Hi All! This might be a little off topic, but I think that it is
important enough to share with the group, because it seems to be an
issue that affects everyone!
Have you heard about the debacle at the Tyson Foods plant in
Shelbyville, TN? The company's management and the union have agreed
to eliminate the Labor-Day holiday, and in it's place put a Muslim
holiday called Eid al-Fitr, which has something to do with Ramadan!
This only affects union workers at the plant. Non-union workers still
can keep their Labor Day holiday. What the heck is up with this? If
you go to the local newspaper's website, you'll see the story on
their page 1, at: http://www.t-g.com/
This is happening in order to
accommodate Somali workers at the plant. Now, there are conflicting
numbers of them, depending on the source. The union says there are
700 out of 1200 Somali workers, and the company says there are 250
out of 1200 Somali workers. Also, the company has provided 2 prayer
rooms for the Muslim workers at the plant, and none for any other
religious group.
This smells like the union, operating in cooperation with a multi-
national company, such as Tyson Foods, has sold out the American
workers living in Shelbyville, as well as those non-muslim workers at
the plant, in order to further the globalist agendas of its
leadership. BTW, all of them are very active in the DNC at the
national level!
This national holiday was created in order to honor the contribution
of the American worker to the success of this country, and to their
roles in making American industry the most productive, the world has
ever seen! And the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union
RWDSU), operating in cooperation with the Tyson Corporation's
management have destroyed that worker's celebration, at least for
those in Shelbyville.
This is an issue, but there is a more serious one to look at here.
How does a multinational corporation get 700 Somalis, and an unknown
number of mexican nationals (for a different shift, see the newspaper
article from the Shelbyville R/T)), approved for an H-1b workers
temporary visa, to the exclusion of the American workers who live in
that region? Does anyone else smell something rotten here? Or is that
the smell of money that Tyson saves by hiring workers who will accept
a lower wage, because anything is better than what they had before in
Somalia or Mexico! Also, here is a union, in a period of declining
union membership nationwide, able to grow its membership by helping a
company to import cheap labor that causes its membership ranks to
swell. And, just maybe we now have direct evidence that may implicate
the INS, or at least, high-level executives of that agency, in this
whole "open-border" mess. Is it possible that we have some greedy a-
holes from that agency "on-the-take" from large corporations. I
thought we were limiting Somolian immigration, because of ties to
terrorist organizations? Does anyone else smell a rat, here?
Now, I've never been a lover of unions, because of my background in
Western PA, but I am deeply offended by this on so many levels that
it is hard to keep it all straight! I think that there needs to be a
congressional investigation into this, and maybe the only person we
have left to do this might be Ron Paul from Texas. This would be a
really great opportunity for him to make his point concerning how
dangerous this whole globalization process is for the American
worker! This should scare the democrats to death, because it could
cost them the election! All the leaders of that union are pretty high
up in the DNC, as per their writings on the union's website!
I think that we should all boycott Tyson Foods, and let that company
know how much we oppose their cancellation of an national American
holiday, in favor of a non-American labor blasphemy! And, we need to
show Tyson that the American people will not stand by and watch them
import cheap foreign labor at the expense of the American worker!
Let's tell everyone we know what they are doing, and let a
groundswell of public opinion show those sob's what we think of their
globalist agenda!
Check out the union's web-site at:
http://www.rwdsu.org/ , and you'll
see what I mean about a globalist agenda. Tyson is a multi-national
company, and the union is a multi-national union, as well. If you
have any questions for me, you can contact me by e-mail at:
azsurvive111@gmail.com, or
gappgroup1@yahoogroups.com.
In the Spirit of Liberty,
tim guiney
Based on the IALS, CCG estimate the share of the population that is highly skilled—that is, who scored at least at level-four proficiency on the test on average—for a set of developed countries. Figure 1 displays separate shares for 16- and 17-year-olds and for 26- to 30-year-olds. Countries are ordered from highest to lowest based on the performance of teenagers (solid black bars). To eliminate changes in the demographic composition of the population associated with high immigration rates of young adults, data are reported only for native-born citizens of each country. 
