When you got up this morning, I bet you thought slavery in America was only of historical interest.
Do you think slavery in America is as dead as Abraham Lincoln?
Do you think slavery in America has nothing to do with electing Democrats?
Do you think slavery in America has no relevance to the 2008 elections?
If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, you may be shocked to learn you are wrong. If your only source of news is American corporate media, you probably never heard of Immokalee, Florida. However, if you get your news internationally, things are quite different. Even the folks at Vatican Radio have noticed that Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest human rights organization, gave this year's award to an AMERICAN coalition of agricultural workers.
That's right, Experts agree: slavery is alive and well in Red State America...
Now that you know that slavery in America is not dead, let me show you why you need to rethink your answers to the other questions I listed above.
In a previous installment, I pointed to the horrifying story of modern slavery in Collier County, Florida. I also pointed out that Collier County, Florida is Red State country. This is no accident. This is no coincidence. As you will see, the Red State Party actively promotes and defends slavery in a variety of ways.
Some may mistake this argument for a purely partisan screed that uses hyperbole and breathless histrionics to fling mud with a very broad brush. Don't worry, this is going to be done surgically and precisely. But there will be no anesthesia, no euphemisms, no equivocation, no verbal hedging, and plenty of references.
I expect to hear all sorts of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Red State Party and their apparatchniks, but first I will deal with potential resistance from the Reality-Based World. A comment to the first installment deserves a direct response for several reasons:
Shame on you
To claim northern moral superiority on treatment of undocumented workers is patently false. There is many a horror story similar to this one from blue states as well as red states.
Slavery was only one form of the institutionalized oppression, it wasn't all dandy in the North, and it also was just as segregated in many "blue" states even as Jim Crow reigned in Southern states.
Let me address the second point first. The historical record is clear that segregation, discrimination, and institutionalized oppression can be found in all states of the Union. A mere four score years after Lee surrendered to Grant, many Negro veterans of WWII returned home after fighting for freedom abroad only to find themselves still under the yoke of Jim Crow or worse. Several highly publicized and vicious attacks on returning veterans led Truman to create the President's Committee on Civil Rights which produced to the landmark report, To Secure These Rights. The findings and policy recommendations of that report laid the foundation for all subsequent civil rights struggles. Direct results of this report included the executive orders desegregating the federal workforce, and the Army. It also called for the creation of a permanent Civil Rights Commission and the establishment of a Department of Civil Rights in the Justice Department. This institutional change was achieved in spite of intense opposition by Republicans and their "state's rights" supporters. For the last 60 years, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division has been constantly under attack by the Red State Party.
Let me now turn to the first point raised in protest. There is no doubt that sweat shops and abuse occur in all corners of the nation. However, that is not a platform people use to win elections in Blue States. On the other hand, Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was predicated upon a cryptic racist appeal. That was not an isolated incident. The 1980 campaign by Ronald Reagan was famous for following Nixon's "Southern Strategy" with a myriad of coded messages. It is no accident that Ronald Reagan's master image makers had him announce his bid for the presidency in Philadelphia Mississippi -- not Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Instead of picking the birthplace of the Constitution to make his announcement, he chose the infamous site of highly publicized lynchings. Not exactly the most subtle use of imagery. However, that message was not lost on the apologists for slavery. The KKK officially endorsed Ronald Reagan for president... in 1980 and again in 1984. Rove's whispering campaign against McCain in South Carolina was just a new chapter in this predictably shameful pattern of "politics as usual" within the Red State Party.
This is the party that gave us Prop 187 in California. This is the party that argued for removing children of undocumented workers from public schools in Texas. This is the party that has consistently disenfranchised black voters as recently as 2004. This is the party that embraces paramilitary "Minute Men" militias operating along our borders with little to no oversight. Who speaks for this party? People like Michael Savage, who refers to "turd world" people invading our nation. People like Tancredo can actually be treated like serious presidential candidates by the Red State Party. We are not talking the occasional aberration here. This is a pattern and a practice of the Red State Party.
But Prop 187 happened in California, not Texas. Doesn't that undermine this whole Red State, Slave State argument? No. California in the 90s was technically a "Blue State" in terms of presidential elections. However, it was a Red State Party governor (Pete Wilson) who championed Prop 187. It was the Democratic governor, Gray Davis, who helped bury that piece of crap legislation.
What should be clear by now is that "Red State" is really a state of mind, not a geographic designation. A Red State is a Slave State.
Having addressed those concerns, let me now focus on the issue of slavery and the Red State Party.
Today you don't have to buy slaves, you rent them. We are all familiar with the sordid abuse of foreign nationals at the hand of KBR in Iraq. Of course, that is a war zone and the victims are not afforded the protection of such quaint ideals as constitutional rights. But what about the abuse of foreign nationals at the hand of KBR in New Orleans?
By now you probably have heard about the Sabhnani's, the wealthy Indian family convicted of treating their indonesian domestic staff as chattel. Sure they lived in New York, but look at how the authorities treated them once they were discovered. These millionaires are looking at decades in prison, along with the loss of their property and effects. Compare that to the last time such a case gained national attention. I'm talking about the case of Buniah al-Saud, a niece of King Fahd. She was busted in Florida for treating her Indonesian maid like she was still in Saudi Arabia. Lucky for her, she was not in New York. She was in Florida so no surprise she was able to get off with a $1,000 fine. (Red State, Slave State)
We all know that slavery is alive and well in India and Saudi Arabia. When such outlandish cases wash ashore here, decent people are outraged. Unfortunately, some still refuse to believe such practices are actively promoted by the Red State Party.
