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Crab Industry Workers Reveal Injustice of 'Legal' Migrant Labor
The increasingly incoherent national debate on immigration tends to polarize between "legal" and "illegal." Those two terms, in addition to being inherently arbitrary, mask the gradients of exploitation among immigrants who are living and working legally in various sectors. A study of women who came to the crab industry of Maryland's Eastern Shore on H2-B visas--the supposedly lucky ones who entered the country with the right papers--shows that abuse and oppression can fit comfortably within the confines of immigration law.
The report, published by Centro de los Derechos del Migrante and the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University's Washington College of Law, examine the women's experiences both in their homeland and the U.S. and reveal what "legal" immigrant labor looks like today:
All of the women interviewed earned were paid a piece rate - typically $2.00 or $2.25 per pound of crabmeat picked. In order to earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25 over the course of a 40-hour workweek, a crab picker earning $2.00 per pound must pick 145 lbs of crabmeat per week, which requires handling over 200 crabs daily. Women who are unable to work with sufficient speed to earn the minimum wage are either sent home, or -- in the case of more accommodating employers -- are switched to an hourly wage rate.....The majority of women interviewed - 54 percent - reported paycheck deductions for knives, gloves, and other basic tools and safety equipment. Many of the workers interviewed expressed confusion about the purpose of different deductions. Few regularly received paystubs....
The women interviewed universally reported experiencing cuts on their hands and arms while picking crabs with sharp knives. In some instances, the cuts allow a dangerous seaborne bacterium, vibrio vulnificus, to infect the skin, causing blistering or lesions. A surprising number of women reported either having suffered from or witnessing a co-worker suffer from the disease, which has a 50 percent mortality rate once it enters the bloodstream....
Several women interviewed were frustrated that the men hired to wash and clean the crabs earned more per hour and were given more hours than the women picking crabmeat.
Still, this is preferable to their trying to eke out a living in impoverished rural communities in Mexico. The cost of this opportunity includes debts from heavy (and illegal) recruitment fees, as well as the burden of being tied to one employer while they work in the U.S.
The findings, reflective of common practices in the two-tier guestworker system, underscore the absurdity of the threshold that defines "legal" work, and how easily employers can bend laws or ignore them altogether.
The report calls on state and federal authorities to reform labor and workplace safety policies and to provide better social services to migrants--the basic protections to which their work authorization should entitle them.
Legalization and a path to citizenship are crucial components of comprehensive immigration reform. But the government-sanctioned exploitation in the crab industry shows why rights activists balk at the concept of guestworker programs. While the "illegal" label dehumanizes immigrants, second-class legal status, perhaps even more dangerously, may paper over injustice, as long as the labor market takes inequality for granted.
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147 Comments so far
Show AllThe point of this piece purports to be that working in this country as a guest worker "legally" is as bad as working here "illegally".
Then the author states: "Legalization and a path to citizenship are crucial components of comprehensive immigration reform".
She speaks in the terms of the oppressor, and allows her article to be framed in those terms.
No, the solution does not lie in the repulsive "path to citizenship". It lies in the idea that citizenship shouldn't matter.
How many times have I heard that "it's a global economy"?
Well, not for the worker, it's not. Money and jobs flow freely across borders, but workers are tied down by "citizenship".
Let's open the borders, disregard citizenship, and enact "global" protections for ALL workers. Then the next time some company threatens to move to Mexico or India or wherever, they will still have to pay fair wages and provide safe workplaces, and the workers can follow the work wherever it leads.
You cannot open all borders and have a "global" solution to anything. To begin with the countries that these people are coming from would NEVER agree to no borders or to give up their power.
In the second place there is no "global" government, nor could one be formed by the present population of this planet. The UN is a perfect example of the fallacy of 'Golbal" thinking.
"She speaks in the terms of the oppressor, and allows her article to be framed in those terms."