If the comparatively greater access to—that is, low cost of entry into—the U.S. higher education system produces greater acquisition of general skills, the United States should have a relatively high college completion rate to match its relatively steep age profile of skill. The data in Figure 2 suggest that this is true. The figure also shows that the fraction of a country's population receiving a bachelor's degree (or equivalent) between ages 16-17 and 26-30 is strongly positively correlated with its age profile of skill. This suggests that individuals' investments in higher education raise general skills in the average country, even when university education tends to be more track-oriented and focused on a particular field than it is in the U.S. Something remarkable has happened in the struggle for greater freedom and democracy. The world's most powerful nation and the traditional beacon for democracy, the United States, has slid backwards. One of the world's poorest nations and the world's most populous Islamic state, Indonesia, has moved distinctly forward. And yet western discourse largely ignores this development, as evidenced by the sweeping speech on democracy delivered by the foreign secretary, David Miliband, last month.
The first flaw of western discourse is its inability to practise what it preaches in this respect: to speak truth to power. This is revealed in the reluctance of western governments to discuss the most catastrophic reversal in the field of human rights: the decision by the US government to defend the use of torture. In the evolution of human rights there have been two quantum leaps: the first was the universal abolition of slavery; the second, the move towards abolishing torture.
Ten years ago, if anyone had suggested the US would reintroduce torture, the answer would have been "impossible!" Yet the impossible has happened. Amnesty International has described Guantánamo as "the gulag of our times". Despite their history of condemning human rights violations, no western nation has condemned the US government for Guantánamo. Miliband's speech rightly applauded several brave Burmese people for standing up to the military government. They spoke truth to power, and at great personal risk. Sadly, even though he faced no personal risks, Miliband could not muster the courage to speak truth to power regarding Guantánamo.
Even more tellingly, in the US there has been a broader reversal on many civil rights issues. In the face of threats from terrorism, the population has, in effect, accepted a reduction of civil liberties, symbolised by the Patriot Act. In so doing, Americans have revealed that in a crunch they behave no differently to other societies. When they feel threatened, they too are prepared to sacrifice civil liberties - thus providing a new negative role model for others.
The second flaw in western discourse is the refusal to recognise its track record of double standards in the promotion of human rights and democracy. When a western country has to choose between promoting its values or defending its interests, interests always trump values. No western country promotes democracy in Saudi Arabia. Too many interests would have to be sacrificed in doing so. But in states such as Burma and Zimbabwe, where no major western interests are at risk, values can take primacy. When Tashkent agreed to host a valuable American military base in the battle against terrorism, the British ambassador, Craig Murray, was forced to resign in protest against the silence of his government on human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.
We are moving toward a more intelligent world. Globally, the number of highly educated people, especially in Asia, has never been higher. They can now make well-informed judgments about what the west does with human rights. Hence, while the west conducts a self-congratulatory conversation on the subject, the rest of the world sees an emperor with no moral clothing.
The third flaw in western discourse is that when presented with a choice between doing good and feeling good, the west almost always chooses the latter because it costs less. Burma exemplifies this best. History teaches that sanctions and exclusions have never succeeded in transforming societies. Engagement and dialogue over time lead to change. The tragedy of 20 years of isolation of Burma has done no good, even though the politicians of the west have felt good condemning the regime.
A prominent Burmese intellectual, Thant Myint-U, grandson of U Thant, the former UN secretary general, wrote in the International Herald Tribune: "What outside pressure can bring about democratic change? And why, after nearly two decades of boycotts, aid cut-offs, trade bans and diplomatic condemnation, are Burma's generals apparently more in charge than ever before? Are we really looking at Burma - a country of 55 million people - in the right way?"
The paradox here is that engaging Burmese generals will require political courage from western politicians. They will have to justify this to their own people and perhaps pay a political price as a consequence. To avoid any risk, western politicians heap praise (as Miliband does) on Burmese dissidents, lauding their courage - while simultaneously demonstrating their own moral and political cowardice.
The time therefore has arrived for a new discourse between the west and the rest on freedom and democracy. In December we will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This may well provide an opportunity for the west to change course; nothing can or will prevent it lecturing the world on human rights. But it could nevertheless learn to do something new: to listen to the voices from the rest of the world.
· Kishore Mahbubani is the author of The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, and will speak at the London School of Economics next Tuesday
These words will resonate will all those who join in the condemnation of this most disastrous period; an appalling US presidency leading out the coalition of the arm-twisted, blind-eyed, circumlocutionary discourses of its hegemony.
And as our awareness of the biggest market failure in history, the carbon bungle, turns our culture from hubris to disquiet we realise that the surrender of values to base interests is not only short-sighted but possibly fatally flawed.
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