Exporting Appetite

I've been looking at the wooden pear crates here in my room
that were rescued from the trash at the local food Co-op
They make nice book shelves
they come from Argentina
but are merely packaging for the pears

The crates are ostensibly containers for imported pears
but aren't they really the product of our exported appetite
of the voracious beast made up of U.S. consumers
Isn't that what really creates the excesses of empire?

Aren't these crates really the remains of
destroyed forests?
Forests have life cycles of hundreds of years
destroying forests by cutting trees
to make packaging with a life cycle
only as long as it takes to ship its contents to market
sometimes its just a few hours
and so forests around the world
are shrinking and disappearing

Isn't it really our collective appetite
that created the IMF, World Bank, GATT and WTO
the institutions which pry open 'local' economies
dismantle their social safety nets
make them compete with each other for the lowest wages
privatize their commmons
cheaply extract their wealth
in the faraway resource rich countries around the world

IMF policies imposed on Argentina allowed for an industry that cuts
forests to package food for export
The land is not available for local food production
Imagine the low wages that must be paid to worker's in order for the
food to be 'affordable' here in the U.S.
Calculate how much petroleum based energy was expended
(with the attendant carbon load on the atmosphere, and exported
environmental effects related to producing old food from far away)
to grow/ship/market a pear that will provide only enough energy to power
a person for one hour

California
where I live
has farmers who grow pears
If the pears we eat were grown and sold locally
the economic benefit would be magnified as the money was recycled
through the community and local economy
Argentina could also benefit from not importing the appetites of empire
and exporting valuable resources cheaply

This ties in nicely with the idea that it is very convenient to condemn
the current administration for the war in Iraq
We  also need to examine our own culpability
If we weren't filling our SUVs
or tooling around in our cars just for fun 
the U.S. military would not be in Iraq

Rather than export appetite
and import the fruits of IMF imposed misery
shouldn't we
export the fruits of our love
and in turn import
delicious chocolate
lovingly grown
in fair exchange
between people
celebrating consilience
making mutualism