Immigration

Immigration, what is it and who are the people setting the laws? This is a growing problem with a group of people, who have trouble finding a sustainable ways of life. Therefore, they pick up a set out for new opportunities. Immigration is not a bad thing, but it does need to be regulated. Without the regulation, there is mass chaos, with the destruction on both sides of the boarders. For example in the Californians for Population Stabilization, article which demonstrates the controversy caused by the illegal immigration. What the immigrants need is the help to fix the problems causing the unsustainable ways of life in their own country. It is very detrimental to a countries economy when there is a flood of illegals, earning money in one country just to send it to another one. There has to be a reinvestment back into the economy to regulate the sustainability of it.

People can blame it on whatever they want to but it all comes down to finding a way to make an unsustainable way of life more sustainable. This is well stated in the nation geographic article of Global warming means More Mexican Immigration. The indirect factor that affects us is the increased carbon footprint contributing to negative environmental impact. Population growth we are experiencing through unconstrained immigration. Through these issues, this will bring light to the problems that need to be addressed. The part of the article to focus on is the section on U.S should help Mexicans Adapt to Warming:

“If the U.S. and other developed nations start thinking about climate change related immigration now, before it becomes a major problem, they could take steps that would help reduce the amount of immigration in the first place”

“The U.S. could make it easier for Mexican crops to reach U.S. markets,”

This is all going back to Market Imperialism and the hijacking the market. Shiva describes some measures on how to address these issues.

“The central concern of citizens’ movements, north and south, is creating democratic control over the food system to ensure sustainable and safe production and equitable distributions and access to food. Democratic control over food requires the reining in of the unaccountable power of corporations. It involves replacing the “free trade” order of corporate totalitarianism with an ecological and just system of food production and distribution, in which the earth is protected, farmers are protected, and consumers are protected.”(p.117)

This is a good quote to help expand on gibbs views on not just throwing the illeagles out but to find the root to the problem of why these people are flooding to another country. You think about it, it is crazy so many peole dream about an awesome vacation to Mexico. Beautiful land with tropical climates, and wonder why the Mexican whould what to leave in the first place. It is all the unjust that are not know to us. Gibbs states

“rules and custions by which nations and peoples manage the fundamentally political challenge of complementing ythe benefits of the global market with collective management of the problems, including persistent and unjust inequality, the global markets alnoe will not resolve. Unfortunately, the world’s growing environmental problems not only exacerbate injustice and inequity, they also pose significant challenges to governance and problem solving which the world now so desperately needs.”(p.62)

Immigration is related to the Gibbs readings with the migration, justice and the environmental challenges. These are the direct and indirect factors lead to migration, Gibbs stated;

“Biodiversity-rich frontier zones are often viewed as open access land systems where land and resources are free for the taking and migrants can accelerate agricultural clearing, habitat destruction, loss of ecological connectivity, and biodiversity loss. Migration may also threaten long-standing residents; Migrants in biodiversity-rich frontier settings may use land and natural resources unsustainably, introduce exotic and invasive plant and other species, and crowd out local residents. A rapid influx of migrants can alter local politics and weaken the social bonds of reciprocity and trust often required for land and resources management.”(p.60)

Immigration has its main drivers, caused by the globalization of different markets controlled by the developed countries. This makes it extremely hard for the local farmer and indigenous people to survive in the developing ones. The direct drivers are caused from their government and large corporations. However, the lack of nation pride to stand up to the individuals and groups who are doing the injustices. The indirect drivers that contribute to immigration are diminishing resources, food production being forced farther from population centers, overpopulation, congestion, urban sprawl, crumbling infrastructure, vanishing farmland and green space, depressed wages, water and energy shortages, crime, and pollution.

In the end, it is all an issue of who is to establish the boarders. What gives them the right to do so? Does unregulated immigration contribute to global warming? We need to step back and realize that we are all immigrants in one way or another, but we still must respect the humanistic law that is established for the greater good of the people.

