globalization and cannon fodder

Angela is 52, married with four young adult sons at home and the whole family, including her husband, is struggling to make ends meet doing casual, menial work as a result of globalization.

"Last year, I was the only one in the family who had a job," sighs Angela, "and it broke my heart to see my husband and boys unemployed on welfare having lost their jobs to someone in India or China."

"Men need a decent man's job," sighs Angela. "Serving customers, answering phones, washing dishes or pushing a broom aren't decent jobs for able-bodied men, and it breaks my heart to see my men-folk doing this type of work. It's no wonder that so many young people are being forced into the army -- but I refuse to let my boys go down that route. Defending global oil supplies is certainly not defending one's country."

"Service jobs are the only type of jobs you can around here these days," says Angela. "Most of the manufacturing and technical jobs have gone offshore, and we're competing for jobs with immigrants who are willing to work for less money, too."

"If you're an immigrant, just starting off in a new country, you do this type of work because you can't speak the language or you don't know any better," says Angela, "but our families have been here for generations -- we're not immigrants!"

"What's worse is that these jobs aren't even real jobs - they're casual jobs," explains Angela. "I've been working 'on-call' for two years now and it's the most stressful working situation for anyone to suffer. You don't know if you'll have enough money to put food on the table from day to day. You just survive in the job because you have to."

"Who would have thought that people like us would end up like this in the new millennium?" asks Angela. "It's disgraceful and our government is just as much to blame as the global corporations for this globalization madness -- bringing in more immigrants than our country can support and offshoring our jobs."

"If I had known twenty-five years ago that not enough jobs would be available for everyone in the new millennium," says Angela, "I would have thought twice about getting married and I most certainly wouldn't have had children."

She quickly explains that she loves her husband and boys dearly, but seeing them unemployed or working in casual, menial jobs is too depressing for words.

"I was the youngest in a family of five children," explains Angela, "and I grew up with a hatred of poverty and hand-me-downs. I couldn't understand why my parents kept on having kids when they were so poor and I vowed that I would never have kids if I couldn't afford them."

"Don't accuse me of contributing towards overpopulation and corporate exploitation by having four kids," says Angela. "Twenty-five years ago this country didn't have enough people to fill the jobs available and the government gave us generous tax incentives to have more kids. How was I to know that the government would double-cross us - and serve the greedy corporations - by opening the floodgates to foreign immigrants?"

"I'm not against immigration or capitalism - I'm not a racist or a communist," says Angela, "but I thought the days of the robber barons ended after the great depression of 1929-1933. I'm angry that our government has allowed the corporate cowboys to bring my family, and thousands like us - including the immigrant families - down to dirt poor status."

Like most people, Angela believed that jobs would always be available for people willing to work and she would never have to worry about where the next penny would come from.

"Since we lost our regular jobs," says Angela, "I toss and turn every night worrying about how we are going to pay our bills, where we are going to find work and whether we'll be forced to sell our lovely house."

"Everyone complains about ageism in the workplace," says Angela, "but when a factory closes down - like ours did - both the young and the old lose their regular jobs."

"My husband keeps on telling me that as long as we have each other we are okay," sighs Angela, "but I'm a practical woman prone to worry about material things. I just hate being short of money to buy the things I want."

What most concerns Angela, though, is that her boys are growing up without job security and are likely to become cannon fodder, too.

"There aren't any real jobs any more," sighs Angela. "There's just a vast army of casual workers who are employed and dismissed by big and small employers alike according to profit demands.

"Back in the dark ages," explains Angela, "the kids of the poor people were just cannon fodder. There was always a war on somewhere, life was cheap and replacements were plenty. So, what happens when the corporate cowboys cut and run, leaving thousands of us jobless? Our government solves the problem by starting a war, rallying the religious right, and turns corporate fodder into cannon fodder. We're regressing, not progressing!"

"I don't want my kids to have that type of future," says Angela. "I didn't bring them into the world and make sacrifices to educate them just to see them begging for jobs and being grateful for a few weeks worth of work at some department store. And I certainly don't want to see them losing their lives in some war designed to fatten those greedy global parasites."

Angela sees the increase in social evils such as drug addiction, petty crime, youth suicide and murder sprees as being reflective of a sick society that churns out children for government and corporations to chew up and spit out.

"What else do these children have to look forward to?" asks Angela. "If you're not ivy league and belonging to an old money family, you're white trash these days."

Angela is telling her children, and anyone willing to listen, that the writing is on the wall and things are going to get worse.

"Western civilization as we knew it is in its death throes," sighs Angela, "and if you can't afford to buy your kids a secure job then you've no business having kids. It's a terrible situation for those of us who already have kids, and I want to warn young people to think twice before bringing another superfluous human being into the world to be used and abused by the corporate parasites."

"What decent parent would deliberately bring kids into the world knowing that they're going to become white trash and corporate cannon fodder?"

"I feel guilty when I listen to my kids' worries about the state of the economy and the terrible war being fought over oil and corporate greed for new markets and cheap labor," sighs Angela. "I brought them into the world and I'm responsible for their misery."

"This is not the type of world I want for my children," says Angela, "and we're toying with the idea of moving to the country and learning self-sufficiency. It's not the type of life I want for myself or my boys, but I'd rather they till the earth than operate the till at a dime store or bear arms against poor, blighted souls like us in some other land."

"In the meantime, we're taking a grassroots approach - we're hitting back at where it hurts them," adds Angela. "We're doing our bit for the type of world we want by refusing to buy the goods of the corporate fodder companies."

"If enough little people like us take a stand then it must make a difference," says Angela. "But the issue I really worry about is who is running the country - is it the government we elected to serve us, or is it the global corporations?"

"If our government isn't serving us -- and I truly believe it isn't," says Angela. "then the whole notion of democracy is a farce and we may just as well hand the reins over to the global corporations and make them, not stooge politicians and bureaucrats, responsible for the chaos and misery they've created."