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 reminded of what they have not paid much 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 taught my History students to think outside the box, and connect the dots. After establishing that American Chattel Slavery was an enormous agricultural enterprise that literally funded and built the United States, I would have my students 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.”
First, it was always possible to abolish slavery without it ever being justified as a punishment for a crime. The loophole stands out because it was deliberately placed there.
Second, Congress had 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 recently complained about Democrats in Congress not fighting hard enough against the policies of Felon 47? We can cherrypick the most vocal Democrats, can’t we?
That leads me to something writer 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.” She argued that Felon 47 is deporting Brown immigrants as a ruse to throw raw meat to his racist, stupid ass base.
He pretends that he is cleaning up the country by putting alleged criminal riff-raff out of the country, while he capitalizes on a different type of immigrant status, namely H-2A visas that have been in use for years.
Here’s the rub as Beccia points out— Felon 47 did not start any of this. Mega agribusinesses like BayerAg, Syngenta, 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 financially.
By using immigrants with H-2A visas, there is less money to be paid out, no pressure to guarantee permanent employment, and no negotiations to be made for poor immigrant workers if they are mistreated.
Unless you have your own garden and grow your own food, the French Fries you ordered at McDonald’s (made from a corn product, not a potato), 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.
(Salinas, CA, USA—June 19, 2015: Seasonal farm workers pick and package strawberries)
Agribusinesses are so brutally profit-driven that the countries of Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have made it illegal for native and neighboring farmers to trade seeds with each other.
Under pressure from agribusinesses to insure that the “intellectual property rights” of their seeds are not violated, agribusinesses pressured various African governments to eliminate farmers’ traditional farming methods in order to force farmers to purchase seeds rather than allowing them to trade their own. Their lobbyists threaten, cajole, and promise money to political parties and politicians in order to ensure these companies make a profit.
So, students/readers as we think about all of this on our way out the door of my classroom, 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 a few questions students/readers: Why is lobbying even legal? Have you figured out yet why some Democrats are just going along with the program as if nothing is happening?
Class dismissed.
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