Avoid produce from mexico

Discuss the application of the Dharma to situations of social, political, environmental and economic suffering and injustice.
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Jesse
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Location: Virginia, USA

Avoid produce from mexico

Post by Jesse »

Imagine a workplace where bosses would strip people of their shoes to prevent them from running away. Or one where workers would be put on a no-pay list if they got sick. And a job site where bosses tied a worker to a tree and then beat him.

Earlier this week, we told you about unbearable conditions for workers at Mexican mega-farms, which now supply a huge portion of the tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and other produce consumed by Americans.

http://graphics.latimes.com/product-of- ... 41210-lnk3
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muni
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Re: Avoid produce from mexico

Post by muni »

Oh dear! :heart:
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Grigoris
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Re: Avoid produce from mexico

Post by Grigoris »

If we avoided produce and goods from every country in the world where the employees/slaves are treated like sh*t then I imagine we would only be buying from Canada and some Northern European countries.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
Arnoud
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Re: Avoid produce from mexico

Post by Arnoud »

Sherab Dorje wrote:If we avoided produce and goods from every country in the world where the employees/slaves are treated like sh*t then I imagine we would only be buying from Canada and some Northern European countries.
You forgot Greece.
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Grigoris
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Re: Avoid produce from mexico

Post by Grigoris »

Clarence wrote:
Sherab Dorje wrote:If we avoided produce and goods from every country in the world where the employees/slaves are treated like sh*t then I imagine we would only be buying from Canada and some Northern European countries.
You forgot Greece.
No I didn't. The influx of refugees from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Syria has lead to indentured workers paying off debts to their smugglers, uninsured workers getting paid next to nothing and being shot for asking for their wages, etc...
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Avoid produce from mexico

Post by Kim O'Hara »

See http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=12575 for a related thread on worker exploitation.

:coffee:
Kim
tlee
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Re: Avoid produce from mexico

Post by tlee »

When I take a step back from my normal interpretation of the world I see a similar situation for anyone that has been limited to working for others.

People in the USA sort of have options, though I doubt they are always feasible. And I imagine to some small degree people in Mexico in these situations do also.

The majority of people cannot secure employment that pays enough to buy a house in cash in the current economic structure. Meaning they either rent or have a mortgage for much of their lives which essentially means indentured servitude to the banks that have positioned themselves to be the ones others are indebted to and seem to have deliberately inflated housing markets to ensure the maximum time period of indebtedness possible.

I remember in 2008 when people were being laid off in cities and lost everything they had in 2 months and were struggling to survive.
If the employers decide they don't want you anymore and you don't have the ability to go into business for yourself then you might end up starving to death and being treated like a feral animal by the police.

I remember over hearing, well actually I was a witness, a police officer and a teen/young adult man debating. The young man was being evicted illegally by a land lord and the police officer was trying to coerce the man to leave on behalf of his friend the land lord. The police officer was saying to get a job, the youth was recently unemployed, and the youth was arguing that there were no jobs to get and no where for homeless people to legally go in the city. The landlord wanted him out because he knew the young man didn't have the next month's rent. The police officer said something about seeing 3 job ads in the paper and it was the youth's fault he was unemployed and the youth responded that there weren't enough jobs for the all the unemployed. The police officer said he had to keep trying to get that job. The youth asked the officer how many people he could tell that there was a job for them, when there were only three jobs available, before it would be a lying.(Sort of like telling people on the titanic there were rafts for everyone.)

That was really thought provoking to me and I suspect the youth would have been arrested if he hadn't confronted the police officer about the illegality of the eviction attempt and illegal evictions being one of the exemptions to police impunity (i.e. that officer could be sued, sentenced, etc.)

I don't know if life in the cities of the USA where there's not much opportunity to start a business or work for a fair wage is so different from Mexico.

I've been philosophically struggling to understand and form a valid opinion on the different structures societies take.
Like His Holiness prefer the idea of pure communism where everyone works equally and we all take care of each other's needs without oppressing anyone, but I tend to rule out this kind of utopia quickly as almost impossible for current humanity.

Most Americans don't eat many vegetables from what I've heard on the news. I don't, to be honest.
I will recycle the story to others none the less.
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