We all know about the slave labor conditions that plague the foreign workers hired by American contractors in Iraq. It's terrible, but it does not surprise us KBR would treat people like that, especially in a war zone where they are unrestrained by such quaint concepts as constitutional rights.
We all know that undocumented workers are preyed upon by unscrupulous criminals. That does not surprise us either. The weak are always easy targets -- especially if they are branded as "illegals" and unprotected by such quaint concepts as constitutional rights.
We all know the heartland of "Red State" America is where slavery flourished in its ugliest form. Of course that's history and we are interested in the future, so let me let you in on a little secret:
Slavery is alive and well deep in the heart of Republican America . The British Press is now reporting on Slave Labor That Shames America and they are not talking about conditions in Iraq. They are talking about conditions in Collier County, Florida.
You thought the Jena Six was bad? What about the Immokalee thousands?
The stories sound like something one would read in narratives from the nineteenth century.
Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by punching their way through the ventilator hatch of the van in which they were imprisoned. Once outside, they dashed for freedom.
When they found sanctuary one recent Sunday morning, all bore the marks of heavy beatings to the head and body. One of the pickers had a nasty, untreated knife wound on his arm. Police would learn later that another man had his hands chained behind his back every night to prevent him escaping, leaving his wrists swollen.
The migrants were not only forced to work in sub-human conditions but mistreated and forced into debt. They were locked up at night and had to pay for sub-standard food. If they took a shower with a garden hose or bucket, it cost them $5.
Their story of slavery and abuse in the fruit fields of sub-tropical Florida threatens to lift the lid on some appalling human rights abuses in America today.
For those of you who care about civil rights, Immokalee Florida is Ground Zero. Immakolee is located in northern Collier County, Florida - a Republican bastion.
Year | Republican | Democratic | Other |
2004 | 65.0% | 34.1% | 0.9% |
2000 | 65.6% | 32.5% | 1.9% |
1996 | 58.7% | 32.0% | 9.3% |
1992 | 53.4% | 26.1% | 20.5% |
1988 | 74.9% | 24.6% | 0.5% |
Ironic this story breaks the day Tancredo decides to pull out of the race. Not that he has anything to do with it, but he certainly would have a strong following in this region of the country and the other regions it touches. This story is not limited to an isolated incident in some backwater hick part of the country.
A week after the escapees managed to emerge from the van in which they had been locked up for the night, police discovered that a forced labour operation was supplying fruit-pickers to local growers. Court papers describe how migrant workers were forced into debt and beaten into going to work on farms in Florida, as well as in North and South Carolina. Detectives found another 11 men who were being kept against their will in the grounds of a Florida house shaded by palm trees. The bungalow stood abandoned this week, a Cadillac in the driveway alongside a black and chrome pick-up truck with a cowboy hat on the dashboard. The entire operation was being run by the Navarettes, a family well known in the area.
The area is rife with Republican supporters. In fact, a review of ALL campaign contributions from that ZIP code (34142 and 34143) shows all the money flows to George Bush, Mario Diaz-Ballart, Bill McCollum, Mary Bono, Elizabeth Dole, The RNC, NRCC, NRSC, Katherine Harris, and the notoriously racist Tramm Hudson. Of course these donors aren't all racist slave holders. There was at least one guy who donated $250 to John Edwards' campaign.
Seems like Edward R. Murrow is as relevant today as he was when he ran his Harvest of Shame series, almost half a century ago. Unfortunately, there are no men of his stature in journalism today. The corporate media in America is mum about this, although corporate America has long been involved in this. I'm talking about McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Burger King.
For several years, a campaign has been under way to improve the workers' conditions. After years of talks, a scheme to pay the tomato pickers a penny extra per pound has been signed off by McDonald's, the world's biggest restaurant chain, and by Yum!, which owns 35,000 restaurants including KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. But Burger King, which also buys its tomatoes in Immokalee, has so far refused to participate, threatening the entire scheme.
"We see no legal way of paying these workers," said Steve Grover, the vice-president of Burger King. He complained that a local human rights group, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers "has gone after us because we are a known brand". But he added: "At the end of the day, we don't employ the farmworkers so how can we pay them?"
Burger King will not pay the extra penny a pound that the tomato-pickers are demanding he said. "If we agreed to the penny per pound, Burger King would pay about $250,000 annually, or $100 per worker. How does that solve exploitation and poverty?" he asked.
This outrage is not news to men like Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter recently joined the campaign to improve the lot of fruit-pickers, appealing to Burger King and the growers "to restore the dignity of Florida's tomato industry". His appeal fell on deaf ears but 100 church groups, including the Catholic bishop of Miami, joined him.
The article says there are "hints" that "Barack Obama will visit the Immokalee fruit pickers sometime before Florida's primary election on 5 February." The hell with that. Where does this professor of constitutional law stand on the pressing issue of Slavery in America?
It is time for Democratic candidates to follow Carter's lead and join with the man who has consistently been a champion for human rights, a man who made human rights a cornerstone of American foreign policy even though he was roundly mocked for doing so. It is time for the Democratic candidates to show the courage of their convictions and stand against the scourge of slavery deep in the heart of Red State America. Now is the time. Immokalee is the place. The question everyone needs to answer: Slavery... is it just for Republicans or will Democrats support it with their silence?
My grandmother always said,
"If you don't stand for something, you will go for anything."
-- American poet, Gil-Scott Heron