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A Bi-Monthly Newsletter of the Inner Outer Partnership |
| Volume VI Edition 4 |
July/August |
2001 |
Foreign Policy:
More Than National Interest
~~Afghans who fled the Taliban are now stranded at the Tajikistan
border, lost in a kind of wilderness without food or shelter and victims to
the elements. On the other side of Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border,
refugee camps are overflowing and the Pakistani government says no to
anymore refugees. The suffering may not be in our back yard but
nevertheless ought to be on our conscience.
~~AIDs is devouring sub-Saharan Africa where in some countries up to
80% of the population is infected. The Bush administration is sending $200
million to help in the fight. The symbolic gesture may say "we are not
neglecting you" but is no more than a drop in an ocean, particularly
since this money is meant to also combat tuberculosis and malaria.
~~In a recent report, Amnesty International criticized the United
States for its opposition to banning land mines and its refusal to sign on
to the treaty.
As the community of nations becomes more intertwined, if through
nothing else but the flow of information, we can no longer remain unmoved
by what is happening outside our borders. The Ebola virus, for example, has
shown us that due to the ease of international travel a health epidemic far
away can have repercussions where we are. Regardless of how we may feel
about it, none is isolated. The family of nations affect each other as do
the members of a nuclear family.
Still our foreign policy is based on what now seems an old fashioned
notion of national interest. National interest is a requisite, to be
sure, when confronting terrorism and protecting the welfare of one's
citizens, but the cold war philosophy, of "me and them" and "us versus
others" that underlies the national interest model, no longer applies.
It just leaves too many out. The need for a change is evident. While many
reasons exist, foremost among them are humanitarian ones: Afghan refugees,
for example, ought to be helped regardless of politics or the national
interest of any nation; no one should endure loss of life or limb due to
land mines; a truly dynamic international effort to reduce AIDs world wide
would hugely decrease the rampant suffering due to AIDs. For the millions
attending church services weekly who somewhere in their prayers read or say
"do unto others," the mandate ought to be unambiguous. But there are
practical reasons too. Consider how the consequences of a civil war in
Nigeria affects oil imports, an assassination in Nepal affects tourism, or
a crisis in a government miles away affects the performance of one's
investments. In these post cold war days, the question is not whether, but
on what grounds, ought we to help other nations. As it stands our foreign
aid budget, contrary to public opinion which places it closer to ten
percent, is less than one percent of our national budget. If we are to
move towards being a family of nations, the only possible corollary to
being one humanity, then the new premise for conducting foreign policy is
quite clear. All we need is to work from it.
The Sex Trade: A Demand Problem
Young girls in Albania are being kidnapped. In Russia they are lured
with promises of fake jobs. In India it is faked marriages. In Thailand
young girls are sold into prostitution. The list can go on, pointing to a
dimension of the sex trade we do not sufficiently probe; that the demand
implied by such measures could not long be sustained without a
corresponding demand for services. And this is where we ought to place our
energies.
We are not suggesting that sex is bad, or even that paying for sex is
bad, not even that certain kind of sexual practices are bad. We are,
however, raising the issue of personal and societal values. What kind of
person pays for sex with a 12 years old? What kind of person has sex with
someone he knows albeit won't admit has been coerced in some way? What kind
of person pays for violent or dangerous sex feeling entitled to hurting
another because he (perhaps she) paid for it? Many decry the harm done to
sex providers, usually young women and young boys, while turning their
heads at those who make it possible, the users and consumers.
Personal freedom is an important value, but behavior that is harmful to
others ought to be labeled as such and shunned. As a society, we have no
sympathy for pedophiles even when we should, and yet we are overly lenient
to those who sustain the harm done to millions of sex workers throughout
the world.
There are many efforts to help young women free themselves, they are
necessary and praiseworthy. But no matter how many courageous people come
forth to rescue and give aid to these young people, the problem is
bound to continue growing unless we place emphasis on aiding and rescuing
those whose sexual appetites tend to harm others.
Medical Marijuana: When Will Its Time Come?
Marijuana is a drug. Some use it for recreation. Increasingly many
are using it for medicinal purposes, a fact the U.S. supreme courts recent
decision essentially denied. Their premise is that it is not only a drug,
it is an illegal one, and using it is wrong regardless. In an ideal world
judges of the U.S. supreme court as of anywhere else would have sufficient
wisdom not to make egregious errors. But this court, still unable to
conquer its frailties, rendered a decision which may be legal but appears
to us to be far from wise.
