Globalization's Dangers to Earth and It's People: Interview with Julian Kunnie Part 2

Julian E. Kunnie is a professor of religious, Latin American Middle Eastern and North African studies at the University of Arizona. he is the author of The Cost of Globalization: Dangers to the earth and it's people.

www.nyakweri.arizona.edu

Rob: Role of State Department-- US Embassy helped block $5 a day wage in Haiti, for Levis, Hanes and Fruit of the Loom. Whose state department was it. And is that the way the state department is used, in terms of globalization.

Haiti was the first Republic to overcome chattel slavery, in 1791 and in 1804 it became the first black republic. Haiti has always been seen as anathema. Haiti is seen as a place where baseball and underwear can be made for the United States-- that use cheap labor. There's a direct connection between the political process and

Rob: Do you mean state, not political.

It's very hard to separate the secretary of state and corporations. When you talk about American national interest-- that involves the US State Department and Corporations.

The American national interests include accumulation of profit. The laws that the state department implements is about protecting profits.

The TPP has to do with protecting the corporations from litigation by communities, against environmental destruction. People will not be able to sue these corporations because there are statues that will protect them" and the US govt is promoting this partnership.

When we look at the role of the secretary of state and at transnational corporations" their interests converge--

When did that happen (Haiti $5 wage blocked)

May have been the incoming Obama Administration. Under Hillary Clinton.

USAID worked closely with Levis and Fruit of the Loom-- to take away the rights of the Haitian people.

You had, when Collin Powell was Secretary of State, overthrowing Aristide.

There are not two separate spheres as we have been made to believe.

Ezilo Danto-- has a lot of concrete information.

Haitians in NYC have protested Hillary Clinton.

Rob: Can we get into prison industrial complex, police violence and tie to globalization

The question of prisons and globalization"

The US has 30% of female prisoners in the world even though we are five percent of world's human beings. The US has 25% of world's prison population.

To look at construction of prisons over the past 20 years-- the US has built more prisons than any other country at any time in history. We have construction of prisons and overcrowded universities.

Prison industry is used for economic stimulus.

This is an intrinsic part of globalization

Rob: How is this an intrinsic part of globalization

Globalization has to do with economics and monopolization of profit. We have the prison industrial complex. Just like we have the military industrial complex, when you are talking about gl

national security, homeland security, the war on drugs-, all of that is part of the economy-- it's creating profit.

Globalization has a lot to do with opening up markets, privatization, deregulation and dismantling of state enterprises-- so the monopolies get the greatest access. Prison have to do with profit and that has to do with criminalization of segments of the population.

So, why is it that we are seeing such high rates of women in prison

People are underemployed and underpaid. So inevitably if you are underpaid, you are being exploited, you are economically vulnerable, and the potential for turning to something illegal-- stealing, petty drug dealing, is high.

It was Bill Clinton putting another 100,000 police on the streets.

SB 1070 being promoted by the govt in AZ said it is about apprehending people that are illegal coming into the state of Arizona. We later found out it had nothing to do with immigration. It had to do with private prisons.

The movement away from public services-- and the insistence that people go to work" but going to work and earning poverty wages is no protection from this propensity to be drawn into this circle of criminal existence.

Between 1981 and 1993 some $256 billion was transferred from the lower 20% of the population to the one percent.

Rob: So that would suggest that people opposing the living minimum wage of $15 an hour are really helping the prison industrial complex.

Education is designed for students to drop out of school.

Rob: and drop outs are massively more at risk for spending time in prison. 30% for black women who dropped out.

When you look at the way the economy is downsized you look at the ... of people-- costs of drugs, of health insurance going up. They are part of an intentional sequence of the controllers of globalization and they have to do with unbridled effort to get mega, unlimited profit. Prisons are an intrinsic part of the punishment of the poor for being poor.

Drugs-- all have to do with accumulation of profit at levels that we've never seen.

Rob: I read Quote on p age 219-220

When we talk about Naziism, the Department of Homeland Security. Are we more secure today than we were 10, 20, 50 years ago. This era of globalization I look at how academics are subservient to globalization. 70% of teaching at Universities is done by non-tenured. Universities are having to become for profit.

The message is our future depends upon globalization"

In every sphere that you see politically, economically, even in terms of religion-- are all dependent upon the accumulation of money. We are all asked in one way or another to declare our allegiance, directly or indirectly. Those of us who resist are seen as unpatriotic, anti-american, unappreciative that we have reaped these "tremendous benefits." We are told this is the 21st century-- what you have to accept.

