Population Control and Social Engineering on a Vast Migratory Scale

The New American flag

Wikipedia Commons Photo

Western politicians, diplomats, heads of state, and other EU officials have agreed and signed on to U.N.’s Agenda 2030, a social engineering plan of population control; this includes every aspect of their daily lives and all business activity.

This onerous U.N. Agenda 2030, for which no “global citizens” have voted, had been deployed around the globe at the beginning of the Obama administration and had accelerated the “fundamental transformation of America” he had promised before he took office.

The massive exodus of third world populations, Muslims, Africans, Central Americans, Asians, and Middle Easterners, mostly young men, to Europe and to the United States has been socially engineered by the United Nations and by the IOM office, a U.N. affiliate, with the blessing of EU leaders, government officials at all levels, and many presidents.

When the current batch of politicians of all stripes will be long gone, a borderless America will be drastically different and unrecognizable to the present generations. The left has won the battle and the war for the hearts and minds of “progressive” America.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (NY-D) compares the situation on the U.S. southern border where migrants are housed, awaiting the disposition of their illegal crossing into the U.S., with a “concentration camp.”

The housing facilities are clean, serve three free meals a day, clean showers, TVs, pool tables, soccer, play areas, toys, clean clothes, medical care, and other amenities.  These illegal migrants have broken our laws when crossing the border and are demanding asylum.

It is an insult to Holocaust survivors to diminish the hell, torture, and suffering they endured at the hands of their Nazi captors who brought them into concentration camps by train to force them into dehumanizing work, starvation, and eventual genocide as part of Hitler’s final solution. 

To paraphrase Daniel Krygier, when the West colonized the East, it was called “imperialism.” But now that the Muslim East is colonizing the West with the blessing of the U.N.’s International Office for Migration (IOM), it is called “multiculturalism.”

If we defend Western nations and our sovereignty, we are “racists” even though border protection from enemy invasion has nothing to do with skin color. But those who “embrace despotic and xenophobic Muslim societies that oppress women, gays, and minorities,” call themselves “progressives” and “human rights champions.”

It is fine to criticize Israel, its existence, and “other free societies,” but when we criticize oppressive, totalitarian and terrorist-sponsoring societies, then we are Islamophobic and hate mongers.

The Orwellian dystopia of “1984” Eric Arthur Blair wrote about in 1949 is alive and well today. His invented diabolical social world order took 70 years to become reality.

Self-appointed global leaders have met on June 18, 2019 in Brussels to debate their planned migratory invasion which they call “forced displacement.” It is tied in very closely with their 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of Agenda 2030.

Moderator of the debates was Marta Foresti, Principal Research Fellow and Director of the Overseas Development Institute’s (ODI) Human Mobility Initiative. The ODI is self-described as the U.K.’s leading independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues. One of the goals of the Human Mobility Initiative is to shape global migration narratives.

 “The 2030 Agenda represents the first time that migration, mobility and global inequality are interlinked under the global development framework. While debate has often focused on the needs of the most vulnerable migrants, less discussed is the decisive role that migrants and forcibly displaced populations play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially when it comes to their contribution to the host communities.”

I am not sure how the migrants sneaking into our country illegally across the southern border or brought in by buses and planes by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with the knowledge and blessing of our own government which gives them the money to settle these “refugees,” constitutes displacement and how they contribute to our unwilling “host” communities. These individuals become welfare recipients as soon as they are enrolled for all handouts our government can provide, to the detriment of our poor citizens and veterans who must struggle to find and pay for medical care and housing.

Organizations participating in this event include:

-          the International Organization for Migration (IOM)

-          International Rescue Committee (IRC)

-          High Commissioner of the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR)

-          the European Commission

The event is organized by:

-          the International Organization for Migration (IOM)

-          the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

-          the International Rescue Committee (IRC)

-          the Danish Refugee Council (DRC). 

Antonio Vitorino said, “By embracing this reality, we can open up the potential for migrants to be agents of change at local, national, and global levels. Safe, orderly, and regular migration can be a powerful force to truly ensure that no one is left behind.”

How exactly is our problem to make sure that no one is left behind? Is it not the problem of their governments to provide for the welfare of their citizens? We certainly send enough humanitarian aid to many third world nations. Why must we foot the bill for all their failures on a personal and national level? Are women not accepting their submissive and second-class citizen role and do they not continue that submission even when they migrate to western and free societies?