The medical and therapeutic values of Marijuana are being studied and
the evidence that it can soothe the pains of arthritis or those of
chemotherapy is mounting. New studies also point to its ability to control
nausea and help in weight loss. We must assume that drug companies are not
immune to the benefit of a plant so easily grown and available. Sooner or
later they will find ways to extract from it what is of benefit, put it
in pill form and market what will then be a legal drug at record prices,
certainly higher than the current cost. Among the decisions predictable
ripples are several state legislatures entertaining measures
counteracting it by legalizing medicinal uses. Nevada has recently passed
a bill allowing medical uses and defelonizing possession of small amounts up
to 7 plants for such purposes. Other states are in various stages of
passing similar legislation.
What adds to the shortsightedness and perhaps narrow-mindedness of
the decision is that many legal drugs are far more toxic than Marijuana.
In fact many cancer fighting drugs have a toxicity which no doubt
exceeds it. Tamoxifen, for example, an accepted breast cancer treatment, is
basically a carcinogen. Eventually Marijuana will be accepted on par with
Prozac, Taxol or Lipitor. Meanwhile the court's decision complicates
something that ought to have been simple. It becomes an invitation to
place legislative remedies on the often overloaded docket of
legislatures hardly a contribution toward the more compassionate, less
complex world hopefully forged by higher values.
Marketing One's Eggs
Women at Ivy League schools are being wooed not in the ordinary way.
This 21st century version seeks not their hands but their eggs. The usual
fee starting at $15,000 and often higher, has become a way for many tall,
blond, blue-eyed, intelligent young women to pay for their education or
whatever it is they may want. The compensation for more ordinary donors,
those without the physical features that may predict a career as a model
or the aptitude for neuro-surgery is closer to $3500.
Helen Rosenberg, a Rutgers University professor who has interviewed
1100 college donors, says they all admit " I have wonderful genes and my
eggs should be out there." In fact the motivation for both donors and
recipients is complex and getting more so. In many cases newer recruits
can feel somewhat like prostitutes and their brokers as madams. On their
side, recipients shop for donors who look like them and often want to
improve on human nature by choosing people who can match or exceed their
idea of the perfect child.
Medical advances have enabled us to demystify motherhood and achieve
more control over the reproductive process. It all looks so wonderful.
Young women paying for their education without the burden of loans,
infertile couples being given the chance to have a family, the society
having better athletes, scholars, or more healthy esthetically pleasing
citizens. But is it all as good as it looks? Are women's eggs a commodity,
or does this point to something else altogether? What does it say of
personal responsibility? Does it make the donors no different than the
scientists who created the atom bomb without sufficient thought as to its
negative uses and consequences? Even more fundamentally, it is an act that
sees life in terms of its physical aspects, since it is still quite
doubtful that traits like compassion, open-heartedness or generosity are
in our genes. Further, in evoking eugenics and in reinforcing certain
prejudices we already hold in regards to appearance for example that tall
is better than short could it not also reinforce discrimination? Still the
most egregious of the consequences seems to be one more way to strengthen
the materialism ethos the best that money can buy, only for those who can
afford it.
Web Site Of Interest: www.aheartbreakingchoice.com
The Lesser Of The Evils
At a time when late term abortions are labeled partial-births, when
pro-life takes on a narrow definition, and when public pressure is on
seeing pregnancies to term no matter what, some families still have to
struggle with agonizing decisions about certain kinds of problem
pregnancies. These are pregnancies with multiple or difficult problems,
with rare often incurable diseases or when it is already known the child
may not survive. Choosing to interrupt these "poor prenatal diagnosis"
pregnancies becomes no less than an act of bravery.
aheartbreakingchoice.com exists as a support for those parents and for the
professionals who work with them. There, parents can communicate with each
other and not feel so alone in their grief and predicament.
The site is of course informative but it is its raison detre, the
memorial garden listing the name of each child, why the pregnancy was
interrupted and a thought or phrase acknowledging a life that almost was,
that conveys the pathos. As one parent who lost a baby girl admitted to
this writer, "It's the only place where the world can know she lived." While
the sense of loss and the love are obvious, what these memorial listings
evoke is the soul searching that had to have accompanied the decision.
Trisomy 18, spina bifida, anencephaly, sirenomedia, Michel Gruber syndrome,
Wolt Hirshom syndrome, poly cystic kidneys, thanatophoric displasia, are a
few of the reasons, each pointing to a tragedy and to all the pains and
trauma associated with it.
There are those who feel the choice, heartbreaking as it was, ought
not to have been made. Perhaps this site is for them also because what is
clear is that it wasn't made lightly.
To Ponder On
Well, my shoes, they come from Singapore,
My flashlights from Taiwan,
My tablecloths from Malaysia,
My belt buckles from the Amazon.
You know, this shirt I wear comes from the Philippines
And the car I drive is a Chevrolet,
It was put together down in Argentina
By a guy making 30 cents a day.
Well, its sundown on the union
And what's made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
Til greed got in the way.
Bob Dylan, from "Union Showdown"(1983)
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