Don’t you just love having the opportunity to buy any type of fruit or vegetable at any time of the year from your local supermarket? Sure, we have some minor seasonal price fluctuations, but by and large the fresh produce is always there year-round, and at a reasonable price.

With enhanced transportation and communication capability, the world has indeed become a much smaller place. Our florists can have fresh cut flowers delivered daily from California, Holland or the Far East. In the dead of winter here in Parker County, we can take advantage of the fact that it is summertime in the southern hemisphere and we can enjoy their bounty of fresh produce. We can have live Maine lobster or Alaska king crab to drop in our pot instead of dried pinto beans. Ain’t life grand!

Sadly, there are other aspects of our global lifestyle. Today, every feature of our culture and lifestyle is being affected by outside influences. We like to think that we are intelligent enough to choose the beneficial parts and simply ignore the negative aspects. I don’t know who is kidding who, but we

Americans are extremely vulnerable to influences intent on destroying our culture and our civilization.

Perhaps I wasn’t as astute as some, but I really wasn’t aware of this sweeping change to a global economy until about 20 years ago. In retrospect, I can see earlier influences that to me, didn’t seem to be significant at the time.

A couple that should have raised red flags in the early 1970s were Richard Nixon’s diplomatic breakthrough with China and the first great gas crisis, which didn’t even exist. These happened about 35 years ago, and today they are primary features of our current lifestyle. We have become increasingly dependent on foreign oil, and our domestic manufacturing capability is virtually nonexistent.

Prior to this new world order, we had industrial capability unparalleled in the annals of time. In the past few decades we have shipped all this capability off-shore in order to take advantage of cheap labor, avoid taxes, and to bypass federal environmental, safety and regulatory oversight. American companies whose brand names we once trusted are no longer owned by Americans. The names are still the same, but for the most part, that is all they have in common with the older models.

Domineering companies like RCA, Maytag, Westinghouse, Whirlpool, Zenith and General Electric, names we grew up trusting, exist today in name only. Recently I bought a new Schrade Walden (Uncle Henry) pocket knife, and I was not surprised when I noted that it was made in China — like about 90 percent of everything else we buy today.

As we have shipped all of our better paying manufacturing jobs overseas, we have sacrificed much of an aspect of American life I’m not so sure we can afford — our middle class. A prosperous middle class has always been one of the most defining features of America.

In typical Third World and despotic nations, a small segment of the population controls an overwhelming percentage of the wealth. We need look no farther than Mexico to see why so many are willing to risk all to escape the poverty and seek a better life in the U.S. As long as the Vicente Foxes of Mexico control 98 percent of the wealth, what options are available to escape the squalor within their society?

In addition to throwing away our manufacturing capability, our economy, our national security and our freedom from extortion by oil producing nations, we have endangered our very existence even farther by allowing every aspect of our nation to become diluted by foreign influences.

Native populations of birds, mammals and fish are being overwhelmed by introduction of non-indigenous species. Fire ants, killer bees, SARS virus, mad cow disease, West Nile virus, and any number of imported vectors are plaguing us. How long will it be until we have seen our last live oak or red oak tree in Texas?

I haven’t seen a horny toad in 15 years, a bob white quail in five years, or a bald eagle in over five years. Every year I have seen a new viral disease that kills my tomatoes, a new insect to attack my fruit trees, a new medical threat from abroad, and a new contamination or threat to our food supply. How much longer can we resist these vectors?

You have to recognize the parallel of our current life with that of the American Indians 400 years ago. Millions died of introduced illnesses, they were overwhelmed by foreigners with strange customs, their food supply was eliminated, and their lifestyle was forever destroyed. They were turned into wards of the government condemned to live in poverty. All because they couldn’t or wouldn’t control their borders.

u

Larry M. Jones is a retired Navy Commander and aviator who raises cattle and hay in the Brock/Lazy Bend part of Parker County. Comments may be directed to larrj2@airmail.net. Columns submitted to The Weatherford Democrat by guest writers reflect the opinions of the writer and in no way reflect the beliefs or opinions of The Weatherford Democrat.