“Women and girls in crisis are suffering a double disadvantage – because of where they live and because of their gender. It’s clear that the humanitarian sector needs to take more seriously the inequalities of power between men and women that drive unequal outcomes. The sector should try to create a double dividend – tackling the symptoms of disadvantage, as well as the power imbalances that generate them – by setting clear targets for women and girls in crisis as part of the Sustainable Development Goals and establishing a sector-wide Gender Equality Scorecard with shared metrics for success.” (David Miliband, IRC President and CEO)

It is important to note that there are few women and girls among the throng of male economic invaders. They do not seem to have suffered much in their countries as they are well dressed, fed, clean, and sporting the latest electronic gadgets, including expensive iPhones.

Kelly T. Clements, Deputy High Commissioner for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)  made remarks about “the critical role of development actors to include refugees as important contributors to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in host countries.”

Why must we accept these 17 SDG goals which were developed mostly by U.N. representatives from third world countries interested in the redistribution of western wealth, supposedly worried about the fate of our globally warming planet which humans allegedly caused.

And speaking of population control, western nations already engage in demographic suicide through low birth rates while third world nations have much higher birthrates.

At the end of the day, no matter what euphemisms the U.N. and its affiliated NGOs create and use, the forced global migration and the forced flooding of the west with people inimical to our civilized society and to Christianity, are forms of population control. You will be socially engineered as U.N. desires, you will give up your hard-earned wealth to those less fortunate and less hard-working than you, give up your sovereignty, and you will like it.

"Useful Infidels" Vetting Refugees

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”  - George Orwell

When America was great
Photo: Wikipedia

When truth has been replaced with moral relativism and progressivism teaches our American children through high school programs such as the International Baccalaureate and Common Core standards that they are global citizens, love of one’s country is bad, proselytizing for Islam in school curricula at the expense of Christianity is good, and socialism and the Islamisation of Western civilization have become the norm, it is time to worry.  America is “harboring in New York its own worst enemy,” and financing it with taxpayer dollars. It is time to stand up to the U.N. and its forced globalization programs, including the “refugee” relocation.

“Progressivism is anarchy and spiritual disorder.  It is an ideology of the global left which is based on envy. If you have something and I don’t, you can’t have it, neither can I, and I will destroy it.” Brainwashing our children in schools in this vein is a form of psychological warfare, teaching them about non-existent white privilege in order to anger non-Caucasians and instigate hate and division.

Closer to home, the Virginia Refugee Resettlement Program “Provides services to all refugees without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, or political opinion.” It is humane and Christian to help someone in temporary need but we have enough needy people in our own country, do we need to import the citizens and problems of other nations, and shouldn’t countries of the same religion that are much closer to the conflict zone offer refuge first?  Must they migrate across the globe? http://www.dss.virginia.gov/files/division/cvs/rr/state_plan/entire_plan/Virginia_2016_RR_State_Plan_submission_.pdf

And if we do offer services regardless of political opinion, would it not be important to our citizens’ safety to know which one of those admitted come here to destroy us because they despise our way of life and their holy book commands it?

Don’t we owe our own citizens a modicum of safety? Do we want to turn our country into a failed Europe, into Merkel’s Germany, an invaded country that has been deliberately flooded by its own liberal leaders in the name of pacifism and political correctness while Germans quietly accept their fate?

Should we not vet these people properly instead of saying that we do when in reality everybody knows that there is no known data base in their countries of origin that would flag problem refugees? And why are there most of them males with no skills or education who become wards of the state immediately, on the dole provided by hard-working Americans who are struggling to feed and support their own families?

If you were a newly arrived “refugee” who came from a poor part of the world, given to tribal strife and wars for two thousand years, would you not be elated to be cared for by American taxpayers’ generosity administered through the Refugee Assistance Program? In Virginia alone, newcomers become beneficiaries of the Refugee Cash Assistance Program (RCA) which is consistent with its Temporary Assistance to Needy Family Program (TANF).

