Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Fifteen is Fair

The city of Seattle recently announced that it was taking a unilateral move in the rather slow-moving war against poverty in the US by raising the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour. This is quite an interesting move by itself, and will hopefully prove wrong all the legions of people who claim businesses will flee any country or city that institutes such a high wage. However, just as interesting is the chain reaction that the announcement has set off, with fast food workers across America now going on strike and increasingly agitating to be paid the same $15 an hour that their colleagues in Seattle will be getting.



Many on the right wing have criticized the striking workers, saying that flipping burgers and wiping down tables in McDonalds should only be an entry level job, a gateway to getting a 'real job' in the workforce and becoming increasingly well paid as you gain more and more experience. It's a job for teenagers and students, they say, people who don't need to be paid more than a few dollars an hour for pocket money. Anyone over a certain age, or with a family to support, who still finds themselves working in Burger King is there because of their own fault, they tell us – they need to work harder to better themselves and move up the economic food chain.

This is a very nice sentiment – it certainly would be wonderful if we could truly say that fast food work is the domain of teenagers only, who all move on to bigger and better things after a year or so. But this ignores the reality of contemporary American society. A number of barriers stand between many people and better employment – perhaps they can't speak English well enough, perhaps they are discriminated against for their ethnicity or gender, perhaps they are working illegally, perhaps they simply don't have the money to afford America's ridiculous university tuition fees. Whichever of those reasons might be true, there is an increasing segment of the workforce which has no immediate prospect of getting a better job outside of the fast food industry – these people have lives, children, and needs that should be catered for just as much as for anyone else, and this simply isn't happening on the exploitative wages they are currently being paid.

Strong minimum wage laws are not going to destroy America if passed – as Seattle will no doubt prove. The demand for fast food isn't going away any time soon, so McDonalds and Pizza Hut are not going to shut down if forced to pay their workers what they deserve. Equally, the fast food workers will now have more money to spend on food, clothing, and consumer items, putting more cash into the economy and leading to more jobs and higher wages for everyone else – so even if the price of a Big mac gets hiked by a dollar or two to pay for the minimum wage, we'll still be able to afford it. All a $15 minimum wage does is ensure that fast food workers are no longer exploited by companies that only truly care about profit, and makes sure that those workers can afford to feed themselves and their children. It might even help to break the cycle of poverty, by allowing fast food workers to save towards the university education of their own children – ensuring they don't have to spend their lives flipping burgers as well.


The $15 minimum wage campaign needs to extend beyond the fast food workers and become a national movement. It's time for the people of America to take notice that in the past decade wealth has been trickling upwards rather than downwards – with the rich getting richer, while everyone else loses out. It's time to reverse that trajectory and begin bringing some of those riches back down to the people who do the work.

[ war against poverty, nrglab, McDonalds, Burger King, American society, Pizza hut, national movement, tuition fees ]

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

The UKIP Mask Begins to Slip

Another week in the European Parliament election campaign, another story of racism and xenophobia coming from UK candidates. These stories are happening so often now it's almost becoming difficult to keep track – the EU elections really do seem to bring out a special type of crazy that doesn't normally get as much attention during national elections.

The main story during the whole campaign has been that of the United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP, who are currently polling in second place, behind the Labour Party, but ahead of the ruling Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. This popularity, however, comes despite an increasing number of scandals and controversies. One candidate recently suggested shooting gay people in an effort to get them to admit that they 'aren't really gay'; another quite openly claimed that people who vote for the other three parties should be executed for treason.

Of course, these people tend to be rather minor figures, often standing only in local council elections rather than as national figures or potential MEPs. However, the leader of the party, Nigel Farage, is himself no stranger to controversy. In an interview with a London radio station this week he reiterated his position that he would not want to live next door to Romanians; when asked by the presenter what the difference was between Romanians and Germans (Farage's own wife is German), he simply replied 'you know what the difference is' – a reply that seemed so openly racist about 'certain groups of people' that even the notoriously anti-immigrant The Sun newspaper called Farage out over it.

Farage's response comes from a long line of 'unspoken racism' that seems to characterize current British discourse on immigration in many ways. Certain people are seen as 'good', and we have no problem with them immigrating to the UK. Americans, Canadians, Australians, and increasingly even Germans (who are seen as industrious and hard working) and, in Farage's case, Indians (who are presumably seen as less threatening due to usually being Hindu rather than Muslim). Others are seen as 'bad', and must be kept out – Romanians, Albanians, Pakistanis, Somalians, branded as uniformly criminals, thieves, and beggars. But none of this is ever said out loud – it is assumed that anyone with 'common sense' will automatically know it, and will understand what Farage means when he says 'you know what the difference is'.

