The devil comes in different forms

I happened upon another story in one of the national dailies where the NMI is once again, viewed as a foreign country in the use of “loss of 20,000 American jobs” by the very existence of the local apparel industry here.

The combined misperception and misinterpretation isn’t surprising at all given the mind set who obviously have never even probed the accuracy of assertions, specifically, the net effect of the apparel industry shutting down its operations here.

Regardless of its location, the garment industry is a very marginal economic sector and any increase in the cost of labor instantly places it at its death bed. It is for this reason (and it is stunning that the learning curve has yet to set-in) that many US companies (Levi Strauss being the latest one) have relocated overseas either to Mexico and Latin American countries or Asia.

Why are they moving overseas? Because labor is cheap, i.e. $6.00 a day in Mexico versus $5.15 an hour or more in California. Now let us assume that the apparel industry in the NMI heads out the Tanapag Harbor. Would they head to California or would the more practical choice of venue–because of cheap labor–be somewhere in Asia?

Furthermore, the use of “loss of American jobs” completely ignores the loss of non-garment jobs in the apparel industry here for more than 3,000 local employees. Most of these employees are US Citizens of either Chamorro or Carolinian descent. Is it the policy of the federal government to kill Juan’s livelihood, an islander and US Citizen so that William Jefferson, a Californian US Citizen gets to live a normal life?

This is the basic tenet of our detractors’ argument which, in my view, is incoherent at best, racist at worse. I suppose this is what California Congressman George Miller seem to openly support in his dedicated efforts to protect the capital of apparel manufacturing based in his home state of California. It is indeed very worrisome that he’s given up his once coherent views on justice and equality shielding his warped cause in the name of human rights. Nice try, Congressman Miller, but we’ve caught up with your adolescent antics.

If you have any sense of integrity, then you would vigorously be pushing for this unrepresented group of US Citizens to be made a part of the most powerful chambers on earth so they too can rghtfully participate in policy decisions that affect them. You would have championed our often inaudible voices to ensure that all the boasting by the Clinton administration of a robust economy filters down even to this group of super minority situated outside the fringe of mainstream America. You would have fought for our inclusion and participation in the very essence of equality and justice in America’s participatory democracy.

But it must be a hellish experience to be trapped in the deep pockets of California’s textile labor unions who have your political career on a leash where you’re begging not when to jump, but how high and which direction must you leap because you would have lost your treasured political career if you do otherwise. Out the window goes your integrity for all along you’ve used the facade of human rights abuses to advance your political careeer. How sad that someday you’d sit back in your twilight years and wish you didn’t have to severely make life miserable for this group of US Citizens. Human rights, sir? What are we in your eyes, pawns to kick around at will because labor bosses said so?

At any rate, I’m contented in the sense that Divine Providence will always prevail against those who choose to violate the very essence of justice and equality against a helpless people under the “Stars and Stripes Forever”. And even for all your juvenile or adolescent undertakings, my country remains “America the Beautiful”. Yes, the devil comes in different forms.

Strictly a personal view. John S. DelRosario Jr. is publisher of Saipan Tribune