In this we totally agree. These people don't care about citizenship, they simply want the present group to get legal status of some kind which will keep the cheap illegal labor coming. The model is quite clear from 1986. Same mantra, same claims, same racist marketing...and if we fall for it, same result. Only business wins and increases profits.
When Michelle Chen speaks of legal and illegal (she forgets to mention by the way, that though many of these women DID enter on H2B legally, they have overstayed and are now illegal), when she uses the phrase "Legalization and a path to citizenship are crucial components of comprehensive immigration reform" she is indeed 'speaking in the terms of the oppressor'
Of course we, as any American, should be concerned with the welfare of our owwn citizens first. I doubt you'll find any NMexican citizens concerned with Americans welfare before their own, be that American legal or no. They rightfully put their own citizens first.
I don't want to "dump" on anyone, but jobs in America go first to Americans and there will be an end to benefits and programs for anyone other than the American worker and their family.
The astounding thing is that you would want to put foreign workers (legal or illegal) ahead of American workers, would want to provide benefits to them instead of your own children and fellow citizens or would side with business against workers period.
Well, as were in America, I don't see that an Americans first attitude is so bad.
In fact Americia both the Goverment and American NGOs give billions to these so-called developing countries every year. Sure most of it is stolen by their Governments, that's in no way my problem, or any other Americans. If your countries so bad fix it! We also give millions a year for that too, hell we gave the Taliban billions in support a decade ago. Our NGOs support Palistine now.
But my point stands, AMERICAN WORKERS need help and their getting run over, by Illegals on the bottom and H1s on the top. Only the Copporations are happy, and the Politicans they pay to look the other way.
IT MUST STOP!!
>^^<
My oh my is somebody getting real violent here.
“Let's open the borders, disregard citizenship, and enact "global" protections for ALL workers. Then the next time some company threatens to move to Mexico or India or wherever, they will still have to pay fair wages and provide safe workplaces, and the workers can follow the work wherever it leads.”
Finally you are onto something, Elaine. This should be the ultimate goal. The good news is that you as an individual can start working toward that goal immediately by buying Fair Trade (Co-op America is a great resource and so is the Fair Trade Federation), or buying from people you know - for example buying your food from local farmers you know (or get to know), or becoming a part of a CSA. The bad news is that it will take more than individual action.
You wouldn’t even have to open the borders. It would be easy to mandate that anything imported to the US has to meet minimum standards. If it’s possible to impose a trade embargo against Cuba, or economic sanctions against Iran, it should be just as easy to announce that starting today American companies doing business abroad are going to have to adhere to American laws - in other words what’s illegal here should be illegal elsewhere. The same goes for foreign companies that want to do any kind of business in the US. That would definitely help impoverished people abroad, limit the immigration into the US (both “legal” and “illegal”), and it would also help American workers by reducing job and wage competition. Out go starvation wages, slavery, child labor, sweatshops, and so on.
But that would cut too much into corporate profits, and for the corporate world even a minuscule profit loss, no matter how good a cause, is too much, so I’m not holding my breath
Just one more example of the problems induced by the cheap labor/open borders people.
If the government won't enforce our laws when people openly break them, why would anyone be surprised if they allow legal labor exploitation and abuse.
You either have fair labor laws or you do not and supporting illegal immigration, amnesty and widespread exploitation and abuse of foreign workers, both illegal and legal is corrupt.
These people are dying in the desert, are abandoned the moment they can no longer perform the hard unskilled labor they are brought here for or left to live their lives in poverty...simply in a different place.
Its time to bring the sleazy people that bring these people here and abuse them to account. The blood is on their hands.
As usual we frame these issues in terms of govt policy and or lack of law enforcement.
To grow healthy, delicious, organic food (you know, the stuff that keeps us alive) you need energetic, intelligent, eco sensitive growers. Cell phones, ipads, iphones, etc, can be stamped out by underfed, overworked slaves. Pay farm workers fifteen dollars per hour with full benefits to start. Wow, you say, the price of food would skyrocket. Suburbanites might consider planting gardens instead of pushing around their polluting lawn care machines, and spraying poison on the earth.(sort of like defecating in your living room.) Oh, and by the way, let's not forget the feudal country south of the border run by a few wealthy families who could care less about the hard working poor and their struggles to survive.