“The Office of Newcomer Services collaborates with the Department of Social Services Division of Benefit Programs on the inclusion of cash, medical, employment, and support services for refugees in its Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF program guidance documents.” (p. 7) http://www.dss.virginia.gov/files/division/cvs/rr/state_plan/entire_plan/Virginia_2016_RR_State_Plan_submission_.pdf

The lofty goals stated are “durable economic self-sufficiency and social integration in Virginia’s communities.” Most of the areas where refugees have been inserted are conservative, small, and are unable to cope financially with a group in disarray, as the newcomers have no intention of integrating into orderly society or learn the language, they expect everything to be translated and conducted into the language of their countries, following their customs and Sharia Law which is antithetical to our Constitution and rejects American democracy.

Brian Sussman stated recently in a radio broadcast that we are vetting Syrian refugees incorrectly. We should not be vetting them for terrorism; we should vet them for “their acceptance of Sharia Law which will ultimately lead to terrorism.” Many who are settled into our small communities overnight, without local knowledge, are not even Syrian, they are Somalis or some other African Muslims.

Do we not care who comes into our country? Do we not care about the safety of our children and our families, of our fellow Americans? Do we not care if these migrants are not contributing to the betterment of America?

How are they going to improve our lives? Are they going to assimilate into our culture? Are they going to go back once this particular Shia/Sunni conflict ends in the Middle East and, will this tribal and religion-based millennial conflict ever end, especially when the flames are fanned by superpowers with industrial military complex interests?

We were told that we were involved in order to improve their lives over there, getting rid of their dictators, so they can live in peace and harmony, the Shia and the Sunni together, and now we are bringing them over here. It’s not enough that they have colonized Europe; they are now going to colonize us.

We spent money, treasure, trillions of dollars fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to make a better country for them, a democracy like ours, our American men have died there or have lost their limbs and now they are all coming over here to take over our country under the guise of refugees. Why not bring in an equal number of Christian refugees? Thousands and thousands have been raped, tortured, and slaughtered by ISIS, and their Coptic Christian churches burned.

These “refugees” are never going to assimilate, it is neither their intent nor interest, they just want to occupy the country and transform it, they want to install Sharia Law; they don’t want to speak our language, nor respect our laws, they are violent and anti-American. They wait patiently for such a time when they can take over our country through demographics.  Each man can have four wives and thus fertility rate is high, while our western fertility rates are declining below replacement value. They are conquering us through the womb.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a U.N. program, helps people displaced by conflict. UNHCR “mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself, assisting in “their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, this member organization of the United Nations Development Group was established at the end of WWII in order to address the millions of people displaced across Europe as a result of WW II. The Milanese Filippo Grandi is the 11^th United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees who runs the agency. http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/the-high-commissioner.html

Bruce Bawer wrote in his 2006 book, “While Europe Slept,” about the wave of immigrants spanning many decades as “refugees” and “asylum seekers,” migrating as “a consciously planned act of subversion,” no longer as guest workers.  He mentioned the “traditional Islamic division of the world into Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (the non-Muslim House of War, so called because Muslims living in it are commanded to bring it under Islamic rule through jihad).” (pp. 28-29)

Since the recent conflicts in Libya, Egypt, and Syria, we can add other nationalities to the “refugees” migrating for the economic heaven of EU countries with generous welfare systems.
Bawer described in vivid detail the murder of the Dutch filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh, at the hands of Mohammed Bouyeri, the son of Moroccan parents and a member of a radical Muslim network. He pinned to Van Gogh’s chest with a knife a five-page letter addressed to Parliament member Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

“I know definitely that you, O America, will go down. I know definitely that you, O Europe, will go down. I know definitely that you, O Hirsi Ali, will go down.”  (Bruce Bawer, “While Europe Slept,” Broadway Books, New York, 2006)

Bruce Bawer wrote, quoting from the Jyllands-Posten, “There is only one answer to violence, threats, revenge killings, taking the law into one’s hands, blackmail, private justice, blood feuds, camel  economics and imams who have not understood what society and what century they live in: NO!” (p. 212)

Should we sleep like Europe and allow radical Islam to destroy the West from within? Should we not pay attention to the multicultural elite, the “useful infidels,” who promote the admission of even more improperly vetted “refugees” into our country? And for the Islamophiles who consider the rest of us racists and xenophobes because we question the sanity of this planned invasion, Islam is not a race.

