It's pretty much awful. I think anyone who's ever tried to write a thesis will understand what I mean. But beyond just general thesis-y awfulness, I mean that what I'm writing about is awful. Because I don't know what to say, because I've chosen a topic that's horribly complex (and one on which I'm REMARKABLY ignorant), and because today especially I'm grappling with the depths of humanity's brokenness.
[Insert bored sigh from pretty much everyone who knows me.] "Are you ever doing anything besides grappling with the depths of humanity's brokenness, Beth? Go get a pedicure, eat some cotton candy, and read the latest issue of Cosmo."
Righto. But anyway, back to the brokenness. I'm writing about how U.S. trade policy and food aid affects farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. I just spent about 10 minutes trying to decide what I'm going to call the thing when it's done--it will probably be overly provocative and include words like "passive," "genocide," or "indifference."
Writing this paper is a gut wrenching challenge.
I feel strung between idealism and principle on the one hand--
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."
--Proverbs 31:8-9
--and the realities of life in a world where money and power have the first and the last word.
What is bothering me about America's place in the world isn't just what I'm learning about the way our country directly affects the poorest in the world (we are essentially starving people, by the way), it's the way we put ourselves out to the world as heroes. And while I emphasize that none of the really good things that are done for the world by Americans (individual charitable contributions, military service, etc.) should be minimized, it is unfair and unwise to refuse to acknowledge the ways in which our prosperity comes at a cost for a majority of the world's people.
Here are just a couple of examples of our country's rampant hypocrisy (wheee!!!):
- American claims to world leadership are brazen and are trumpeted by politicians on both the left and the right. In this article, a former deputy attorney general under Reagan discusses the soaring arrogance that marks the speeches of presidents and presidential candidates.
- But this is what our "leadership" often looks like (I like and respect Obama; I'm horrified by our wars and our drone strikes, for so many reasons).
- Our country subsidizes crop insurance for American farmers. Estimates for 2013 spending on crop insurance alone total $9.1 billion.
- We ship excess grain (that would otherwise flood our domestic markets and drive down the prices American farmers can get) to developing countries in the form of food aid.
- Total spent on food aid for the nearly 1 billion people in the world that are chronically hungry? An estimated $1.4 billion in 2013.
- We allow corporations to give unlimited donations to political causes, which gives big business increasing opportunity to write the rules of its own game through lobbying. The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision is just an example of this decades long trend.
- Overseas, this lack of oversight allows agricultural corporations (agrifood) to elbow small farmers out of the market through price fixing, increasing poverty in developing countries. Cargill, a Seattle-based agrifood business, has been assessed hefty fines for price fixing.
As far as industry goes, I think most people agree to some degree or another that the free market can only get us so far, and government intervention helps balance the economy. But the kinds of help we provide are selective, and they are often at the expense of very, very vulnerable people.
What I am saying is that as an American, I want our country to be greater than it already is.
I'd like our world leadership to be by example, and to be guided honestly and consistently by what's fair. I realize we have plenty of problems to solve on our own soil. But the political attitudes and climate that create economic disaster here also create economic disaster overseas, where it has a life-or-death toll in a way most of us can't imagine.
I'm saying that it's not a zero-sum game. American citizens should understand America's place of influence in the world, and advocate for our global stance to be something more noble than it is today.
