WHY SHOULD I CARE?
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During this lovely 4th of July long weekend, I was enjoying a margarita at a family bar-b-q, entertaining one of our gests from the mid-west. We started talking politics and she asked the inevitable question that so many people in this country ask. She said, "I know all this horrible stuff is going on in our world, like the problems in Liberia, but what difference does it make to my everyday life? Why should I care?".

Let's put the metaphysical moral issues and concentrate on the immediate physical realities of the globalized world we live in. With porous borders, free trade, air travel, and fast flowing information our world is getting smaller and smaller. It is taken for granted these days that what happens in one area greatly effects another. Now more than ever the effects of one country's problems are seen in the regions, even around the world.

How do these problems end up on our streets? In at least three major manners: terrorism, drug trafficking and disease. Currently, the government of the United States is engaged in two official wars that are inwardly turned: the "War on Terror" and the "War on Drugs". As well, the government is engaged in a struggle to contain the disease AIDS. We are not far off from a "War on AIDS"; perhaps if the Republicans were interested, this is what it would be called. Even though these three problems have significant home grown elements, it is clear that there major components of these "Wars" that originate from outside the USA.

In the most dramatic of senses, the "War on Terror" started with the horrific events of 9/11. And this more than anything made it abundantly clear, that what is wrong in other countries will impact everyday life in the United State. Failed states (like in Afghanistan), human rights abuses (as in Saudi Arabia) and economic underdevelopment abroad (such as just about anywhere in the Middle East) directly contributed to making conditions where terrorists can flourish and the reasons that terrorists site for their causes.

Daily we see the effects of the "War on Drugs" take its toll on our city streets. Crack Houses, gang wars, drive by shootings, terrible car accidents involving narcotics, needles in city parks all effect our every day lives. As well we have massive expenditures on law enforcement and many good people that fall victim to drug addictions and their lives are ruined by a punitive legal system. Much of the drugs that fuel this problem come from South America, Asia and Africa, funneled through Canada, Mexico and EU countries. Once again, lawlessness, lack of development, failed states, civil war, gross human rights abuses all contribute to making an environment abroad where the manufacture of dangerous drugs is the only method for social mobility.

Finally, the AIDS epidemic has been the worst health issue of the modern era, and it's spreading in the developing world. George W. Bush has all but declared his own "War on AIDS" in Africa with the $15 billion assitance package he has proposed. Once again, all the conditions listed above, especially an essentially non-existent health care system in developing countries makes conditions where diseases can spread. Some people (read: the few well to do people) in those countries can easily jump a plane and land in JFK airport, take the train to Grand Central Station and then ride the metro to their hotel. What if they have a violently infectious disease?

So there are three big reasons why we should care about far off places. Our world is just too small and too interconnected for us to be able to isolate a problem and say it does not effect our everyday lives. Should my friend care about what happens in Liberia? Damn straight. Because maybe a new Liberian terrorist organization will use the drug trade to finance their biological attack on the United States, by sending some of their members who are infected by a violent disease on to our city streets. I think caring is appropriate.