Human Bondage

No, I'm not getting kinky. Settle down.

According to CNN (the Chicken Noodle Network), Authorities today raided a migrant labor camp in my state, and found a few interesting things. For starters, raw sewage running into a nearby river, which violates state clean-water laws. Drugs were found as well, mostly crack. A number of illegal aliens and homeless people were found as well.

And that's a bit disturbing.

It's been known that slavery, good old-fashioned slavery, is alive and well even here in the U.S. of A. Of course, we dignify and prettify it with the phrase "human trafficking," which makes us just a bit more comfortable with the idea that some of the people who pick our fruit and harvest our vegetables may, just may, not be here willingly.

Basically, the scam works like this: You lure people to work for you, get them indebted to you (through drugs or other items bought on credit at the 'company store'), and keep them working for you with a combination of threats and incentives until they drop dead from overwork. Then you 'recruit' a new work crew.

Pretty nifty, huh?

Now, the United States is officially quite against the idea of using people as cattle, or trading them as a commodity. Unofficially, however, it happens. Yes, dear reader, even here in the good old U.S.A.

Condi Rice (you know her - nice figure, scary look in her eyes) and other members of the Bushite Junta have weighed in against slavery, singling out four of our allies for a rhetorical butt-spanking.

Dang. It got kinky anyway.

We castigate our allies and others, while largely ignoring what's going on right under our own noses. We weigh in against violent fringe groups, but we seemingly tolerate the ones in this country (I guess since their members may be named John, not Achmed); we bitch and whine about the growth of democracy in other countries, while allowing reactionary fanatics to use the Constitution like toilet paper.

Not a good track record.

We're America; we could do better. We should do better.