 

 

 

 

National Biometric ID Cards in Africa

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is expressing today its support for the  meeting in Niamey, Niger, January 25-26, 2016, of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission Heads of Immigration on “irregular immigration and roll-out of the National Biometric ID Cards.” http://www.iom.int/news/iom-supports-ecowas-meeting-national-biometric-id-cards-task-force-irregular-migration-0

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) project called “Support to Free Movement of Persons and Migration in West Africa (FMM) is funded by the European Union (EU).

According to the IOM news release, the meeting focused on “high mobility from and within West Africa, where intra-regional and irregular migration feature prominently in the political agenda of most West African governments.”  South-South migration and irregular migration flows to Europe are recognized as a twofold challenge in Africa and the Middle East.

Because ECOWAS believes that intra-regional migration is essential in the African region’s economic growth and stability, the need for the “rapid development of a national biometric identity card” has been recognized. Such a biometric ID card would replace the travel certificate used in the ECOWAS member states.

Of the million migrants that crossed the Mediterranean into Europe in 2015, many of whom were from West Africa, approximately 3,700 died en route. To protect migrants and combat human smuggling, the ECOWAS Free Movement Directorate is going to establish a Task Force on “irregular migration.”

According to IOM, Irregular migration is the “Movement that takes place outside the regulatory norms of the sending, transit and receiving countries. There is no clear or universally accepted definition of irregular migration. From the perspective of destination countries it is entry, stay or work in a country without the necessary authorization or documents required under immigration regulations. From the perspective of the sending country, the irregularity is for example seen in cases in which a person crosses an international boundary without a valid passport or travel document or does not fulfil the administrative requirements for leaving the country. There is, however, a tendency to restrict the use of the term "illegal migration" to cases of smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons.” https://www.iom.int/key-migration-terms

In layman’s terms and law-abiding citizens’ logical understanding, citizens who respect borders and sovereignty, “irregular migration” is illegal immigration dressed up in United Nation’s progressive euphemism and bureaucratic-speak.

The Task Force will “combat irregular migration, fight trafficking and smuggling, and protect vulnerable migrants in the region.” People who abhor 21^st century slavery still practiced by a certain religion would like to know if the Task Force considers fighting the human slave trade and sex trade that ISIS is involved in.

The participants in the meeting in Niger are ECOWAS member states heads of immigration, ECOWAS Commission, Spanish and French government representatives, FMM staff, IOM staff, and the European Union Delegation in Niger.

A two-day visit to Agadez is also planned. Agadez is a “primary transit point for irregular migrants crossing from West Africa to Europe.” This begs the question, if all these organizations and the authorities know exactly where the primary transit point for illegal immigration and human smuggling is, why don’t they take measures to stop it?

The reason is probably the fact that the FMM West Africa project, an EU-funded effort implemented by the Consortium of Partners, “seeks to maximize the development potential of free movement of persons and migration in West Africa.” http://www.iom.int/

In layman’s terms, the ultimate goal is to erase borders and establish global citizens. To facilitate the free movement of persons across national boundaries, a U.N.-deemed “right,” a biometric ID card will speed up the process of controlling massive movements of people.

 

 

 

 

Is There One Country Left Free of Communism Where One Can Retire?

Brasov, The Black Church
Photo: Wikipedia

Many Americans have asked me where they could retire away from this country’s advancement towards Marxism. I was wracking my brain trying to find a place that would be suitable for my retirement years where I could continue to live in the relative freedom I found in the 1970s America. As long as we follow the law, we have nothing to hide and nothing to fear except the arm of “environmental justice” and “social justice.”

After all, who wants to live their formative youth years under the Iron Curtain of communism and then their retirement years under the boot of communism on steroids in America? The Eastern Europeans’ Security Police were novices when compared to all sorts of 24/7 electronic surveillance in the U.S. , more sophisticated than the Soviets could have ever devised.

We have smart meters, water meters, gas meters, A/C meters, smart appliance meters, drones attached to our homes, flying drones, NSA spying, laptops, smart gadgets, smart TVs, smart phones, social networks like Facebook, and many other devices I don’t even know exist, aimed at controlling everything that we do, speak, create, think, and write.

