Global Topics

I wrote this piece with an assignment in mind for one of my classes in college. We were focusing on world oppression and how it effects the environment. My teachers felt that it was an important piece to share further. 

What We Call Legal Now
Years ago we did a thing called slavery
Displaced people from their homes and from their country
They worked for us for no pay, just allowed to live
Terrible food and awful conditions was all that we would give
That practice is illegal now, debunked, prohibited defaced
But instead of slavery being gone it is now replaced
 
We don’t kidnap anymore but we don’t really need to
They work for us across the seas for ten times less than they’re entitled to
We’d rather not destroy our environment but the people there are starving
Let them cut down their lush forests and drill for all the oil we’re wanting
We said we would help them live just the way we do
So we lent them money with high interest rates so they would do all we ask them to
We eat the beef Brazil exports their rain forest being the price
Madagascar has to hack down theirs so we can eat cheap rice
Malaysia’s rivers are poisoned now, from the high demands of global industry
We destroy their lands, to have more stuff, we don’t even need
 
So blame Brazil for destroying their forests, the third world for drilling for oil
As long as it’s someone else’s fault let the world spoil
But the truth of it is our cheap stuff we buy, use, and throw away
Is produced by people struggling to survive in horrible conditions every day
This is slavery in its essence just not shown so obviously
We use their labor, ruin their lands basically for free