Perhaps the closest this ideology has come to being said out loud comes in another of Farage's statements – he claims he doesn't have a problem with the quantity of people coming into the country, but rather the quality of those immigrants. This is where the mask covering UKIP's racism really starts to slip – the argument, it seems, has nothing to do with the economic impact of immigration on the British working class, or on the cohesiveness of British culture (the usual arguments made for restricting newcomers). Rather, the problem is that some groups of people are simply seen as having less 'quality' than others.


The saddest thing about Farage's comments is that the ideology they reveal is one that is shared by a significant segment of the British population. Many people have complained about the comments, but many more will have heard them and nodded, and said that this is what everyone is really thinking – that some groups of people are more worthy than others, are somehow inherently 'better'. This is a slippery road to start walking down, and can very quickly lead from genuine worries about economics and social issues into full-blown racism and the demonization of people simply because of their homeland or ancestry. But it seems that for now such a path is popular enough to hand UKIP a spot near the top table in the upcoming European Parliament.

[ European Parliament election campaign, United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP, Nigel Farage, The Sun newspaperб British working class ]

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Happiness and the Organic Lifestyle in the Himalayas

We're often discussing very negative news stories on this blog, and it can be nice to have a change of pace and theme sometimes to talk about something more positive. Coincidentally, it seems that when I have something positive to say, it's always about the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan. It's the same this week, as Bhutan have just announced that they intend to be the first country to become entirely organic, hopefully within the next decade.



We've previously discussed Bhutan's use of the Gross National Happiness concept to replace the more traditional economic measure of wellbeing that is Gross Domestic Product. The idea is that simply having more and more money is not a worthwhile measurement of the success of society as a whole – money should be seen only as a conduit to a greater goal of happiness that needs to be partially achieved through non-monetary means, and which can be measured and indicated in a whole variety of ways. This drive towards becoming a pesticide-free country is part of this plan to increase happiness.

The government believes that the nation will be happier eating organic food grown using the traditional methods of Bhutanese agriculture that worked so well for so long in the country's history. This kind of agriculture will give people a connection to their traditional culture, as well as potentially keeping them healthier in the long run due to the exclusion of possibly harmful toxins from the food chain. More importantly, Bhutan believes it can still grow enough food to feed itself in this way (and presumably a little extra to export for foreign currency), allowing it to continue to live as self-sufficiently as possible.

Some critics are worried that Bhutan may be stretching itself too far, however. They argue that the high, sloped lands of the Himalaya region are difficult enough to grow food on in the first place, and that they will be further damaged in the coming years by the effects of climate change. Consequently, they argue, Bhutan will need all the help it can get to grow food for its people, and if that help includes chemical fertilizers and pesticides then there is nothing wrong with that. They may have a point, and Bhutan will indeed need to be careful about the way it approaches this transition. But, as we have previously discussed in this blog when talking about the lies of companies like Monsanto, organic growing methods have consistently proved to yield roughly the same amount as most industrial agricultural plantations – if this trend continues, and if the country uses local plant species that are well-suited to the local soil, Bhutan will have nothing to worry about.


We will be watching this experiment closely and with great interest. If they succeed it will be a great example to all of us of the powers of organic agriculture and the possibility of jettisoning our current extremely wasteful and hazardous industrial methods of growing food. And of course, it will be a further sign of the possibilities of Gross National Happiness, which will hopefully begin to spread across the world as the prime measurement for the success or failure of societies. We wish Bhutan all the best in their quest to create a happy and healthy life for all of their citizens.

[ organic food, himalayan nation, traditional culture, gros national happiness, gross domestic product, pesticide-free country ]

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

A barbaric practice, even when it goes right

Last week’s tragically botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma has brought the issue of the death penalty and its inhumanity back into the light. After a long legal battle over obtaining the chemicals to be used in the execution (with the state refusing to explain where they bought the lethal drugs for fear of retribution against the manufacturer), this execution was already controversial enough. In the end, it was to get much worse. The doctors had difficulty finding a vein to inject Lockett with the drugs, and ended up using one in his groin; they proceeded to cover the area with a cloth to protect his modesty (as if that matters when one is being executed by the authorities), and consequently failed to notice that the vein had collapsed, pumping poison into Lockett’s muscles rather than his bloodstream. The execution was officially called off, but it was too late: Lockett died agonizingly of a heart attack as his body reacted to the chemicals, rather than slowly and peacefully being sedated and dying in his sleep, as was the plan.
Much of the focus in news stories around this has been on the procedural aspects of the case, with Oklahoman authorities closing the curtains on the public viewing gallery when things started to go wrong, and doctors apparently telling spectators Lockett was unconscious when he could still clearly be seen struggling. All of these things need to be investigated, for sure, but the biggest issue here should be that of the continued existence of the death penalty itself.
The US is one of the only developed nations on earth to retain the death penalty. The last execution in the UK was in 1964, Canada and Australia abolished the death penalty in the 1970s, while some places including Italy, Portugal, and Venezuela abolished it as early as the 19th century. Meanwhile, although some US states do not use the death penalty, the US as a whole is fifth on the list of countries that execute their own citizens (on 2012 statistics), behind only China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. They may well drop down to sixth in the table this year, due to the huge numbers of executions of political leaders currently being orchestrated in Egypt – but this is not really the sort of company that a supposedly enlightened nation like America should be keeping.
So why does the US continue to maintain this barbaric practice that puts it in the same league as some of the so-called ‘Axis of Evil’ countries? It seems to me to be the pervasive fear of the poor and the ‘other’ in American society that keeps the public support for the death penalty going. Americans of all social castes are constantly being told by the media and politicians that other people are out to get them, to take what they have and to do terrible things to them. They live in a continuous state of fear that every person they see who is different from them is a potential threat – black people, Muslims, the poor – and they want to use the death penalty as a way of deterring those individuals from attacking them (although there is very little evidence that executions work as a deterrent to crime).
The death penalty overwhelmingly targets the poor and exploited of America – people who are in desperate situations already, and find their situation getting worse and worse until something extreme happens. Rather than punishing them with the ultimate vengeance, it’s time to start addressing the socio-economic conditions that make people poor and keep them poor. And it’s time to abolish the death penalty and show that we can be civilized human beings, even to those who have committed terrible crimes.

