World Trade Organization (Nov. 18th)

    Today's class started with a more in-depth explanation on our written assignment, and an announcement of an interview test starting next week. At first I was shocked and worried about the interview test, but reflecting back on the past two semesters, consistently writing these blogs have helped me organize my thoughts and reflect on how I felt and reacted to the topics discussed in class. Regardless, a discussion point that surprised me was California having a label about their products being carcinogenic. Having these labels and providing people the opportunity to choose their products, and warn any dangers is a responsibility that corporations have. For example, as a vegan, I know that processed meats potentially cause cancer, and have are more likely to cause cancer than smoking a cigarette. Notwithstanding, I have never seen any label in Japan or any country notifying customers about this fact. Going back to the story  we discussed in class, California making these changes causes positive effects, and other states not doing the same thing surprised me. The celebrities, influencers, YouTubers are who I follow and watch on social media often talk about social issues like black lives matter, organic foods, voter turnouts, LGBTQ+ community, human rights violations and various other issues that permeate contemporary society. Therfore, I had assumed that that is the norm in America. However, when elections comes around, or when protests and strikes occur, a huge number of people disagree to issues that I thought everyone was unanimous about. So, it turned out that the information and perspectives that bombard my social media feed is definitely not representing all states, and rather may be the minority at times. Regardless, I strongly believe that not only other states in the US, but countries around the world, especially Japan, should implement labels that write whether a product could be carcinogenic. 

    In the second half of today's class, Mr.Paterson talked about EU having strict restrictions for their products, and only sell products that have been certified safe. Therefore, the EU did not accept food from the US, which predominantly are GMO foods, genetically modified and or sprayed with chemicals. As one would do, the EU took the US to the World Trade Organization (which is an entirely separated and independent organization from the UN). I had heard of this organization prior to today's class, but never really knew what they did, and finding out that not every country is involved was unexpected and quite surprising. The Dispute Settlement Body (DSU) of the WTO makes decisions on trade disputes among countries around the globe. Notwithstanding their prodigious responsibility in society, not once have they made a decision opposing against corporations. At first, I hypothesized that the reason behind this was because the WTO is not as large as the UN, nor does it have as much influence, so decisions can easily be manipulated. However, the reason Mr.Paterson stated was that the judges for DSU come from a coporation-involved background. This seemed insane to me because obviously these judges have personal, and strong bonds with corporations they used to work for, so there is no way these judges could stay neutral and make proper decisions. Moreover, the statistic "0% decisions opposing to corporations" clearly showcase that judges are not making fair, professional decisions, even though that is their one job. Overall, the significant majority of what I learned was yet again entirely new to me. Logically thinking, Japan who will go to extreme extents to be looked on with favour by the US, would never broadcast such issues. 

    On a separate note, when I asked Mr.Paterson about the end of term essay, we discussed quite a few things other than advice for my essay. For one, he said that he showed the documentary "Iraq Missing Billions" to several of his friends, and her wife's friends which I thought was something we can all do, and should do to at least spread the word. Although finding a perfect solution takes more time, money, knowledge, ability than those that I currently acquire, sharing a documentary is 

notes (regarding end of term written assignment):

political approach: did not want to lose countries paying in dollars. dollar hegemony. making the US powerful. 

corporation approach: 

media viewpoint: why does not everybody in the world know this. why was it not showed in the US? Japan and UK (which support the US) broadcasted it, oil companies oil radio, tv, newspaper

indoctrinated and told to not protest. japanese people are trained to stay in the middle. ingrained in Japanese homogenous society. 

the bottom line is that the extreme choice is sometimes the sensible choice. if we don't take action, they will effect you.

(documentaries)

- The story of stuff

-militainment

-war made easy