Beyond the Boarder - Immigration Issue

Lifeboat Ethics

Team America-http://newsroomnews.com/2011/04/team-america/

Team America, World Police. Is that our official title? Do our moral obligations demand that we give what we have earned to those less fortunate? These are Lifeboat Ethics.

http://knox.villagesoup.com/discussions/view/welfare-state-handouts-make-up-one-third-of-u-s-wages/385091

Lifeboat Ethics use the metaphor of a lifeboat to explain our current global situation, and what we have taken upon ourselves as an obligation. Hardin illustrates an image for us. We are stranded in the ocean on the "American" lifeboat with 50 people inside. Surrounded by 100 people, our boat can hold up to 60 people. What do we do? Do we risk the safety of our own boat? Do we bring others on and sink us all? Or do we make the tough decision and stay alive? Questions like these directly relate to the position America has been placed in the world today. As a global powerhouse, we have certain expectations placed upon us that involve taking care of those countries that are less fortunate. We are expected to risk our welfare to protect other people.

This is an act of charity, and is measured by a moral compass. But what happens when those morals start becoming part of our government? Can the government decide what the moral obligations of its citizens are, or should that be decided on an individual basis?

http://redclaycitizen.typepad.com/redclay/2008/09/welfare.html

Hardin points out that by being so charitable to other countries, we are actually risking our own well-being. This is unfair to our country. By looking out for the needs of others, we are putting ourselves in unneccesary risky situations. This "world police" mentality that the United States has developed has contributed greatly to the current economic situation we're in. We are reaching over the edge of the lifeboat to pull these people up, but eventually we are going to sink the boat.

Come On SHELL!!!

Shell Oil Company has been relying on other countries to use the land to dig for oil for several years. In this particular case, a spill occured in Nigeria forty years ago. Why are charges just now being brought up? Well, apparently the people in Nigeria are getting sick of the big oil companies, Shell, for not taking responsibility for thier mistakes such as spills. They might have over-looked the spill from forty years ago in hopes that Shell would continue making money for the Nigerians. But with reaccuring accidents and still no clean up, the cost is now greater for the country of Nigeria to have to clean up someone else's mistakes. Cost include: safe foods, clean water, and all around living conditions. These things really take a toll on budget because of the toxic spills that have happened numerous times. However, Shell feels they should not have to pay compensation or anything to clean up because fill that the bursting oil pipe lines are primarily caused by local rebels who are trying to steal profits by sabotaging the equipment. Clearly Shell is responsible because they are reliant on the land of Nigeria; with out it, the locals would have many fewer problems realating to toxic spills. And as always the major company, Shell, benefits from the damaged people of Nigeria. The article "Shell Refuses To Pay For Nigerian Oil Spill Pollution", focuses more on the 'Shell' point of view. There are no qoutes from the local, everyday people of Nigeria. Maybe they were promised 'X' amount of dollars and recieved less because the oil company can push them around. We, as readers, do not know because the biased report left out all concerning parties. But if that were true, that clearly explains why there was sabotage.




In Robert Figueroa's article "Enviromental Justice", he explains what is acceptable. And the U.S. has had several questionable accounts of justice. A large movement for enviromental justice programs occured in 1982 in North Carolina. The 'rich and powerful' if you will, decided that it would be perfectly fine to dump soil laced with PCB, a toxin, in an area with the second highest poverty level and highest percentage of American-Americans. Basically a poor community who wouldn't do anything about the injustice of dumping contaminated soil. Apparently rich cooperations think poor people are ignorant. But we have seem time and time again that this is not the case; maybe just less fortunate. The Nigerian oil spill is a repeat experience. A poorer country suffered the burden of a multi-billion dollar cooperation. Shell gets oil from Nigerian land and doesn't care about the consequences because once the land dries up they will be gone and all that will be left is an uninhabitable land for the local Nigerian's to live on with no more income from the oil company. Just like in North Carolina, if it doesn't affect the rich, there is no need to worry. The sad thing is, it affects so many more people than just the locals. They can no longer grow their crops or do their daily tasks without clean water. It will take several years to rebuild, but by then the oil company will have moved on to someone else's backyard. Just as the saying goes, "NIMBY".

