'Guadeloupe Strikes: A Warning to Obama?
Monday 23 February 2009
by: Robert Naiman, t r u t h o u t Perspective
Monday 23 February 2009
by: Robert Naiman, t r u t h o u t Perspective
On February 12, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told Congress that the global economic crisis was the most serious security challenge facing the United States and that it could topple governments and trigger waves of refugees, the Los Angeles Times reported.
A week later, the French government was sending police reinforcements to the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe after a month of strikes and protests over low pay and high prices followed by clashes between police and protesters. Strikers have been demanding a raise of $250 a month for low-wage workers who now make about $1,130 a month. "Underlying much of the unrest in Guadeloupe and Martinique is anger within the local Afro-Caribbean community ... that the vast majority of wealth and land remain in the hands of colonist descendants," noted Al Jazeera.
Across much of the world, and much of Latin America in particular, the global economic crisis is going to play out against a legacy of extreme inequality and poverty. The unrest in Guadeloupe may be a preview of what's coming worldwide if there isn't a change in Washington's priorities.
If the global economic crisis is the most serious security challenge, how come there is so little discussion of devoting more resources to addressing this challenge directly? Quite the contrary: with the purported goal of reducing the US budget deficit, the Obama administration is planning to "scale back" its promise to double foreign aid, The New York Times reports.
The notion that scaling back Obama's commitment to double foreign aid would be a reasonable way to reduce the nation's fiscal deficit can only be taken seriously as long as people aren't aware of or don't consider the relative magnitude of the numbers involved and the likely consequences of different kinds of spending.
The Times article doesn't report how much the deficit might be decreased by the threatened "scaling back." But the campaign promise was to double foreign aid to $50 billion by 2012. If instead of "scaling back" the promised increase, foreign aid weren't increased at all, that would suggest a maximum saving of about $25 billion a year.'
A week later, the French government was sending police reinforcements to the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe after a month of strikes and protests over low pay and high prices followed by clashes between police and protesters. Strikers have been demanding a raise of $250 a month for low-wage workers who now make about $1,130 a month. "Underlying much of the unrest in Guadeloupe and Martinique is anger within the local Afro-Caribbean community ... that the vast majority of wealth and land remain in the hands of colonist descendants," noted Al Jazeera.
Across much of the world, and much of Latin America in particular, the global economic crisis is going to play out against a legacy of extreme inequality and poverty. The unrest in Guadeloupe may be a preview of what's coming worldwide if there isn't a change in Washington's priorities.
If the global economic crisis is the most serious security challenge, how come there is so little discussion of devoting more resources to addressing this challenge directly? Quite the contrary: with the purported goal of reducing the US budget deficit, the Obama administration is planning to "scale back" its promise to double foreign aid, The New York Times reports.
The notion that scaling back Obama's commitment to double foreign aid would be a reasonable way to reduce the nation's fiscal deficit can only be taken seriously as long as people aren't aware of or don't consider the relative magnitude of the numbers involved and the likely consequences of different kinds of spending.
The Times article doesn't report how much the deficit might be decreased by the threatened "scaling back." But the campaign promise was to double foreign aid to $50 billion by 2012. If instead of "scaling back" the promised increase, foreign aid weren't increased at all, that would suggest a maximum saving of about $25 billion a year.'
Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/022309R
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