more of a sense of warmness, more of a sense of friendship in the real meaning. I have a good friend whom I say that he is like my adopted parent, as he is my mother’s age, and also because my parents live 5000 miles away, unfortunately I helped him sell his house. During the whole process I had mixed feelings, on a one hand it is what I do for a living, but on the other my feelings were getting in the way, because I knew that he was moving away. Although he is not across the globe I don’t have the luxury of just driving a few minutes and having a round of discussion, healthy and enriching, at least in my case, like we used to. This has not helped either with my blues. Time is a great heeler, and with God’s help everything is possible.
Things as irrelevant as the death of a musician that I met on a flight, but had left her influence in other ways, primarily through her music touched a nerve, and brought tears to my ears the first few hours after hearing of her death. I have always been what my wife would call a masochist. I’ve always thought of myself as a sensitive person. Music has always played a big role in my life since my early high school days, and even though I’ve never played an instrument, it has always been a factor for highs and lows. And these can come in many different ways, through Karen Carpenter singing “A Song for you” as an example, or The Beatles, Indian music, etc.
But because I have a different schedule than the rest of my family I listen to lots of music when I am alone. I also listen to music while I’m driving. My wife, there she goes again, would say that I am stuck in the ‘70s. There is some truth in that. I guess it’s because I grew up with it, and many times it has a special meaning for me, it represents a different time in my life.
I don’t complain about the time that I am living now, it is all I have, but looking back there is no doubt that those were easier days, primarily because we were irresponsible, we were invulnerable. I am thankful for those days, although I don’t long for them. I am conscious that the now is what I have, and I try to make the best of it.
But because every year once I get back from my home town, I go through a period that I would call bleeding, and I didn’t do it this year, I guess I am going through a little bit of the blues now. This year I thought I’m not going to allow this to happen. But sooner or later it had to catch up with me. I guess it will be over in a few days; in the meantime I will try to keep my mind busy with other things, like I always try to do.
I admit that many times I look around in the area where I live, and falling trap to stereotyping, which is funny because I hate it, I think that people are cold, to the extreme of insensitivity. I wonder if that is just a mask to hide their feelings and their vulnerability. And this is not only true with strangers, but with people that I have known for a longer time, some of them since I have moved to this area. In many instances, although I have known for almost 25 years, I still don’t feel that I know them completely.
I was talking to a former schoolmate yesterday, a person that I saw at the reunion we had this year in Argentina, and that before that I had not seen or spoken to in 34 years, and when I talk to her it’s like talking to somebody that I have never stopped talking to or seeing. I wonder why that is the case.
And I also think if it is my Latin upbringing, not because I am of Latin descent as I am a Celt and a Saxon, but I feel that there is more of a sense of warmness, more of a sense of friendship in the real meaning. I have a good friend whom I say that he is like my adopted parent, as he is my mother’s age, and also because my parents live 5000 miles away, unfortunately I helped him sell his house. During the whole process I had mixed feelings, on a one hand it is what I do for a living, but on the other my feelings were getting in the way, because I knew that he was moving away. Although he is not across the globe I don’t have the luxury of just driving a few minutes and having a round of discussion, healthy and enriching, at least in my case, like we used to. This has not helped either with my blues. Time is a great heeler, and with God’s help everything is possible.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Testimonio a Mercedes Sosa
"Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto, Me ha dado la risa y me ha dado el llanto, Así yo distingo dicha de quebranto, los dos materiales que forman mi canto, y el canto de ustedes que es el mismo canto y el canto de todos, que es mi propio canto." La letra de Violeta Parra que Mercedes Sosa canto como si fuese de ella, sintiendose identificada con esas palabras. Para los que quedamos, y nos sentimos identificados con esa letra, y muchas otras que Mercedes Sosa canto desde el fondo de su corazon, con esa voz del interior, muchas veces con dolor, pero tambien muchas veces con alegria como cuando cantaba “Para las otras no, pa' las del norte si, para las de Simoca, mis ansias locas de estar allí para brindarles mi alma en esta zamba que canto aquí”, nos queda la bendicion que fue su vida.
Debemos dar gracias a Dios por su vida y por su legado.
Queria a su Argentina como la queremos todos, a pesar de haberse ido del pais por motives que ahora no son relevantes.
Para aquellos que tuvimos la oportunidad de verla, sabemos que se brindaba. Tenia una vision muy distinta en la faz laboral dado que tocaba con gente como Milton Nascimento, Fito Paez, Charly Garcia, Leon Gieco y muchos otros. Ella veia la integracion de Latinoamerica.
Mi esposa y yo tuvimos oportunidad de viajar en una vuelo de Pan Am con ella y con Domingo Cura, y la Sra. Sosa era exactamente igual fuera del escenario como en el escenario, autentica. Recuerdo que despues de sacarnos una foto con ella y con Domingo Cura, nos dijo gracias.
Mucho podemos decir de nuestra querida Negra pero nos quedan sus emociones, su voz que nunca se apagara, porque ponia pasion en todo lo que hacia, no importa cuanto podamos estar de acuerdo o no con sus posiciones politicas pero lo que si podemos decir es que todo lo hacia con conviccion.
Adios Mercedes “Negra” Sosa.
Te vamos a extrañar.
Debemos dar gracias a Dios por su vida y por su legado.
Queria a su Argentina como la queremos todos, a pesar de haberse ido del pais por motives que ahora no son relevantes.
Para aquellos que tuvimos la oportunidad de verla, sabemos que se brindaba. Tenia una vision muy distinta en la faz laboral dado que tocaba con gente como Milton Nascimento, Fito Paez, Charly Garcia, Leon Gieco y muchos otros. Ella veia la integracion de Latinoamerica.
Mi esposa y yo tuvimos oportunidad de viajar en una vuelo de Pan Am con ella y con Domingo Cura, y la Sra. Sosa era exactamente igual fuera del escenario como en el escenario, autentica. Recuerdo que despues de sacarnos una foto con ella y con Domingo Cura, nos dijo gracias.
Mucho podemos decir de nuestra querida Negra pero nos quedan sus emociones, su voz que nunca se apagara, porque ponia pasion en todo lo que hacia, no importa cuanto podamos estar de acuerdo o no con sus posiciones politicas pero lo que si podemos decir es que todo lo hacia con conviccion.
Adios Mercedes “Negra” Sosa.
Te vamos a extrañar.
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