by Sandi Crain

Created on: October 07, 2009

Globalization is Killing America

Although international trade is great for all countries involved the effects of globalization has destroyed the fabric of the United States. There was a time when coal companies forced their miners to live in corporate owned mining towns, paid them in corporate chits, and only allowed them to shop at the corporate store. The people, however, risked their lives and demanded to be freed from the corporate slavery. There was a time when factory workers were paid a non-living wage and forced to work in deadly conditions without access to medical care. The workers united and demanded to be treated fairly. There was a time when the

Cuyahoga River caught fire and it started a nationwide crack-down on corporate pollution. All of the progress made for the American working class by our ancestors has been undermined by the transfer of these corporations overseas where they can go back to paying ridiculously low wages and polluting other country's rivers. And we're stuck flipping burgers.

America doesn't produce anything anymore. Why? Because American corporations are free to set up shop wherever they can pay the least wages and make their products without oversight. They can still use children in their sweatshops and they can make them work in deadly conditions. And, they can do this while paying almost nothing in U.S. taxes. Although they've paid off our politicians so that this behavior is legal, it's definitely immoral and should not be allowed to continue.

Manufacturing isn't the only thing affected by globalization. Banks are also going global. There was a time when no business was "too big to fail". There were laws in place that stopped banks and corporations from being so large and powerful that they could crash the economy. Now, with globalization, they are so big that the economy of an entire hemisphere can collapse due to the unsavory business practices of a single bank.

There is talk of movement towards a global government. Unlike the United States that was originally intended to be a federation of sovereign states, this new global government will be more like the European Union where there is one unelected leader above all. This is actually quite scary when you think about it. How can one expect to have any kind of a voice if the world leader is sitting at the Hague completely isolated from any real human being. As it is, America's elected leaders in Washington D.C. seem out of touch with the average working American. Now imagine that our government isn't even in the country.

Globalization is not in the best interest of this country. We are a freedom-loving people and will not quietly give away our sovereignty. We can see today the stirrings of discontent while people hold up signs demanding a return of state's rights and the end of the central bank. There are even movements in which some states are pushing to secede from the Union they believe holds too much power.

Things always work best when sovereignty is retained and all states and nations are treated equally and fairly. This is not happening now and will not happen if we globalize every institution on the planet. Individual freedom cannot be sustained if a small group of appointed leaders sit in judgment of the rest of us like the gods of Olympus. It can only be sustained if we are able to keep smaller independent states in which we can govern ourselves.

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