ASSIGNMENT

Which of the articles from Rethinking Globalization did you choose to read and why?

Response

Rethinking Globalization, Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World. An interesting (but true) title for an interesting collection of articles. The authors talk about “The more we taught about globalization, the more we found ourselves telling out students; Everything is connected. You can’t really understand what’s going on in one part of the world without looking at how it’s related to everything else.” I found many articles to be interesting and eye opening. I was embarrassed to read the story about Fredrico, who picked fruits and while he picked fruits a plane would fly above and spay pesticides on him and his colleagues. This poison (which was white and was visible on their dark skin) gave them blisters and caused their skin to burn. I can’t imagine that one human being would cause such pain and agony on another purely for profit. It was very upsetting.

I choose to speak about Chapter six: Just Food? Particularly two specific sections: Just a Cup of Coffee? And Facing the Farm Crisis. As a member of a food coop I am proud that I can support a local Long Island farmer, who according to this article really needs more local support. Farmers are being forced to become highly specialized, go high tech with their equipment and sell for cheap in order to compete. Small farmers are forced to sell, their land is combined to form larger farms that are highly specialized and can produce one product, quick, fast, and cheap. I am disturbed with the control on farming. I like to drive through the countryside and see farms but according to this article, suicide is the number one cause of death amongst farmers, which completely changes the way I will see these farms. A dark picture.

Just a Cup of Coffee? While you may be sipping a yummy cup of hot coffee so much goes on behind the scenes to get that coffee to you, and most of it, is really, really bad. Chemicals are sprayed to clear the land for the coffee bushes, diesel-powered crushers removed the beans, they are shipped on a freighter powered by Venezuelan oil made from Korean steel, packed in bags 4 layers thick of polyethylene, nylon, aluminum foil and polyester. Then trucked to a store, purchased by you the consumer and driven home by a gas guzzling automobile, grinded using electricity, poured into a paper cup that was made from bleached tree pulp (which the bleach ended up in the river known as TCDD, most carcinogenic substance known), cream is added which comes from cows who graze near a river, whose manure creates to much nitrogen which kills the fish, and finally sugar is added which comes from Florida where the sugarcane plantations are threatening the wildlife and fowl of the Everglades. Another dark picture.