In a sense, we are surrounded by regular police in the streets, cameras on every street corner, building, or intersection, and security police on a mountain top, usually college graduates in their best pajamas or fatigues, watching a bank of monitors, not just the lowly street-snitches variety, who recorded long time ago our comings and goings, or the poor shmucks who recorded, listened to our conversations, and wrote a report at the end of the day.

Is there such a place on the planet where communism/totalitarianism no longer exists? Not really, since global communism is not just on a relentless march, it is on a trot, thanks to government elites around the world and the United Nations.

A Romanian journalist suggested in a recent article that retirees should move back to Romania, more specifically, to the Brasov-Sinaia-Sibiu region, an ideal place where life in general resembles the life in a resort with clean streets, little traffic congestion, fresh mountain air, relatively inexpensive housing, and a very good standard of living. Not sure about the medical amenities which retirees usually need. I am sure there are some private clinics.

His invitation was not based on altruism and care for the wellbeing of the retirees as much as the uncomplicated financial salvation of the Romanian struggling economy affected by the worldwide deep and prolonged recession. 

Based on his calculations, the average retiree would spend monthly 600 euros and save 400 euros. I cannot imagine being able to save 40 percent of their gross income in such hard times, but I will go along with his overly optimistic formula.  

If 100,000 Romanians living abroad would repatriate in the next five years, and each family would invest 50,000 euros in the Brasov area as an epicenter of development, it would result in a 5 billion euro of new infusion of cash benefiting economic growth in housing, apartments, consumption, and services such as medical, tourism, transportation, construction, and other basic household goods.

Investors would not have to wait on corrupt politicians to fund economic development sporadically after they had squandered on themselves and on their pet projects the bulk of the money earmarked for economic development for impoverished areas that truly needed it.

Living well and salvaging the Romanian economy at the same time seems like a no-brainer, a win-win situation for everyone. There is a little nagging question in the back of my mind, a sort of “what if” based on my pessimistic realpolitik experience with Marxists.

The European Union brand of socialism that has been infused into Romania with the new capital for economic development, for environmental “green growth” projects, and other partnerships with corrupt politicians that were already scions of former hard-core commies, has given rise to a new class of global communism supporters who could confiscate or nationalize wealth, pensions, bank accounts, and investments just for “social justice” and the “common good.”

So, the short answer to the question, is there a place where you can retire away from communism, is no, the reason being that it has gone global.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

Illegal Aliens from Failed Socialist Economies or War Refugees?

As our government is insanely arranging flights at taxpayer expense for Honduran children so that they don’t have to make a dangerous trek across Mexico  and pay coyotes $5,000 to invade our country illegally, their president is smiling, making no excuses for his inept and corrupt administration or the fact that this “refugee” airlift will encourage a continuous flow of illegal immigration to grow the ranks of Democrat voters in the U.S., moving large numbers of Hondurans and displacing American citizens.

A correspondent named Robert proposed a solution that the main stream media is not willing to discuss. He suggested that the illegal immigrant children now baptized “refugees” of war by the United Nations be reunited with their parents and guardians who should then be immediately arrested for child abuse and endangerment. Such parents should be placed on a watch list and never allowed to enter the United States, never be issued a visa, and never be permitted to apply for permanent residence or American citizenship.

Illegal alien “children” have been shuttled and resettled in our cities around the country for months now without the knowledge or vote of the local population. As Eleanor Holmes Norton, the representative for the District of Columbia, said, “you don’t have a right to know what is going on in government.” http://washingtonexaminer.com/eleanor-holmes-norton-says-you-dont-have-a-right-to-know-whats-going-on-in-government/article/2551313

I would like to think that, when it comes to taxpayer funds and communicable diseases, some of which are incurable, and to the safety of our neighborhoods from MS-13 gangs walking across the border without questions asked, the citizens of the United States who are footing the bill and suffering, have a right to know.

