Less than a month ago, dengre here at dailykos posted diary about Hillary Clinton’s campaign containing a total of $10,000 in campaign contributions from the Tan family of the Mariana Islands’ sweatshops fame. What is the junior senator from New York doing to rectify this situation? So far, not much. More below the fold...
By now, many of you know what has been going on in the tiny Commonwealth of the Mariana Islands. If you haven’t, let me paraphrase the situation. This small chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean played a pivotal role in United States history when the Marine Corps freed the islands from the Japanese in World War II. By the late 1970’s, The Marianas were a territory of the United States. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) follows almost all of the same laws and regulations America does, with the exceptions of immigration and labor. Those two issues have opened a virtual Pandora’s Box of problems on the islands. Garment factories began sprouting up, bringing foreign workers from China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand to the Marianas as a cheap source of labor. The garments being shipped from East Asia were being sent to the islands, where "Made in the USA" labels were being sewn, packaged, and shipped duty-free to American ports for public consumption. Companies like GAP, JCrew, Ann Taylor and Abercrombie & Fitch were using this cheap method of pleasing an unsuspecting American public.
The cheap source of labor brought to the islands had been forced to sign "Shadow Contracts," legally enforceable documents that state that the workers cannot get married, date, form labor unions, get pregnant, or go to church. Violation of these contracts results in imprisonment in their home countries. If the young, mostly female garment workers looked attractive, they would be sold to the local "karaoke clubs," sex slaves on American soil. Most of these young girls (and reportedly some young boys) are barely in their teens, and the shame is so high they will not tell their families of the conditions they work in. If the girls get pregnant from the Japanese tourists, visiting sailors, or corrupt politicians, they are told to get rid of the unborn babies. Since abortion is illegal on the Marianas, the girls resort to the back-alley abortions we’ve always been afraid to acknowledge exist.
The US Interior Department, recognized some of the wide-spread sweatshop abuses in the 1990’s. The Tan family, under fears that the US government could shut down their lucrative business of human trafficking and cheap labor for the clothing world, hired a lobbyist to represent their interests in Washington, DC. That lobbyist was none other than Jack Abramoff.
Jack Abramoff paid off numerous key players in Congress, chief among those Senators Conrad Burns, Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Congressmen like Tom DeLay, John Doolittle, Richard Pombo, White House officials, and Republican Party leaders like Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition. These high-ranking officials were all instrumental in blocking bi-partisan legislation over the last decade which would have helped the women and children immigrants on the Marianas. The Tan family paid Abramoff millions to protect the deplorable conditions in the name of free-market enterprise.
And now we can see that the Tan Family has been giving Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign donations. What is the first major female presidential candidate’s first month of campaigning could be seriously marred by links to the GOP Culture of Corruption and convicted felon Jack Abramoff.
Regardless of how you feel about Senator Clinton, we can all agree that the evidence of her campaign accepting money from the same sweatshop owners that donate to crooks like Congressman John Doolittle could have serious implications on the general election in 2008. Whether it’s Clinton, Obama, Richardson, Edwards, Dodd, Vilsack, Gore, Clark or Kerry who wins the Democratic nomination, they could face a serious problem when it’s discovered that one of their own was linked to the same imprisoned briber they pushed so hard to get behind bars. So we need to get aggressive.
That’s where you come in.
If the issue of the Mariana Islands touches you in some way, you need to write the Senator immediately. Email her Washington office, call any of the district offices, the campaign headquarters... you name it, you need to send a message to Senator Clinton. Let her know that the contributions she accepted could be a major thorn in her side from the GOP over the next few months. There are plenty of ways Clinton’s people can handle this situation. The best way is to donate the money back to the people who have suffered the most. It’s the least she can do. $10,000 is a drop in the hat for a presidential candidate with literally tens of millions of dollars in the bank. This potential wedge issue could make cable news networks foam at the mouths at a time when attention needs to be paid to so many other important issues, like actually putting an end to the sex slavery and forced abortions being committed on the American Islands of Saipan, Tinia and Rota—the CNMI.
Visit our website at www.ripplesofhope.org for more information regarding the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or email us at info@ripplesofhope.org. Also, be sure to check out dengre’s postings on this issue. He has tirelessly been working to show all of us at Dailykos the truth about what corruption has done to Capitol Hill.