You have criminalization of youth, especially children of color.

Rob: I want you to talk about globalization and race.

When we're told today, and it's a very interesting discourse-- on the one hand we're told we live in a colorblind world because we are all on the same level playing field. So we no longer need remedial measures like

We're told that diversity is important-- we need cultural diversity-- but it is a diversity that the ruling class determines is acceptable. In other words, you can't bring your cultural heritage and ancestry into the school system. So they dismantle Mexican American studies because it's seen as anti-American. Racism once more becomes entrenched than ever before, because there is this deceptive discourse, the illusionary, fraudulent level of discussion which says we no longer need ethnic studies programs, affirmative action". which once again reinforces the structures of institutionalized racsism. The globalization protagonists are the ones who control the purse strings.

They decide who gets elected to the state legislature. Racism is very much alive, very much endemic to globalization.

Look at SCOTUS Scalia making openly racist statement about African American people and University of Texas"

Rob: Please talk about the tie between patriarchy, white patriarchy and Globalization

The patriarchal system-- when we look at the whole world, we live in a patriarchal world. That has to do with how many societies, particularly in the west, Feudalistic societies, so the idea of the white Christian male as the embodiment of spirituality and then to look at women as commodities, sexual objects for exploitation-- patriarchy is the means for control of the world.

Everybody else who is outside that norm is seen as below and less then. And this ideology infuses globalization all over the world. These corporations are controlled by white male patriarchs. Even white women are brought in under the auspices and control of the white male patriarchs. Margaret Thatcher functioned like a white male patriarch and everything she dis was at the serve of white male imperialism.

Where women of color are involved-- indigenous women in Africa, SA, Asia-- were subjected to sexual violence by the white male patriarchs-- the women were sexually assaulted, controlled by the Spanish. That's why we have the Latino population in SA today. When we look at the experiences of women in sweatshops in Cambodia, in Bangladesh, women having to work 36 hours in a shift in Indonesia-- women being enslaved, economically paid the lowest" women have no rights". when they attempted to organize to get $2 a day, they were beaten and killed. Women are the primary victims of the regime of globalization because we have a patriarchal order that says that men are "

Exploitation of women in the underdeveloped world has intensified through globalization. Corporations that have moved offshore, that take many of these jobs from the US to Asia, like call centers for United States corporations-- women and patriarchy are at loggerheads with each other. the whole patriarchal system has to be dismantled. The earth is a woman.

A few companies like Cuba, LIbya, Venezuela, Scandinavia, where they have tried to dismantle patriarchal. The problem is capitalism is patriarchal.

Rob: Explain that-- capitalism is patriarchal.

Capitalism as a system developed from colonialism. It was a male to male relationship. Women were seen as appendages. In Royal society it was a patriarchal structure.

Capitalism as a system developed from colonization, and the exploitation of women and children in factories. Marks saw right through the Capitalist system. It was a rigidly patriarchally family structure that was reproduced.

Rob: Your epilogue goes very far. It shoots for the stars-- talk about your vision of the solution to globalization and the role of indigenous..

Our existence today depends upon us becoming humble, coming down to earth and realizing that we have done wrong, and we have wronged our mother and committed an unforgivable sin. But time is running out. Either we turn back, we return to our original ways of being and living, with respect to the rest of the natural world-- this very composite, fragile universe that we live in-- reminds us of our own fragility-- so we have to find a way to dig ourselves out of the morass, out of the pit of despair. it means going back. it means our future world will not depend upon computers, on wireless, on technology, on mining-- that has destroyed the water supplies and poisoned everything. Our mother earth can't toilerate this much longer.

Either we destroy capitalism altogether or accept that we are going to become extinct.

People who hold the reins of control are obstinate and determined to continued to pursue progress and vulgar individualistic".

The indigenous people ask the question "what is the meaning of life?" How do we recognize that the land is sacred"

We must keep in mind that 80% of life is found in the sea.

We need to be respectful" but this world is not going to played out on a computer, not played out on a movie screen. It's real life on the earth. We are not the center of the earth, nor are we the center of the uNiverse. We have to dismantle that illusion, bury our egos forever. We are all spirits in the spiritual universe. " We have got to be in synch with the timeless universe and understand our place and role in this place and time and contribute positively to this universe for the next seven generations.

If not we are doomed to destruction. It is a wakeup call to come back to reality.