Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.Robert Louis Stevenson

Inner Life Directions

Expanding Reality

Danielle Levy

  • Anger Not Embarassment

    We might remember the story of those two young cousins in India who were gang raped, killed and hung on a Mango tree. The investigation revealed they were looking for a toilet, more precisely a place to relieve themselves, since their house had none. Worldwide, 2.5 billion live without access to basic sanitation, and that’s why this practice of open defecation as it is called, is far more widespread than we generally realize. Having no toilet forces people, including women and young girls, to walk to dark and sometimes dangerous places to find the privacy they need, and too often those are the places where attackers can hide. Attacking or harassing women in this way is therefore a problem in other countries as well, Nigeria, for example.

    2.5 billion people lacking access to basic sanitation means one in three in the world, and one billion of those, or 15% of the global population is currently forced to practice open defecation. Acknowledging that this is a topic we shun and feel embarrassed to even talk about, officials from the UN Millenium campaign said that it is a subject that should make us angry not embarrassed.

    If we could use the two young girls’ ordeal as a wake up call, as a spur to expand efforts bringing sanitation to those without, maybe they did not die in vain,

  • 273 To 1!

    What happens to SB 1372 currently before the California legislature is not important. Its very existence is what’s relevant since it is based on the ratio of CEO to workers’ compensation and as such highlights a reality behind the inequality that we frequently talk about these days. In 1965 says a study by the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs made 20 times what their median employees made. By 2012 the ratio had risen to 273 to 1! Leaving aside corporate culture and its values, can this ratio be spiritually, morally or ethically defensible? Spiritually, ethically and morally all humans are equals, not to speak of legally. And while differences among people are obvious, necessary and unavoidable, it’s difficult to see how they can justify a ratio of 273 to 1. It could easily be argued that this gap is nefarious to the moral fabric, to economic and social mobility, to the general culture and of course to the making of a fairer, sounder society.

    SB 1372 proposes to tax corporations with a CEO to worker ratio under a 100 lower and those above higher than the current rate. Its proponents hope for federal legislation along these lines. It’s doubtful it shall pass since the California Chamber of Commerce calls it a job killer, but given that the CEO of CVS Caremark Larry Merlo’s salary last year was $12.1 million or 422 times the median CVS salary of $28,700, it makes a needed point.

  • A Problem That Can Be Fought

    According to the UN global initiative to fight human trafficking, the trafficking of human being is the fastest growing form of international crime and the third largest criminal industry after drugs and arms trafficking. In some cases no doubt, some of the same people are perpetrators. A recent study by the International Labor Organization found that globally the illegal profits generated by human trafficking is $150 bn or 3 times what it was thought to be. It involves 21 million people, and about two thirds of the profits, ($99 bn) come from commercial sexual exploitation. The rest comes from forced labor, including domestic, construction and mining.

    Once the shock and cringing are over, the part of the report that ought to stay with us is what we can do to combat this. Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International, describing the persistence of slavery as one the modern economy depends on, says “ We have to realize the problem is one that touches us all… in a globalized economy we all buy products likely to be tainted by forced labor. That is why the governments need to take concrete steps to address forced labor across the world.” He suggests, for example, introducing extraterritorial legislation to make business executives responsible for slavery in their supply chains, and supporting a binding protocol strengthening international standards against forced labor.

    The point is being horrified is not enough, we must understand that no matter what governments individually and together decide to do, that these are problems can be fought.

Subscribe and Be Notified of New Posts

* indicates required

We will never sell or share your information, we promise.