abolish death penalty, American society, Axis of Evil, barbaric practice, black people, botched Oklahoma execution, charles warner, chemicals for execution, civilized human beings, Clayton Lockett, Clayton Lockett crime, commit terrible crimes, death penalty, death penalty inhumanity, deterrent to crime, execute citizens, in desperate situation, legal battle, lethal drugs, muslims, Oklahoma inmate, Oklahoman authorities, political leaders, potential threat, procedural aspects, public support, socio-economic conditions, the poor, ultimate vengeance, United Nations human rights office, untested three-drug protocol

Monday, May 5, 2014

An Armed Standoff Over Blood And Soil

In case you've been fortunate enough to have avoided the US news cycle over the past fortnight, you've probably heard at least something about a man with the slightly odd name of Cliven Bundy. For those who don't know: Bundy is a rancher in Nevada who has been using federally-owned land to graze his cattle for the last two decades. The government claims that he owes millions of dollars in unpaid fines for doing so, and with Bundy showing no signs of paying up – not least because he claims not to believe in the authority of the US government – they sent the authorities to clear the area of Bundy's cows. Bundy was ready for them, as were a large number of supporters, all heavily armed and apparently ready to engage in an armed standoff with the government if necessary. In the face of the threat posed by these armed renegades, the government has backed down for now and allowed Bundy to continue grazing on federal land while also not paying his fines.

Cliven Bundy has now become something of a cause for celebration in right wing circles, who see the standoff as a great victory for freedom-loving patriots against a corrupt and oppressive government. Perhaps the strangest thing about this is that the right wingers actually have something of a point for once – there is indeed a discussion to be had about the fact that much of the land in the western United States is technically owned by the federal government. This land was, after all, stolen from the original Native American populations of the region, and we would be well-placed to start discussing who really 'owns' it.

But that isn't the point that Bundy actually wants to make, it's just a byproduct of his argument. It also isn't the issue for which Bundy will be remembered. Instead, Bundy will go down as a perfect symbol of the dark psyche of the American right wing. All of the classic tropes are there – an instinctive turn to guns and threats of violence whenever things go against them; a claim to be patriots while at the same time attacking the government and refusing to pay the taxes that support their fellow countrymen; and a belief in the superiority of white males and their right to do whatever they feel like doing without interference or the need to consider the rights of others.

This last point was amply demonstrated by Bundy himself in the days after the standoff. In an interview with the New York Times, Bundy essentially told reporters that black people were better off being slaves – they had a better family life, and some good honest work to do, he said; they didn't spend all their time on welfare. How does Bundy know about the lives of black people in today's America? Why, he once drove past some of them sitting outside a housing project, of course. A true expert, you'll no doubt agree.

And this illustrates a great problem with America – it still hasn't found a way to talk about land without getting it mixed up with issues of race and fear. White people who have owned their land for centuries – but only because of a legacy of slavery of black people and genocide of Native Americans – are scared of newcomers, scared of the way in which the federal government seems to accept such newcomers, and scared that the end result will be 'their' land being 'taken' from them. This lead to people arming themselves, clinging to their guns as a means of safety, and eventually – or so it seems – engaging in armed standoffs with the government in an attempt to defend their privilege. Sooner or later, America will need to discover a new language for discussing these issues of inequality and entrenched wealth and ownership, or moments like the Cliven Bundy standoff may become more and more common as the country continues to change faster than wealthy white people with guns believe it should.

[ Cliven Bundy, unpaid fines, US government, native american populations, american right wing, New York Times ]