Workers' Rights Article and Poem

 In the article, "Coca-Cola Accused of Using Death Squads to Target Union Leaders", Gary Leech argues that what Coca-Cola is doing to the union leaders is wrong. He never really states his opinion in any way, but all the facts he gives are on the union leaders' side. Coca-Cola is, or was, hiring people to kill, kidnap, threaten, or torture union leaders protesting against the working conditions in Colombia. Gary Leech states that, "Colombia has long been the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists with almost 4,000 murdered in the past 15 years. Last year saw 128 labor leaders assassinated." I think that this act of murdering, kidnapping, threatening, and/or torturing is a violation to our human rights, like the right to public assembly and workers' rights. What surprised me was that Coca-Cola would take this violent route and get away with it. They did what they did, benefited from it, and no government was able to stop them.

   The argument in "The Sweatshop" was that the worker felt that he/she was turning into a machine because of the way his/her life was playing out. They worked endlessly, not knowing for whom, they stopped working at the same time every day and continued at the same time every day. Using a machine for what seemed like forever. The writer claims that he/she forget who they are, they have no emotions, no feeling, they have become a machine. Reading the poem was more interesting than reading the article. It got my attention more because with the poem I had to take a deeper meaning into it while with the article everything was just there. Of course, understanding it was more challenging, but at the same time more interesting. Nothing's interesting without some sort of challenge.

TRASH (Part 2)

 TRASH is a fairly good book. Honestly if it wasn't for the way they told the story I would've stopped reading near the beginning. The way Andy Mulligan tells this story is by having the characters in the story write about what they were experiencing. One chapter Raphael is writing, the next Gardo is talking, and the next a character we barely met starts writing giving us their perspective on what has happened in the previous chapter. The book is fairly easy to read but lots of fun because of the plot mainly. At first I didn't think I would like the book because of the fact it was easy to read, but I gave it a shot. I wouldn't say it's my favorite book though. I recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries or just a fun adventure. One of the things that really interested me about TRASH is that the story revolves around street kids who grew up only knowing their neighborhood, which is nothing but trash, and not caring about education because in the place they live in they don't need education, they just need to know how to dig and what is good to sell. Anyway this interested me because three kids who grew up in a smelly, low educated, low budget place go out of their way and solve a mystery they weren't even supposed to be a part of in the first place. If you ask me I think that they should've stayed out of that mess because Raphael got beaten pretty badly by the police thinking he had what they were looking for (which he did but he wouldn't confess).

 

 This book was mainly a man vs man conflict, but it had some internal conflict too. The man vs man was obviously between the street boys and the police. The internal conflict was with most characters, and the fact that each main character gets to tell the story in their view makes it so they tell us about their problems. Raphael is a determined guy who doesn't have much internal conflict, but Gardo cares for others. He feels like he needs to be the leader and watch out for everyone so everyone is on track. This can, of course, lead to problems if things don't work out the way they should. The police and the street boys had a lot of conflict at the beginning but that kind of went away over time after they interrogated Raphael and figured they were wasting their time.