The United States by no means is less guilty of having people including corporations engage in slave types of labor which is against the law and often times actively watched for………..I said often times. However there are countries in the middle east in particular that feed on the poor, enslave them, create havoc for them; all the while putting up a pretty glitzy face. No matter where you live you must stand up for humanity even over culture, religion and tradition. You cannot respect any of these when the practice creates harm nor can you support it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UUW9MWLIQYw
A three minute edition with music to get the message across.
bigstick1
It was very hard to watch this. I live in a society where even the poorest of people are quite clean. Where even the most economically challenged of men are still fiercely independent. Where women create their own small businesses, and in many cases, work physically demanding jobs, too. In Texas, although it is not generally talked about, immigrants from Mexico have created a lower class of workers who are willing to accept outrageously low pay scales. At least ten years ago, I accepted a job as a restaurant cook, at $7.00 per hour, at a mom and pop mexican food joint. The guy next to me, maybe 18 or 19, directly from Mexico, doing exactly the same job, actually teaching me, was making $2.00 per hour. I had no real interest in this job, and being so appalled at what I learned, I just quit. I have never been back to that place. For these men, who have been deceived in the worst sort of way, young men from different countries, just trying to find a good job, Dubai is not the place for them. I can see no immediate answer. I am glad this situation is being exposed.
I am also adding this quote from BigStick from a recent post, as it sums up my feelings also: “Apparently you don’t think people care much. They do. In the US, people who are across country will drop everything just about and run to the other side of the country to give a hand to victims of disaster. Happens here all the time just not the big news story. People will run to burning cars and help people out, knowing they could die in that attempt, people will open their homes and welcome many who have been homeless due to tragedy or stand up for the down trodden or send money to help. People really do care about humanity where ever they may be. This happens every day everywhere. The difference though is that the people who are directly affected must stand against the atrocities or the inequities otherwise no matter how much others care little will change.” This final sentence is key to the problem.
You flatter me. Yes. It is a bleak outlook to which a cycle of proverty and abuse must be address and stopped. Only then can humanity develop a better road even if there is bumps alone the way.
You know, with all the rich old men and women in this country, just sitting back on their laurels, counting their money like Scrooge McDuck, (they do that, you know…) you’d think somebody, somewhere, besides Bill Gates, for goodness sakes, (who is probably an alien hybrid), (his wife too), would just stand up, ride into Washington, and really stir up some… well, you get it… we all have good ideas, why is no one ever listening? We’ve got to work with what we’ve got, at this point in time. Eliminating huge percentages of the population to “cure all ills” is inhuman and diabolical. And forcing GMO crops on third world people, like they’ve already done to us, ought to be a Big Red Flag, for someone… but we keep going to work, we keep minding our own business… I’ve been hungry once or twice, and it is suffering like no other, and I wouldn’t wish it on man nor beast. Someday, someway, I pray before the whole thing goes up in smoke and fire, that people on earth can embrace peace, cooperation, extend our hands, help the ones that need help. They say, the way to find abundance, is to give.
I agree. In addition we spend too damn much for theater tactics on things like presidential races or on movie stars or well you get the jest. It is a lopsided scale that rewards fluff not substance such as firemen, teachers, police, doctors, engineers, etc. Instead we pay paper pushers (bankers/ceos) and glltz (fantasy in some form) the money. We are upside down on are priorities.
Totally! Like you said about men coming together to stand up for themselves, maybe more and more of us should simply sit down and think… what can we do… like don’t buy fluff at fluff retails… don’t buy boxed non-food products at the groceries, or sugar/white flour hydrogenated poison and feed it to our kids… it’s a learning process, this life, we all have our individual lessons to learn, but I, for one, am more than ready to see some changes. I have made so many lately I can’t even count them. Little things, like one meal a day, as opposed to three. Like meat only once a week, if at all… and even though I am WAY under the gov’t poverty line, I send money every month to a Horse Sanctuary, and I have a personal “budget” every month for sending to special causes, those that promote a better country for us to live in. I am hoping that by example, the good ones, the kind ones here, will emerge, on whatever economic level, and there will be no more support for war. I’m tired of all the greed, and Dubai really makes my stomach turn. What an outlandish excess they are expressing, with such sad and despicable stories right under the surface. Wealth and abundance acquired by the abuse of human labor, is something out of the dark ages and gets no respect from me. To me, these greedy corporations and super elite businessmen have a very limited scope, and their success is being measured in the degrading of human life. Imagine if they simply cleaned up the slums, spent a little more money providing adequate shelter and food for their workers, paid them what they were promised before they locked them into servitude and debt, well, that just says it all. It’s an evil operation from the get go. Sometimes, when people find themselves with great money and power, it has this tendency to lead straight to exploitation and division of the people, into the elite and the poor. How to change that?
Change can happen but this type takes time and education and of course people must buy in. People do not need to be living on the fringes of poverty, we just need to reallocate resources and ensuring education especially to women in hopes that with that education they will limit birth rates and take care of family and society.
There is a study done on mircro-financing to women in 3rd world countries that I read. In it, it stated that men generally spend their money on alcohol and prostitutes verses family or societal issues. They found if they empowered the women with business and opportunity the family and society strengthen and there was less vice.
Which means the first step in solving the problem is empower all women and educating them; however, there needs to be more. I have worked with women and they tend to tear each other down, not sure why. I suspect it is the fact that they are trying to outshine one another in a dog eat dog world so I think there needs to be a structure whereby women become less predatorial to their own.