When I was younger, I used to love to fly, that was before 9/11, before the necessity of uber-security and before the dubious financial problems of most major American air carriers. I still have a passion for travel, but in today's climate of fear, the flying part really sucks. It's not just the indignity of having your person and belongings scrutinized repeatedly, but many airlines have taken to filing an assortment of chapters of bankruptcy, 11, 13, 26, 102,(there's not really a 26 and 102, I made that up) in order to avoid paying retirement pensions and in some cases the workers have had to take pay cuts, and the affect of these cuts to workers are very visible in the new services that they now offer. I never minded standing in lines, and my legs don't require a lot of room, but being warned away from using the business class restroom is a little humiliating, and being barked at by a blond in a ridiculous blue skirt for not closing my breakfast box is just plain annoying.
And in the back of my mind, there is always the worry that the mechanic responsible for checking the screws on the wheels might have just lost his pension and might not be as concerned with safety as he should be.....
But at the end of the degradation, I ended up in Buenos Aires. Which I have to tell you is worth being crammed in an economy seat for 10 hours. It's a beautiful city, full of amazing architecture, interesting history, and wonderful parks. Argentina seems to have survived the tumultuous period of military juntas, and civil unrest. The brief experiment with uber-capitalism, the massive privitization that caused complete economic collapse in 2001, appears to have receded and to me Argentina looks poised for great things, they have plans to pay back the burdensome loans from the IMF and have reported some 1.6 billion in surplus for 2005. There are some amazing stories of factories and hotels that were bankrupt and abandoned by the owners during that period of experimental neo-liberalism. In a few cases, the workers actually refused to abandon their jobs, and took over the operations of the failed establishments and turned them into profitable competitive enterprises. The NAFTA's and AAFTA's have not worked for the people of South America, and we should welcome this new movement of self determination as a great thing, much like the European Union. Concentration of wealth and power in the US and Europe isn't good for those of us who have a desire to live in the world at large, and the curiosity to see things you have only ever read about in books.
Everywhere in South America, there are signs of change for the positive. The newly elected indigenous leader of Bolivia who promotes coca, but not cocaine, and has already begun a campaign to rid his country of corrupt officials. Michelle Bachelet, the first woman President of a Latin American country, has vowed to create a Cabinet composed equally of men and women. If a woman, not the widow of an assassinated President, divorced and agnostic, in a country still under the dark influence of the Catholic Church, has weathered the dangerous and brutal requirements of the electoral process in South America, then why can't it happen here? If Argentina with its recent history of civil unrest and isolationism can open its doors to tourism and leave behind the suspicion and loathing of the past, then why can't we? If America, the richest and most powerful nation on the planet can't achieve economic justice and gender equality, then who will? Will Americans look to countries like Argentina and South Africa for signs of tolerance and justice? Will the nations that we once considered "Third World" create the sort of social democracy and economic equality that we Americans are supposed to believe in? Will the true demoracies of this century be led by those countries who have suffered from the harsh protectionist policies of the nations that advocate free trade? Where will we Americans immigrate when all of our jobs have been outsourced?
Be kind to those who don't speak the language. You might find yourselves walking around in those Payless Shoes sooner than you think, and needing a simple translation of words to get to the bus stop. But have hope, I've already been there, and they treat foreigners and people stricken by poverty much better than we do. It's always good to know that there are places to find sanctuary, and a respite from globalization.
