For the St. Louis American
Just the other day, the purchase of BellSouth by AT&T made National Headlines. The company is a huge employer of a lot of people all over the southeast, especially in the Atlanta area. Among the various repercussions expected from the merger was the loss of some approximated 10,000 jobs… jobs that, with the help of our wonderful pro-outsourcing administration, may never return again. Just a few years ago, these workers may have been “on top of the world.” Now, they are quivering in their boots, wondering what they are going to do to stay afloat. This is very bad news that seems to keep repeating itself and is a complex issue that will send people nose-diving into the reality of not thinking proactively about several issues, including:
1. How we politically educate ourselves
2. Our level of political involvement
3. How we tell our children to peruse their education.
4. Who we spend our money with
5. What we define as “success”
It’s amusing how rapidly the interest in the importance of localized economies has grown now that Wal-Mart is gobbling up smaller businesses like the Cookie Monster going through a bite-sized grab bag of Oreo’s. Where were these people back when activists first started protesting against the worker’s rights violations that were occuring at the hands of Nike, The Gap and other clothing giants in other countries?
What did people think Dr. Martin Luther King meant by “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?” Was he just trying to provide some little cute quote to throw around the Monday after January 15th every year?
Dr. King was telling citizens that there is a duty to be concerned about the social welfare of all humans everywhere – because it just might come back to bite us later! And this is exactly what is happening. This George W. Bush administration takes advantage of the already extremely vulnerable level of awareness that his administration inherited.
The mentality of Americans must change and the tolerance of oppression must lowered. Society must stop saying, “who gives a (expletive)…” when activists complain about Shell and ExxonMobil’s genocidal exploits in West Africa. Instead, they need to learn how to listen and make a it priority to dedicate some time to the issue, and assist in doing whatever they can to stop it.
Placing popular fashions over human life needs to be eliminated. Only when a lifestyle of social justice is embraced that social justice advocating politicians will be elected. The current political structure is only a pawn for Corporate Americak which is why politicians throw around the phrase, “the economy is getting global now!” The world economy wasn’t global before? So the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade wasn’t about economics?
The miseducation of children to be put on the auction block for morally bankrupt corporations must be stopped. In recent years during the prime of the dot.com revolution, children were told, “Go learn computers!” Now, there is an entire generation that were educated for IT positions struggling for work, partly because a lot of their jobs are being outsourced to India. Any education must be supplemented with a social justice education.
If a person’s idea of success depend on whether or not there is a hummer in the front yard of a huge house only occupied by 2 people, then Armageddon awaits them.
These people are spiritually sterile/impotent and useless in the fight against corporate exploitation by the Energy companies. And never mind the textile companies along with every other industry that has been infested with the culture of corruption in America.
Americans are too embarrassed to ride a bike to work, or ride the train on a date.
They can’t refrain from buying diamond rings for the sake of preventing more civil war in Africa because in order to be engaged, there has to be a diamond ring.
At some point, people have to understand the value of communities helping one another. It is imperative that society politically re-educates itself and the younger generation.
Gary C. Booker is a freelance writer, author, and owner/editor of www.garybooker.net