No my friend, I'm framing this issue in terms of the interests of American workers and American citizens. I am not, nor is my country responsible for any other country's citizens.
You can't pay workers $15 an hour to grow vegetables, but you can pay them a heck of a lot more than slave wages and provide the same benefits and protections American workers get.
Everyone is losing here but the business owners and Corporations that are pocketing the difference by using illegal labor and surpressing wages using both legal and illegal. And its a lot of money. A lot.
Hey, MM, you have obviously never done any farming or possibly any physical labor, I don't know. Many drones get rich doing work that destroys the planet and you say we can't pay a living wage for those who give us sustenance. Another cynic with no vision or imagination. Honest sweat and courage are values we praised of the pioneers.
We are now clever and ruthless. Progress.
If those corrupt labor unions would lower the damn fees and respect their rank and file, we wouldn't be working in big corporations by now.
What "fees" is martian referring to. Union dues? Union wages?
Union dues.
I don't see where I said we couldn't pay a living wage. $15.00 an hour may not be as much as where you are as it is here, but in any case you cannot pay more than the work is worth. Don't forget that its not just the wage that is being paid, its the cost of health care insurance, unemployment, SS,etc. 15 is really 25.
I suspect I've done more labor in my life that you and certanily sweated more. Vision and imigination don't include making false economic decisions that are insupportable.
Like so many, MM, you illustrate the death of imagination and the longevity of cynicism. As for physical labor, you would have to walk many miles to catch up.
All the expenses you mentioned associated with 15.00 an hour have to do with sharing the wealth not depleting it. Curious, MM, how many square feet in your home, ratio of butts to toilets?
Crabmeat is a quasi-luxury item, not unlike lobster (and a prospectively-toxic one, from the migrating oil).
So the better solution to the problem is to end all "guest worker" visas, and force the packers to pay full freight to US citizens instead, either absorbing the costs by reducing profit or (of course) passing them on in the price.
Crabmeat is not a preferred staple food in _any_ US subculture I'm aware of, so nobody would go hungry. It's a near-staple in Cajun culture, but only opportunistically so: they eat whatever they catch.
Its not just in this area they are exploiting workers, SEIU and business has used H1B and H2 programs to bring in hotel/leisure workers. The problem is widespread. The Feds have no more interest in stopping this abuse than they do illegal labor.
Our government is simply not interested in the well being of the American worker.
The same H1B and H2 programs have ruined the lives of even well educated students. Out here in NY, even people who graduated with MS and PHds are finding it impossible to get a job needed to pay off their debts from studying. Most of the time, the immigrants with Visas for less wages are doing the work and some of them have no intention of staying in the country.
That is indeed the other side of the coin. Its not just illegal labor replacing American workers or being used to surpress wages.
This may be the case, and I've often wondered how people can get employment from a non-work visa (it seems they do), or a work visa unrelated to their field.
But from what I've read, the H-1B is specifically for employment in fields requiring a high degree of training (such as a Ph.D.) and the H2 work visa is specifically for non-permanent agricultural work. Maybe you're right that hotels are hiring people with these visas, but I wonder how.
I've also read that in order for an employer to hire non-resident workers, they must be able to demonstrate that they cannot fill those positions with legal permanent residents or citizens.
Having recently been unemployed, I considered trying to gain H2-type employment in Florida, wondering what would happen, or if and how they would justify denying me work in favor of more easily manipulated non-residents.
"I've also read that in order for an employer to hire non-resident workers, they must be able to demonstrate that they cannot fill those positions with legal permanent residents or citizens."
I don't see any employers being held accountable for not following that requirement. That or the the requirement is Swiss cheese at best.
What makes him rightwinger? He was only talking about the dishonest employers.