The citizens of Suitland, Maryland should have known the whereabouts of illegal aliens dumped close to their neighborhood since six MS-13 illegal aliens stabbed to death Amos Jones, a homeless man. http://weaselzippers.us/194474-six-ms13-illegal-aliens-murder-homeless-man-in-maryland/

Sending the 1,000 National Guardsmen to the southern border may help corral  the flood of illegal aliens, transport them, and do surveillance. However, on Newsmax TV, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said, “They can’t actually arrest anybody. They can detain illegal immigrants temporarily if they find them, but only the Border Patrol can arrest people.” Unfortunately, the Border Patrol agents have been reassigned to diaper duty, bottle feedings, lice baths, “making sandwiches and filling out paperwork instead of trying to keep illegal immigrants and smugglers out.” http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/Rick-Perry-Mark-Krikorian-border-legal/2014/07/23/id/584499#ixzz38TxlbSbn 

Butler County Sherriff Richard Jones was complaining about the flood of illegal aliens who are committing crimes and bringing drugs into his county.  A teenaged illegal alien molested an elderly lady and an 8-year old girl. Violence is on the rise even though his Ohio county is so far away from the border with Mexico.  Butler County spends “eight to ten million dollars each month on welfare programs, which he called ‘free stuff,’ and said that’s ‘some of the reason that they come here.’” http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/25/heres-what-happened-after-an-ohio-sheriff-sent-a-bill-to-the-mexican-president-for-the-illegals-in-his-jail/

New Jersey residents were so upset about the 1504 illegal alien children dumped in their state that they are organizing protests in Trenton, Morristown, and Middletown on October 24-25. http://theeconomicguardian.com/wp/?page_id=328

Boston organized the largest rally on Beacon Hill “against Obama’s illegal aliens.”  Buzzpo.com reported 10,000 people who protested the dumping of illegal aliens in their city.  And they are not children, most of them are teenagers, 15  or older. http://buzzpo.com/10000-rally-boston-obamas-illegal-aliens/

According to the Justice Department’s Immigration Courts, 46 percent of illegal immigrant “children” do not show up for their court hearings, an estimated 46,000 out of the 100,000 who were apprehended in the last two years. http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20140722-migrant-children-are-no-shows-at-dallas-immigration-hearings.ece

Alipac is reporting that schools are bracing for the impact the enrollment of at least 30,340 illegal children will have on their communities and the education of their own children.  Bringing down averages and overwhelming poor schools are just the tip of the iceberg. Some cannot count to ten, are really sick with tuberculosis, have not been vaccinated,  can’t turn on a computer because  they’ve never seen one, are home sick, have been abused or molested during the trek across Mexico, and do not speak English or Spanish, they speak Mam, a Mayan dialect spoken in Chiapas, Mexico, and parts of Guatemala. http://www.alipac.us/f12/us-schools-brace-flood-central-american-immigrant-students-308182/

The Daily Caller reported that Texas received 4,280 students, Virginia 2,234, Maryland 2,205, North Carolina 1,191, and New Jersey 1,504. Fairfax County, Virginia enrolled this year 5,192 Central American students, 22 percent more since 2011. Few speak English and perform several  years below grade level. Some students are old enough to be in college.

The administration is calling the regime’s  290,000 illegal aliens immigrants even though immigrant is a term reserved for legal immigrants. http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/05/border-meltdown-obama-delivering-290000-illegals-to-u-s-homes/

It is painfully obvious to anyone why cartels and terrorists are allowed to invade America  - and they do not discriminate between political views, they steal, rob, and murder anybody with impunity. Are the millions of extra Democrat votes worth the loss of our country to ethnic displacement and replacement?

Will Canada, U.S., and Mexico be the new North American Union without borders, with its own currency, the Amero, replacing the deliberately destroyed dollar?

 

Butler on Business, June 26, 2013

Radio chat with Alan Butler on carbon dioxide as a culprit for global warming. I come on at the 40 minute mark.
http://host1.cyberears.com//19804.mp3

The Sustainability Shoe Dilemma

A beautiful pair of sandals caught my eyes. The beading design on top in red, white, and black reminded me of an African motif I had seen on Nat Geo years ago. The flat shoe had an elegant zipper in the back, adding it a touch of modern and chic. I decided to try them on.

The box was rather interesting; it looked like a beige paper-wrapped package that arrived from Kenya, with embossed fake postage, stamped, Nairobi. The sender’s address in the upper left hand corner was the information that it contained a pair of sandals shipped from Kenya via Spain. A brown map of the world showed the red route that the “authentic Maasai design” sandals had traveled to make it into this beige box.