Distributed justice needs to take place. Shell should be thankful for being able to use the Nigerain land. They should spilt some of the profits more evenly and clean up after themselves because Nigeria would have less pollution problems without Shell masking the land. If a company doesn't want waste in their backyard, why would anyone else? Trust me, people living in poverty would still prefer a healthy drinking water like everyone else. As far as race goes, I don't find that relevant in large cooperations polluting poorer communities. I understand both stories of Nigeria and North Carolina consisted of a high percentage of African-Americans, but skin color doesn't matter. It all comes down to money; and the rich feel they can bully anyone without it. But now it's taking a toll because the poor communites are striking back with lawsuits.
Nigeria wants $100 million for something that happened forty years ago. If they win the case, it should really make Shell and other world leading companies consider who's backyard they enter. Participatory justice was tried and failed in the Nigerian situation. They delayed going to court for forty years and tried working it out; but now the time has come to step it up a notch. I also feel that recognition justice would be simple for Nigeria. Show the people, starved and fighting to find clean water. This symbol will be seen by many and change for the better will be followed close behind.

Monsanto & Shiva

I think both of these videos are of very poor quality and reflect the level of importance Monsanto places on informative advertisements and accurate depictions of the agricultural industry. Perhaps what I find most amusing is the fact that the second newsman can barely remember what he’s supposed to say; how much time and effort did Monsanto put into making this video? Hardly none, I suspect, since they do not need consumer support to run their business anyway. In my opinion, these videos only reflect a larger conspiracy, and the intended aim was to keep the sheep (we the ignorantly herded humans) content. Yes, yes, everything is fine, America! Monsanto is hard at work privatizing the seed industry by patenting everything they can possibly pilfer, beneficial to the Green Revolution, from the global south.

But what really seals the deal for me is the main message that the second video wishes to convey to its audience: “Modern farming will feed the world.” According to the Kavana reading, there is enough food in the world to feed every single person on Earth 3,200 calories a day (Myth 1). Monsanto plays on the good nature of the majority of humanity in order to obtain market imperialism. They say that the world is starving, and so we have to discover other ways to produce more and faster. So, we give money, and they create new technologies. Yet, millions of people starve and ironically 80% of those deathly famished are farmers, whose sole profession is to produce food. Good old Mark said that Monsanto would be interviewing a delightful family to discuss modern farming techniques.

What he neglected to mention that the preponderance of agricultural produce come from farms in foreign countries. Farms that break the backs of starving men, women, and children as they desperately strive to coax the earth into providing enough crops to meet company quotas and if lucky, sustenance for the family. These few main corporations destroy the land with monocultures, desecrating the soil until it can no longer bear fruit. Now these farmers will drown in debt with nothing but ruined land and nonexistent credit, and no one so much as glances back. Driven by starvation and anguish, the farmer migrates to the city with his family with the hope that he may find a job to sustain what meager livelihood he can for his family. Unfortunately, thousands of other farmers have had this same idea, and the bum rush to urban areas has thrown the economy, specifically the import-export trade balance, into oblivion.

“We have to reclaim our right to save seed and to biodiversity.” By allowing these corporations to ravage the planet, we allow our present “dictators” to put future generations at a massive disadvantage. Rather than spending time with truly beneficial innovations, imminent geniuses will instead have to focus on cleaning up our disgusting mess. As Shiva declares, we must promote “food democracy”, breaching the monopoly Monsanto and other allied corporations have on genetic seed patents and international trade tariffs, redistributing the land, and placing more specific and severe punishments on the degradation of our home planet and both its infinite and finite resources.