I have nothing against foreigners. They're quite fine, thank you. We Americans need our jobs back. We worked hard, studied hard, and deserve to work for what we earned. Do you expect Obama to bail us out of our debts even if we can't find jobs? I suggest you back off your name calling and get a clue.
They simply forget to mention certain facts, manipulate data and in the case of the leisure workers, simply claimed they couldn't find American workers. A total falsehood. They neglected to mention they placed ads in media that had practically no readers. The SEIU is a dishonest Union, grown by Stern on the backs of illegals.
"But from what I've read, the H-1B is specifically for employment in fields requiring a high degree of training (such as a Ph.D.) and the H2 work visa is specifically for non-permanent agricultural work. Maybe you're right that hotels are hiring people with these visas, but I wonder how."
As to the 1B status used, I have no idea, but thats what theuy came in under. My guess is that the 1B was used simply because it routinely exceeds its limits.
I need to correct you all that are not from the Chesapeake. I grew up there. I could cut grass for a couple hours and make about $5-6 for 2.5 to 3 hours work. A dozen steamed crabs cost $3.50, and about $12-15 a bushell. Today depending on the season crabs run anywhere from $150-175 a bushel. I very seldom eat crabs because they are so expensive and I m lower middle class. When I was a teen, I would buy a dozen crabs and a coke and sit on the dock and eat them. In those days you had mostly women that worked in that industry. Alot of women folks worked as supplement income to there husbands working as "Waterman". Today it is mostly foreign labor. Waterman are few and far between now. Yes Crabs are a luxury.
I have a relative in Silver Spring, MD. He tells much the same story except that the blue crabs now come from the SE coast and the Gulf. Industrial pollution and an abundance of nitrogen in the Bay have decimated MD fisheries. The industrial pollution has diminished over the years but they can't control nitrogen (nitrates) too much. MD used to be rich in traditional lifestyles and I find it a great place to visit.
I wonder what effect the oil gusher will have for gulf crabbing? They're mostly scavengers and near the bottom of the food chain.
"Still, this is preferable to their trying to eke out a living in impoverished rural communities in Mexico."
And if you think that's bad, just try to imagine being the crab.
Calling the people who enter the USA illegally "immigrants" is a fallacy. They are not immigrants. They are entering illegally, therefore are committing a crime, therefore should be sent back forthwith. Just as happens daily here on the Northern border with Canada.
We are not allowed to work in either Canada or Mexico without all sorts of restrictions............but corporate money interests keep the cheap labor coming in to USA.
In these times of very high unemployment, that's just wrong. Goldman-Sachs, et al, want to drive everyone's wages down to the illegals' level or lower - that's the whole point of this Depression.
What can we do? Keep pointing out that it's not a "human rights" sort of thing - it's a cheap labor issue and we're not for cheap labor at the expense of local people/workers.
Hard times mean hard decisions. Some of this airy-fairy, New Age-y, bleeding heart nonsense will quickly give way to personal survival, as, of necessity, it must.
cleanearth - It's' know as "enslaving" the population.
CLEAN: Listen to Rush, much? Your righteous disregard for other human beings assesses the issue from a very insulated perspective. You haven't given much thought to the trade agreements, i.e. NAFTA, and what it's done to agriculture and produce costs in Mexico; and how that's caused the inevitable run across the border.
Hard times didn't just happen by chance. They were engineered. If you look at history, you might notice that whenever the ruling elite causes shortages due to its own speculative ventures (often as a result of the grand waste of war or empire-building) it uses the scarcity principle to turn person on person. Those at the bottom of the fiscal pyramid have the most to lose because they live on such a tight margin as it is. Instead of considering how the elites work the economic strings that cause the "little people" to fight over crumbs, people like you just focus on the person who seems to be eating THEIR crumb.
