by ©️Leslye Joy Allen
When I read comments by many people who express their shock and disgust at Felon 47, I share their pain. Yet, I am often reminded of what they have not paid attention to.
(In the year 2000, prisoners pick cotton at the Ferguson Unit in Texas in the prison’s cotton fields, Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein, Getty Images)
I am going to share a couple of ways I used to teach my History students to think outside the box. After establishing that American Chattel Slavery was by-and-large an enormous agricultural enterprise that literally built the United States, I would have them read the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution which allegedly ended slavery in the United States:
“Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
There are two things in this amendment that should stand out, namely the loophole. First, it was always possible to abolish slavery without it ever being justified as a punishment for a crime.
Second, the amendment granted Congress the power to enforce the 13th amendment through further legislation. So, if Congress was silent about abuses of this amendment, one might get away with imprisoning and/or forcing the labor of just about anyone. Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th brilliantly examines the loophole in the amendment, but I want to go just a bit further.
Now, how many of you on the Left have been currently complaining about Democrats in Congress not having enough fight in them? We can cherrypick the most vocal Democrats, can’t we?
That leads me to something writer and analyst Carlyn Beccia wrote in her brilliant investigative essay “Don’t Tell MAGA, But Trump Plans to Increase Immigrant Labor.” (I highly, highly recommend reading this “free” essay ASAP.)
(Field of mid-growth grain Corn plants near England, Arkansas. Stock photo at Alamy)
Beccia noted that these days I.C.E. rarely shows up at American farms even though “six in ten agricultural workers are noncitizen immigrants.” In a nutshell, she argued that Felon 47 is deporting brown immigrants as a ruse to throw some raw meat to his racist base.
He pretends that he is cleaning up the country by putting the alleged riff-raff out, while he is capitalizing on a different type of immigrant status via H-2A visas that have been in use for years. And the only financial beneficiaries will be agribusiness goliaths.
Here’s the rub as Beccia points out— Felon 47 did not invent any of this. Mega agribusinesses like BayerAg, Syngenta, Carroll, Manzana, LLC, AcreTrader, Archer Daniels Midland Co., CHS, Inc. Freight Farmers, Heinz Seeds, Seedo Corporation, Sakata Seed Corporation, DOW, Rijk Zwaan and many others will reap in the profits while American farmers (many of whom are MAGA supporters) will still struggle.
By using immigrants with only H-2A visas, there is less money to be paid out and no negotiations to be made for the poor immigrant worker if he or she is mistreated. And if you think the food that sits on your table hasn’t been produced with slave labor, think again.
(Salinas, CA, USA—June 19, 2015: Seasonal farm workers pick and package strawberries)
Unless you have your own garden and grow your own food, the French Fries you ordered at McDonald’s (made from over 10 ingredients), and the food that sits on your table was produced by slave labor. Sidebar: H-2A visas allow businesses to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis when there are not enough American workers to fill the jobs.
Agribusinesses are so brutally profit-driven that there are now countries in Africa that have made it illegal for neighboring farmers to trade seeds with each other. This is done to force farmers to purchase seeds so that these agribusinesses have maximum profits. Their lobbyists threaten, cajole, and promise money to political parties and politicians in order to ensure they make a profit.
So, students as we think about this on our way out, let’s consider the following. It would be fair to say that the average civic-minded American citizen would do well to contact their representatives to make their grievances and requests known. Many of us can and often do lobby our representatives to encourage them to represent our interests.
At the same time, multi-billion dollar businesses employ and pay lobbyists. The average citizen does not have that kind of wealth. So, here’s the question students: Why is lobbying even legal?
Class dismissed.
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