Format: video with audio, printable comic (PDF)
Running time: approx. 3 min 14 sec.
Summary: Bunny and Mimi talk about Globalization again! This time Bunny reveals a secret about how to get First World citizens on the Globalization bandwagon while keeping those pesky Third Worlders in their place.
[ Click here to download the printable comic in PDF format ]
Transcript
The Pinky Show presents: Defending Globalization ...a mission for the educated and enlightened. Narrated by Pinky.
Mimi: Geez, those anti-globalization zealots are really out of control. I mean, I usually wouldn't care but it's scary how these people are just SO irrational...
Bunny: They just want someone to blame for their own miserable situations. Don't worry - we'll get it under control.
One of the most useful tools we have is what I like to call 'the invisible hand of privilege'. Here, let me explain - if you look at this map, you'll see all the nations of the world spread out in front of you as if they're all equal. But what doesn't show up on a map are relationships of power...
...and it's power that makes the voice of a single privileged First Worlder ten times louder than the voice of a single Third Worlder!
For most First Worlders, concerns about globalization tend to be expressed as something like "Is my Sony flatscreen TV still going to be awesome if it's built in Mexico?" A consumer mindset is not going to understand why people at the bottom of the food chain are pissed off. And honestly, that inability to understand is really good for you and me.
On this side, smugly self-assured First Worlders congratulate themselves on inventing and mastering a system they see as fair and efficient. Economics and business departments teach the theory and practice of global capitalism to the virtual exclusion of any alternatives. And for the most part the students are smart enough to know that going along with it all is both easier and more profitable...
Contrast this with the situation produced in the Third World. These people have to actually live the consequences of practices and policies imposed from the top down. No one who hasn't experienced this first hand is going to have the perspectives or knowledge produced in such an environment. And in the end, we're going to use this against them too.
Mimi: It's kinda ironic how this privilege stuff ends up being basically invisible to those First Worlders who reap the most benefits from these relationships... I mean, there's really no incentive for them to seriously want to examine any of this....
Pinky: Someone told me fish can't see water.
<end transcript>
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Credits
narrator: Pinky
drawings & illustrations: Pinky
music: Erik Satie, Gymnopedie 1 (stock music, processed by Bunny). RFCM Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dr. Keith J. Salmon.
sound effects: Bunny
other images: titles by Pinky
a note regarding the formal inspiration of this episode:
This comic was inspired a comic by one of my favorite artists, Charles M. Schulz. The original sequence has Lucy drawing on Charlie Brown's head as she explains how globes work to Linus. ~p.