It's nothing new age-y, and I frankly resent the way some earthbound, unimaginative types seem to think that bashing genuine spiritual principles somehow gives them the intellectual high ground. The Ancient verities, or universal laws, are not new age-y. The understanding of higher law has been kept away from "the people" (those who understood these truths were murdered, cast as the first heretics) so that various controls (church/state) could keep them locked into redundant behavioral feedback loops based on following endless rules, and thus left unaware of the latent power of their spiritual essences.
Cleanearth doesn't sound like Rush Limbaugh. He said that corporate money interests keep the cheap labor coming in to USA. He mentioned Goldman Sachs driving wages down. He's right that this is a labor issue more than just a human right's issue.
> We are not allowed to work in either Canada or Mexico
> without all sorts of restrictions............but corporate
> money interests keep the cheap labor coming in to USA.
The open border proponents never discuss that but they should.
> it's a cheap labor issue and we're not for cheap labor
> at the expense of local people/workers.
The open border proponents need to keep the local people/workers fired up so that they can fire up the Latino workers and make money from dividing workers.
It should be pointed out that it is not borders that are the problem either, its the lack of enforcement. Yes illegal aliens cross our borders, but they also overstay their visa's, etc.
The problem is allowing the exploitation of cheap labor and child labor when its here illegally and using legal work programs for the same purpose.
If an American is out of work because a non citizen has taken that job at lower wages, does it really matter if they are here legally or illegally?
Yes, it would be ideal to live in a world where people are not constrained by borders and one universal consensus exists on the sanctity of social, cultural and civil rights. Any guesses as to how many generations it would take to persuade all the world's nation-states to agree to relinquish their sovereignty and abandon any country-specific legal and economic structures? And is that an excuse to disengage from any national dialogue on possibly ending some of the misery that millions suffer today? Using this logic, how might we explain to the guestworker in Maryland that the best long-term move for the immigration rights movement is to wait until the concept of immigration itself naturally dissolves into the ether--rather than to start thinking about changes that could happen within her lifetime? Any reform within the current legislative system will of course fall far short of an absolute solution. And there are many parties eager to exploit the debate for their own self-interest. But given what's at stake for immigrant communities right now, many activists still do not see this as a reason to completely excise the word "reform" from our conversations, especially when doing so would further cede the national political dialogue to the "terms of the oppressor."
how might we explain to the guestworker in Maryland that the best long-term move for the immigration rights movement is to wait until the concept of immigration itself naturally dissolves into the ether--rather than to start thinking about changes that could happen within her lifetime?
---------------------------------
Why should she have the right to changes within her lifetime that would benefit her *here*?
That's the problem I see in the thinking of many people who self-define as liberals (as opposed to those preferring some term (progressive, radical, etc) connoting a position further "left"). Their thinking seems to be more shallow than it should be because they appear to be ignoring the knock-on effects of their desires.
Unilaterally opening the borders is one such shallow idea. Those who suggest it seem unwilling or unable to follow that idea to its logical conclusion: tens or hundreds of millions of people from overpopulated high-birthrate countries flooding in from all over the world and destroying the very qualities they seek, a *true* "tragedy of the commons" scenario (unlike the fake one that gave rise to the name).
Treating non-citizens as though we have an obligation to improve their situation before our own (or at all) is another such shallow, self-destructive idea.
What's the upper bound on the number of people worldwide who would migrate here if we opened the doors ("Sure, c'mon in, citizenship at the door for all, no limits")? Do you think it's some small number?
Of course you don't (unless you're delusional, which I doubt). It's a *HUGE* number, in the billions. At least half the people in the world would come here, if they were allowed to do.
What do you think that would do to the environment and the quality of life for everyone but the wealthy?
The system we're struggling with right now doesn't even provide decent lives for the people already here. How can you *possibly* imagine that it wouldn't be an unspeakable disaster to increase the US population by an order of magnitude or more?
Of course Mairead. Opening the borders in such a way would completely destroy this or any other industrialized country. At the same time one could wish for a world where desperation and hunger were rare, and there were no borders anywhere. But self-hate leading to self-destruction is not the answer. Scrapping NAFTA and GATT might be a good beginning though.