Consider the outrageous case of Slave Labor in Immokalee Florida. As already noted, in the previous installment, this operation crossed state lines to growers in North Carolina and South Carolina. But this operation was not operating in a vacuum. Just like every other form of slavery, this is about economics. So let's consider this little tidbit: housing.
Follow The Money
What kind of housing would you expect to get for $1200 a month? Here are some examples of what you could get for that kind of cash in the Washington DC Metro area. Pretty nice. Pools. Managed properties. Some offer incentives like 2 months FREE rent! Now compare that to what $1200 a month buys an agricultural worker in Imokalee:Very often, landlords charge exorbitant rents -- a single-wide trailer with two bedrooms can go for $1,200. Workers are obliged to share the space with as many as 10-12 people in order to meet the rent payments. Of course, they make $200 a week, so that shouldn't surprise anyone.
What is going on in Immokalee is not some rogue family misbehaving behind closed doors. I will submit to you that it takes active complicity from the surrounding community when thousands of people are routinely abused for the financial gain of local business concerns. That requires infrastructure and support from local political and legal institutions. Is it any surprise that the all political contributions for the last 20 years from this zip code (34143) went exclusively to the Red State Party?
The impact of these practices are felt far and wide. Although corporate media has ignored the story, corporate America is well aware of it. In fact, the profits of companies like McDonald's, Taco Bell, KFC, and Burger King depend upon this sort of exploitation. Not surprisingly, when you look at their political contributions, you find a similar tilt in favor of the Red State Party. In the most recent reporting cycle, the McDonald's Corporation contributed about 3/4 of it's money to Red State Party. KFC and Pizza Hut were similarly inclined to tilt heavilyt towards the Red State Party. This is not true of all corporations, or even all corporations in the Food and Beverage sector. Starbucks, a company that has made an effort to fair trade their coffee and improve their recycling, contributes 100% of its money to the Democrats.
While the Red State (Slave State) Party has been stoking its base with jingoistic and xenophobic appeals, the monied interests of the party recognize they need these slaves to depress wages in general, break unions, and undermine locla initiatives for healthcare, affordable housing, and safe workplaces. There is a reason you see the "Right To Work" states denying basic workplace benefits to so many workers. Sometimes the base gets out in front of leadership and things go haywire for the corporate cronies. Reagan found this out when his minions started mass deportations of undocumented workers back to Mexico. Chicken farmers, catfish farmers, and big Ag found you can't get Americans to spend 12 hours a day standing in fish guts for less than minimum wage. This presented a problem. How do you keep the base stoked without giving up on cheap labor? The answer: Bush's Temporary Worker Program. Here the Red State Party gets to have your cake and eat it too. Basically, it is lovely looking piñata with nothing inside, at least not for the workers.
This is really just an updated version of the infamous "bracero" program of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. Under this program, more than 4 million Mexican farm laborers came to the United States as temporary workers. "Nothing short of legalized slavery" is how U.S. Department of Labor official Lee G. Williams described it. He would have known. He was the last administrator of the bracero program.
Just like what Bush is proposing today, braceros had part of their wages withheld, which were supposedly to be given to them when they returned to Mexico. Most never saw a penny. The purpose of the Bush program is not to end the second-class status of undocumented workers, but to perpetuate it under a new name.
What the corporate interests that run the U.S. government want with all their laws against "illegal aliens" is not to drive them out of the country, but precisely to keep them "illegal"—an untouchable caste who, like Blacks in the slave era under the Dred Scott decision, had "no rights which any white man was bound to respect."
Bush now proposes this under a different name, "temporary worker," except that the bracero program was limited to agriculture, whereas Bush’s program will make temporary workers available to all employers.
And THAT, gentle reader, is why the issue of slavery in America is relevant to any discussion about electing Democrats. That is why it is relevant to the presidential elections of 2008.
Some have argued the Red State (Slave State) agenda is to roll back the New Deal. I would argue that is a pit stop for them. Earlier in this essay, I mentioned the landmark report, To Secure These Rights. One of the major motivations behind this report was defense of what Roosevelt had called the Four Freedoms.
- Freedom of speech and expression
- Freedom of every person to worship in his own way
- Freedom from want
- Freedom from fear
Truman's commission explicitly focused on the 4th of these, the Freedom from fear. But look at those freedoms again. Now look at the policies and practices of the Red State Party and ask yourself, which one of these Four Freedoms do they support? You know the answer: None of them.
I hope you now see why the atrocities in Immokalee are not someone else's problem. They may not be your problem today. But don't be so sure about tomorrow.
This brings me to the last of my original questions, specifically the relevance of slavery in America to the upcoming elections. Which Democratic candidate is going to embrace this issue as a central theme? Will Obama be man enough to confront the issue head on as some "hint" he may? Or will his handlers craft a photo-op to make it seem like he is a friend of the oppressed? Will Edwards shine the light of justice on these piratical practices and demand fairness for the honest hard-working people of this country who helped make it what it is today? Or will the Red State apparatchniks come after him with such fervor and venom that the others will shrink back in fear? Will Hillary disenthrall herself from the perks of power long enough to bite the hand that feeds her, or will she continue to cozy up to the same interests that propagate these atrocities?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know the choices these people make will be felt well into the 21st century.