Like any good college student who sleeps far too little, I like to begin my day with coffee. It's like a tradition for me, even down to the way I take my coffee, black, just like my father.
Coffee is a tradition for people like me across the industrialized world; in fact it's the most traded commodity on the international market today after oil. Unfortunately, for farmers in the poorer countries of the world, most notably Central and South America, coffee growing is a tradition currently in the throws of poverty.
According the National Catholic Reporter's Paul Jeffrey, millions of coffee farmers are poorer now than they ever were as a result of catastrophic drops in coffee prices around the world.
Some may chalk this trend up to regional instability in places like Colombia, but the truth is that the small mountain farms where coffee is grown are isolated from the insurrection and terrorism that perpetuates in the lowlands.
The real culprit in this is the American government, which in its own dubious tradition of treaty violation has abandoned small coffee farmers the world over.
The International Coffee Agreement was drafted during the Cold War as an effort to stem the appeal of communism among those in the developing world. The pact set price minimums for international coffee trade at $1.20 per pound, enough to allow farmers to send their children to school.
Now, as the Soviet Union grows small in the rearview mirror of history, production of coffee rises in places like Vietnam, coupled with our dastardly abandonment of the poor who depend on our consumption, which has risen in the last ten years, we set the tone for more starving, illiterate children. Sadly this is a combination that has produced generations of anti-Western sentiment in places like the Middle East, a contributing factor to, among other things, terrorism.
This is not to draw a parallel between violent Islamic fundamentalists and South American coffee farmers, but merely to state that the consequences of our actions are far-reaching.
Our actions thankfully, are still our choice.
The United States ought to honor the International Coffee Agreement as it honors NATO - also a relic of the Cold War. Just as our mutual defense pact can be adjusted to fight new enemies, our trade pact can be adjusted to ensure that no farmer directly dependent on American consumerism has to suffer.
Our government subsidizes the prices of domestic farm products, and in doing so does not abandon its capitalistic values; it merely shows that we can be compassionate as well.
Compassion does not stop when crossing the Rio Grande or flying out of Kennedy Airport; instead our obligation to help is more acutely understood.
As Americans, we are citizens of a superpower unrivaled in world history, largely due to our capitalistic consumerism. Yet we are also under fierce criticism for forgetting where our wealth comes from, namely non-industrial countries whose people scratch and claw for the equivalent of what we discard.
Tradition is passed down through the generations. From fraternity hazing to Thanksgiving turkey we treasure traditions as if they were a part of us.
The truth is that they are.
Countries have traditions too; we tout ourselves as having traditions of freedom, opportunity and justice - and rightfully so at that. The Cold War is over because of these concepts, and we commit an injustice in ignoring them abroad.