"No, I think not. Instead of calling for them to be rounded up like so many are making demands for even on this supposedly progressive website"
Whoa! Where have you seen anyone calling for "rounding" up anyone or calling for mass deportation for that matter? Who, when, where?
The SEIU brought in foreign workers instaed of using American workers because they could get them to work for less and the business's agreed to let them take their union dues out. THATS SICK.
No my friend, it came from the hotel workers in New Orleans that lost their jobs to these folks. And yes, the SEIU was involved up to their eyebrows. Its the rerason many did not return to Louisana.
The SEIU and the owners made the agreement. As to how they got them in as H1B workers I have no clue. But you will find their pay is 20% less than the people they replaced and every single one is an SEIU member.
Sorry, but this isd one corrupt union that routinely betrays its own members. You should check how the big boys live and travel. It makes Congress look like pikers.
What is the SEIU doing for its members, overcharging its members fees so they can keep donating to the Democratic Party so they can be another loudmouth special interest tool just like Planned Parenthood? Only the labor union leaders are benefiting while the rank and file are paying too much for nothing. Where is the love for the US working class and why do you believe that we should just import foreigners and make them poorer?
Rush Limbaugh has no respect for anything having to do with labor unions. Democrats only care about pleasing the leadership and nothing about the rank and file members. I talked to a worker in Georgia last year who admitted that if the union fees went down, the membership would go up. The labor union leaders should be paying attention to their members instead of jacking around with the party and the media. Ralph Nader talked about this and Cynthia Mckinney would have agreed too.
Slander? SEIU? Hasrd to do. They are the most corrupt and greedy union in the US. They betray their own members at the drop of the hat. Unions are organizations and some of these organizations no longer represent their members but themselves...they are simply one more CEO and Corporate board looting their company. SEIU is in the lead among these slime balls.
Simple as that.
Do growup Ardent,, SEIU is no Mother Theresa factory. They make over a third of their money by working with Mega-Corps like Sedexo to supply them with illegals at 1/2 min wage and then charge the suckers union dues for the privledge. This is is documented again and again.
SEIU has no problem siding with more illegals even against their own duped membership. I gave up cursing them, their just another Corporation with their own agenda for making money. Like BP, GE, and GM. With help like this all workers should be down to the Chinese wage of $1 and hour by the end of the decade.
SEIUs not alone in this UAW, Teemsters and others are headed down the same road, keeping the workers uinder control with one hand. Helping the Corps suck the marrow out of the US with the other.
>^^<
What the SEIU did was cruel to both its own members and the immigrants. Ardent is not understanding that the labor unions are trying to copy the corporations just to survive. Thanks for backing up my point and mightymite's.
We don't hate unions. We just don't like their high prices to join one with nothing to show for it. Why should I pay ripoff prices? Do Latinos know what they are getting for their membership vs what they are supposed to be getting? I don't think so. The rest of the membership is being failed by their corrupt union leaders.
ARDENT: I back you entirely on the points you raise and thank you for caring enough to make them.
Two days ago CD posted an article about yet another example of police brutality; and how someone ends up dead as a result of a "uniformed guard" taking violent liberties out upon their person.
Providing the police with more freedom to harass citizens, pick out those considered "less than," while using the limited fiscal pie to turn citizen on citizen are very dangerous items. Once a society begins to marginalize liberties and only offer them to "the right ones," you can count on the last vestiges of freedom being flushed down the toilet. Hint: present make-up of Supreme Court.
What a touching moment, Siouxrose has won ardent's respect. Such a benevolent gesture from one so skilled in sardonic rhetoric.
"We just seem to come at the issues from different angles at times, but that's OK".
Did you hear that Siouxrose, he has given you permission to disagree with him without suffering the consequences. I know, it does sound a little condescending but, hey, loyalty does have it's rewards.