Touting that “another world is possible,” these intricate sandals were “ornamented in Kenya” and made in Spain. The box also told me that each sandal was “embroidered by a Maasai woman from Kenya in the shade of an acacia tree.”

“Each bead, which reflects the essence Maasai culture tradition and craft skills, has been placed with the spirit of hope and enthusiasm for a prosperous, sustainable future. Thank you for supporting this initiative.” Didn’t Native Americans use beading as well?

I became intrigued when I saw the word “sustainable.” The price seemed rather steep, $200, but they were very comfortable and flexible. I ordered a pair in my favorite design color, teal, and waited.

When my box arrived, I opened the package with anticipation and was instantly disappointed when the content revealed a different pair with the exquisite beaded design of the American flag. I love and respect our flag. I believe that it is sacrilegious to wear the flag on your feet. The flag is made to be flown and draped over the caskets of heroes, not to be used as a door mat, bathing suit, swim trunks, or shoe ornaments.

But I found a glossy inside talking about the story of this brand. This was no ordinary shoe. It was a project developed by the non-governmental organization (NGO) called ADCAM (Association for Development, Alternative Trade and Microcredit) which “specializes in empowering women in developing countries and focuses on establishing stable trade channels with developed nations.”

I was getting warm and fuzzy when the brochure said that when we, the often maligned and “greedy” capitalists, buy these expensive shoes, we are supporting the NGOs vision of “Corporate Social Responsibility,” collaborating with communities that need corporate social responsibility most, and we are pioneering the NGOs quest for developing fair trade.

Here I was, supporting the initiative of integrating United Nation’s desire of Sustainability with comfortable shoes and fashionable bags. Bingo! The Maasai preserved their traditions and lifestyles and I got the light and color of Africa for $200. How clever!

The brochure said, “The Maasai tribe is one of the most threatened on the planet according to the UN” and the international sales revenue from the shoes and bags “pays fair wages to support 1,600 families with stable source of income that allows them to obtain basic needs items such as food and medicines.”

If the 1,600 women received income from just nine pairs of sandals, it is $1,800, exceeding Kenya’s per capita income of $1,700 a year. According to the International Monetary Fund, Kenya is at number 154 out of 183 countries in per capita income. By now, if the shoes sold well, the Maasai families in the project and their tribe should be quite well off. They kept accounting and orders straight even though they do not have computers or technological literacy.

There is even an Ambassador of the Maasai Project for the 2013 collection, who apparently visited the women in Kenya and Tanzania who make the beading by hand. “The women shared with Olivia, their hopes and dreams for taking this project forward in a sustainable way and for making the beautiful sandals and bags available throughout the world.”

I am not sure how the project is moved forward in a sustainable way, but I wondered how much these women were paid in fair wages, what is their definition of a fair wage, and why is the Maasai tribe the most endangered in the world.

According to one site, eco-tourism prompted big government to create parks and reserves without the input and consent of the indigenous people.

http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/Jones/maasai.htm

The Maasai and other pastoral groups squeezed off their lands created their own NGOs in order to go to court to defend their land rights. Isn’t the government ultimately responsible for the social welfare of their people? Why do United Nations and NGOs step in to demand social responsibility from corporations and citizens of other countries?

The dilemma is that part of me applauds the idea of helping employ women in dire living conditions and poverty, but part of me is repulsed by the “sustainable eco-chic” label, the NGOs demanding social responsibility, the United Nations forcing Agenda 21 policies on developed countries, and, most of all, by the blatant disrespect for the American flag.

How much of the profit is actually shared with the Maasai women who do such tedious and labor intensive bead work? One magazine claims that “all profits from the sales of the Maasai Project are put towards the creation and further development of these community projects that support the Maasai Mara National Reserve in both Kenya and Tanzania.”

http://myculturemagazine.com/pikolinos-these-shoes-arent-just-made-for-walking/

Ultimately, I venture to say, the women’s lives in Kenya will probably be less enriched than the coffers of the NGO and the Spanish brand that sells the sandals world-wide. 

It is glitz, glamor, and greed, carefully packaged in the brochure with tug-at-your-heart strings propaganda. A quote from Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, appears at the end of the glossy. “Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You are just talking.” What does this have to do with selling expensive sandals? Regretfully, I returned the shoes.