Vital Concerns for the World: Slavery is still widely practiced in the world. And in the US?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Slavery is still widely practiced in the world. And in the US?

Most of us have assumed that slavery was abolished long ago. Little do we know. Al Jazeera has a special series of programs on slavery. [Click on the title above for a link.] Their programs highlight several kinds of enslavement.

Food chain slaves: They say there are 40,000 slaves in the US today.
Sex slaves: "There are an estimated 1.4 million sex slaves in the world today and international trafficking is on the rise."
Bonded slaves: "a form of slavery that is passed down from one generation to the next."
Child slaves: "There are at least 8.4 million child slaves in the world today, many of them held as forced labour."
Charcoal slaves: " Poverty stricken men from north of Brazil are lured to remote camps where they are used as slave laborers."
Bridal slaves:

India has the world's largest number of slaves, among them an increasing number of women and girls sold into marriage
.
Prison slaves: In Chinese factories.

There is enough here to give a whole course on slavery around the world. Of course there are several useful books on the topic: For instance, Kevin Bales, Disposable People.

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A major source of the American debt problem

Notable Concerns

"Not one has taken responsibility for the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history." Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rica, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith.
The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. AlJazeera 10/15/11
GE, America's largest corporation, paid no taxes last year even though it made 5.1 billion dollars profit in the country [and even more outside the country] [source: same as below]
In 2009 the richest 5% held 63.5% of American wealth; the bottom 80% controlled 12.8%. [source: same as below]
Between 2000 and 2007 the richest 10% in America benefited from all of the average growth in the period. In the post WW II period the top 10% benefited from only one third of the growth, the bottom 90% benefiting from the rest of the growth. [Economic Policy Institute, cited by Bob Herbert, NYT 3/26/11]
In 2010 a "premier" investment bank paid each of its 26,000 employees an average of $370,000. [Bill Gross Pimco Investment Outlook Feb, 2011.]
In 2005, one-quarter of the corporations in America making a trillion dolars in revenue paid no taxes.
The 833% Medical Insurance Ripoff: Medicare charges 3% for service; the health insurance companies in Missouri charge 25% for services
The richest 1 percent of Americans have more net worth than the bottom 90 percent.
The richest 1 percent of Americans receive more income than the bottom 50%. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/10/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-viral-speech-says-top-1$ >