[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Tracy Rosenberg Patty Lovera Full Show @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin180629.mp3″]
This week on CounterSpin: “As a company, Microsoft is dismayed by the forcible separation of children from their families at the border,” the global tech company declared in a statement. “Family unification has been a fundamental tenet of American policy and law since the end of World War II.” The same Microsoft bragged a few months ago about ICE’s use of its Azure cloud computing services to “accelerate facial recognition and identification” of immigrants, though the post has since been altered to omit the phrase “we’re proud to support this work with our mission-critical cloud.”
The spotlight on the White House’s inhumane agenda on immigration and immigrants is exposing more than the devastatingly cruel practices in force at the border, but also the numerous big corporate and institutional players that are—often invisibly—enabling that agenda. And just like the agenda, the impact of these collaborations extends well beyond immigrant communities. We’ll talk about all that with organizer/advocate Tracy Rosenberg, executive director of Media Alliance and co-coordinator of Oakland Privacy.
Transcript: ‘Data Needs to Serve a Public Safety Purpose’
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Tracy Rosenberg Interview @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin180629Rosenberg.mp3″]
Also on the show: The 2018 Farm Bill has been in the news mainly because of House Republicans’ vehement efforts to deny more people the roughly $1.40-per-meal subsidy provided by the SNAP program, whose participants are overwhelmingly children, the elderly and people with disabilities. Whether such punitive, evidence-free ideas make it through to the final legislation will certainly be a test of something. The undercovered Farm Bill affects a number of other things as well: crop subsidies, conservation and—big picture—our ability to move toward a food system that is thriving, sustainable and healthy. We’ll hear about that from Patty Lovera, assistant director at Food and Water Watch.
Transcript: ‘Lots of Things That Impact Our Food System Come From the Farm Bill’
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Patty Lovera Interview @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin180629Lovera.mp3″]
I understand the impulse to be compassionate but we have problems. When I was born there were roundly 2 Bn people in the word. Now there are roundly 8 Bn. The planet is at carrying capacity. We move more earth through our mining operations every year than all the natural erosive and geophysical processes combined. We discharge more nitrogen into the environment than all the bacteria on earth combined. We emit more CO2 than the oceans and plants can take up. Our industrial emissions are poisoning the oceans and warming the planet and this will eventually lead to acute food shortages. Acute food shortages as in tens or even hundreds of millions of starving people. It’s not like the old days where we have the room to shelter and harbor anybody we want. The high birth rates in these developing countries is a real problem. All these things combined represent a very difficult problem. Very difficult and open borders and freedom of migration are no more a solution than are highly aggressive border control tactics. That said when the food shortage happen and tens of millions of climate refugees start to flow north we will implement the later solution and it will be very popular. People will do anything before they watch their children starve.
I understand the impulse to be compassionate but we have problems. When I was born there were roundly 2 Bn people in the word. Now there are roundly 8 Bn. The planet is at carrying capacity. We move more earth through our mining operations every year than all the natural erosive and geophysical processes combined. We discharge more nitrogen into the environment than all the bacteria on earth combined. We emit more CO2 than the oceans and plants can take up. Our industrial emissions are poisoning the oceans and warming the planet and this will eventually lead to acute food shortages. Acute food shortages as in tens or even hundreds of millions of starving people. It’s not like the old days where we have the room to shelter and harbor anybody we want. The high birth rates in these developing countries is a real problem. All these things combined represent a very difficult problem. Very difficult and open borders and freedom of migration are no more a solution than are highly aggressive border control tactics. That said when the food shortage happen and tens of millions of climate refugees start to flow north we will implement the later solution and it will be very popular. People will do anything before they watch their children starve.
Yes, quite a dilemma indeed. I still believe compassion is important, but how does one reconcile one’s belief system, given the harsh realities of today? Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s I believed altruism to be an honorable trait, but that was long before our population quadrupled. I don’t know what I believe now, and I find that troubling. Letting go of one’s youthful idealism is hard, especially when we see it in our children. I don’t want to pass my disillusionment on to my kids. Bottom line is I refuse to shed my compassion and become a cynical, bitter old woman. Yes I accept reality, but I will not let my inability to do anything about it (other than live responsibly, educate myself and vote) ruin what’s left of my life.
To Paul above:
There are no borders for capital flows, nor industrialist entrepreneurial robber-barrons with their private jets & luxury yatchs, nor their relocated factories, refineries, & operations, nor the distribution of their commodities & services they produce care of “free tade agreements”, no other aspect of the entire operations of society itself & its economy save with one odd curious exception: employees/labour there are from out of nowhere suddenly wild national political borders spring up. For heaven’s sake not even drones respect others’ “soveriegnity”, even bombs know no borders! So as for you environmental argument when will you see artificial scarcity, planned obsolescence, wars, poverty, intl.child slave sex trafficking & ALL THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES you mention leading to critical mass of the biosphere & ecocide & omnicide are perpetrated by the global corporatocracy that once again see above have no borders! Aim your weapon at the real problem enemy. Let the Latinos stay where they were already here before your bible- they aren’t immigrants. I bet they built your house yet weren’t paid a living wage/real wage to afford it! Look around at all the architecture, fool: they may not run the country, but they make the country run. La Raza DID NOT poison the air, water, food, & the media, schools, & churches.
Speaking of which, I find it ironic that Trump is the one essentially putting an end to neoliberal globalism or as you put it,
“capital flows, nor industrialist entrepreneurial robber-barrons with their private jets & luxury yatchs, nor their relocated factories, refineries, & operations, nor the distribution of their commodities & services they produce care of “free tade agreements”
The bombs we still have a huge problem with but by the numbers, while still bad, not as bad as under Obama. Anyway look at the way he’s being treated for ending globalization. Your not a fan either I suspect and might not even give credit where credit is due.
Anyway all that be as it may it still doen’t have anything to do with carrying capacity and the dramatic rise in total population, which was my basic point. Times have changed. We’re out of room and capacity to rapidly expand and borders have to be more secure as a result.