[ I can't link this video, but I found it pretty interesting. It just goes to show how these companies are completely and totally indifferent to the suffering of millions of people in order to gain wealth for just a select few. ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av6dx9yNiCA

Singer Mason blog post

I didn't think of Iraqis as humans

The way Green views Iraqis is not totally different to the way we humans view animals now days. While Green uses war to justify his actions, humans are still struggling to find a way to justify their actions in regard to animals. By viewing the Iraqis as animals, Green uses this dehumanization to justify the violence he inflicted on them, but are we really all that much different than animals? The nature of animals, and especially farm animals, is changed by the relationship we have with them. The words "chicken" and "bird" probably have 2 different meanings in your mind, but should they? We say all the time, “don’t treat me like an animal”, but have you ever related it to the moral status that we give animals? Similar to Green, humans today use dehumanization to justify the ethics of eating animals, but most of these defenses of eating meat can be easily turned on their heads.

The first defense of eating meat is the contract view of ethics. People say that they have no duties to animals because animals have no duties to them, but how can you use this to justify the exploitation of them? Those who think like this believe that there are bargains between humans and animals, and an animals like cows and chickens trade their milk and eggs for food and protection from prey. This logic should be disregarded because animals are unable to make contracts with humans, so it is unfair to assume that there is this mutual contract of bargaining.

People will also use the concept of meat eating being “natural” to justify it, but to what extent? Factory farming isn’t natural by any means. Animals’ eating of other animals is “natural” because animals kill as a matter of instinct, so eating animals because they eat each other isn’t justifiable. This doesn’t fall in line with similar ethics we have today; example being how it is not ethically okay to kill someone because you see them kill someone else. But what if the person has no idea what is going on? People will say that animals have no self-awareness or reasoning ability, and this is what separates them from humans and justifies the killing and eating of them. This then, would separate babies and those with severe intellectual disabilities from humans also, wouldn’t it? Would this, then, justify the killing and/or eating of something so “human”? Animals feel pain, and pain is an evenly undesirable feeling, so why is it okay to cause an animal pain, but causing a baby pain is seen as a horrible thing? If animals aren’t human because they don’t possess these same traits, then how can we view babies and the disabled as “human”?

Another popular defense is the argument of domestication. Domesticated farm animals are thought to be “more likely to survive and prosper in an alliance with humans than on their own”(p.7). Do you believe that bringing something into existence is benefitting it, even if it suffers and lives a terrible life? With regard to abortion and bearing a child, the choice of whether or not to have the baby is made by the couple, and usually with regard to their own personal interest. This ethic of human interest is rooted from the Western Ethic of speciesism, and it is shared by humans and animals alike. Holding a species above others was a direct cause of slavery, and factory farming is indifferent to slavery. When cultural practices are harmful, they should not be allowed to go unchallenged. If a widespread cultural practice is wrong, we should try to change it (p.5), as we did with slavery.

So, in terms of eating ethically, what is okay? While it is true that eating well-cared-for animals is more ethical, for those unable to raise their own animals, it is hard to be sure that the meat you buy and eat is meat from these well-cared-for animals. Farms like the Polyface Farm were supposed to be examples of this ethical farming, but after inspection, the animals were still in an environment where “suffering was the norm.” Therefore, these farms are not the solution. What is, you may ask? The authors of these readings believe that if there was no demand for meat and farm products, then there would be no factory farms. Thus, if people want to eat ethically, the solution is to simply not eat meat. This may sound crazy, but what good could come out of this?

The truth is that factory farming actually adds to world hunger. The amount of people fed from an acre of land used for growing crops is actually 10 times more than the amount of people fed from an acre of land used for beef. It is also possible that human health would increase from this because it has been proven that increased meat consumption leads to increases in heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. It is important to remember that this conclusion by the authors, that the solution is to stop eating meat, is entirely made with regard to the ethics, or morality, of eating meat. Conscious carnivores help the problem also, but their beliefs aren’t as openly displayed as the beliefs of vegetarians, simply because it is apparent that they aren’t eating meat at all, while one might not notice that one is simply eating less meat. So if you are thinking ethically about eating meat, cutting down on meat consumption will help, but the only solution is to stop eating meat altogether so that there will be no demand for it. No matter what your view is, you can’t deny that factory farming and the overall treatment of animals in our society today is wrong, and we should each contribute to change it.