'yet I'll try to keep my mind open to the things that you see as important which perhaps I find not to be"
Sioux, I can't tell you how happy I am for you, even though nothing could be more important than ardent's way of thinking, he will still listen to you and "try to keep an open mind".
I don't know how you did it, congratulations, you have been condescendingly inoculated.
Check out this thread for more hilarious talk from both of them.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/17-3
I was surprised to see him flip-flop from 2 months ago when they were fighting over male vs female.
Since you and her are great at ad hominem attacks, I'll leave it at that. As for calling us rednecks, what gave you that idea? Are we "rednecks" because we care about the hardworking Americans and Mexicans getting fair pay while you want them in for less than minimum wage pay? Why don't you help them out in Mexico since you love those migrant workers the most? They get paid better in Mexico compared to here and dumping them into the country only depresses the workers' wages already in decline. I think I have better respect for those poor Mexican workers than you or her. How are Mexican workers supposed to fight their own corrupt government killing their economy if you keep spoiling them with amnesty?
I don't mind Siouxrose talking about astrology but I have a different view of Mars. He defends, protects, and give us the energy to be independent. Wars can go wacky but it's not Mars's fault for causing the wars. Blaming for pestilence, disease, anger, sorrow, and all ills is very silly. Nobody likes wars but we're all dependent on the war machines. I know she won't like that but I'm not flip flopping for anyone unless I can be proven wrong.
ARDENT: Very few men truly understand sexism. The entire culture is so veered towards, and historically seeped in a masculine set of perceptions (as well as perspectives) that THESE go unquestioned and are taken for the norms. Few societies are kind to those who challenge their norms. Think: Heretics!
The TINA idea, "there is no alternative" is very pertinent because only a small percentage of people question the dominant paradigm or the establishment views. Particularly now, as a vicious fundamentalist backlash stings the land, it's even harder to find venues where alternatives to the many beliefs that have brought our nation to its current catastrophic brink can be published or broadcast.
I am not really battling hard in my present location. In fact, I keep a low profile. Just as some in this forum entirely misunderstand my positions, and even have the hubris to use their own misrepresentations as valid portraits of my views... I would not even TRY to speak the language of mystics (a language that seeks to unify the world, relating through exotic symbols, new ways to transcend the ancient ism-divisions) to those who have been raised on black-white Biblical views of Creation, the past, and the present. I've been writing on these subjects (and published) since l986. Had any one of my scripts made it past the gatekeepers of Hollywood, I might have had the satisfaction of knowing I'd planted a positive seed in the collective unconscious. Unfortunately, 90% of modern film themes focus on violence, war, or some form of destruction. Although the argument raised is that this type of spectacle represents what the public wants, it's quite clear that the spectre of violence has been upping its own cinematic ante for quite some time. In other words, a taste for violence is being conditioned INTO the population; and in my view this is no coincidence. To ask a nation to give up its first born sons (and now daughters) and treasure to a monstrous killing machine (MIC) requires a lot of soft propaganda, i.e. programming.
Notice how whistleblowers, those who UPHOLD justice are the new targets; that peacemakers are on no-fly lists, that peace protests are pre-emptively infiltrated by goons with guns. Lately, animal rights activists along with those who work for environmental justice, are being conflated with terrorists. Because acts of conscience pose very real risks to the profit-gorging machine represented by today's unregulated capitalism without conscience, a pro-business Supreme Court may very well go along with this ruse that puts the person committed to a better world in the position of having to defend him/herself against the state (which, as we know, is entirely beholden to the corporations, banks, big pharma, and the MIC, in particular).
We're facing inverted times, an Orwellian cloud cast over our nation. Remaining sane, balanced, and able to stay conscious of what's going on are acts of courage in and of themselves. To those who participate in this forum with a genuine wish for a better world, I say "Thank you." Some may not own the personal clarity to recognize their own motives; and some may be present here entirely as counterfeits... a status that will eventually need to be worked out between their lost souls and their Maker. The lords of karma are standing by...