Because I Can with Adam J. Kovitz
“So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key.”
- from “Already Gone” by Jack Tempchin and Robert Arnold Strandlund
When many of us think of slavery, we look back to the darker parts of our history like during the founding of the United States when slavery, as an institution, was considered integral to our very economy, especially in the southern states which relied upon a more agrarian society through the production of tobacco, indigo and cotton. For a while in the early years, there were heady debates over the morality of keeping slaves but nothing constructive was done about it until the Civil War brought everything to a head. During this time, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and Congress later ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, effectively freeing the slaves and abolishing the practice of slavery in the United States.
We would like to think that we’ve come so far as a society, but as a concerned world citizen, networker, Relationship Capital thought leader and Futurist I look at seemingly disparate data, attempt to synthesize it and am alarmed at what I see. I continue to see slavery (in the classic sense) being used as an economic tool in other parts of the world, as well as insidious variations on the same ugly theme still being regularly employed and culturally elsewhere, including right here in the U.S.
But why should I speak out about this issue?
Because I can. And even more importantly, because I should.
Slavery and Human Trafficking
In a recent blogpost by former U.S. State Department Ambassador and Executive Director of the Polaris Project Mark Lagon on the Change.org Human Trafficking Blog, he suggests that “Steel and biofuels from Brazil, rubber and shrimp from Thailand, cotton from Uzbekistan” are all under suspect for such practices in their production. More alarmingly, these goods are produced for major G8 countries, including the U.S. He goes on to urge the U.S. Government Department of Labor to create a list of such countries and products for consumers so that we may be empowered to make the decision not to purchase such goods.
The most frustrating part of the post is that despite a mandate from Congress in 2005 for the Department to produce the list, to this date it is still not a reality. Why? Because the Department of Labor does not want to offend any countries or companies implicated. Really?
An even more gruesome example on the same blog is a post by Amanda Kloer who talks about “baby farms” in Nigeria and India in which young teen girls, sometimes trafficked or tricked, sometimes of their own will, are paid to have babies, which are then sold into slavery.
Bottom Line: There is profit in dehumanization, and where there’s profit, there’s power and an economy. The more profit and power amassed, the greater the need to feed it further with the enslavement and dehumanization of larger numbers.
“Civilized” Slavery in the U.S.
Before I get into why I believe legalized slavery still exists in the U.S., I wanted to share the following with you:
- Dictionary.com defines slavery as “A condition of hard work and subjection”.
- In a recent New York Times article, the unemployment rate as of July, 2009 is 9.5% and the underemployment rate is at 16.5% (underemployment also takes into account those working part-time due to loss in hours or lack of full time job availability). Neither of these figures take into account those whose benefits have run out and still cannot find a job.
- A recent CNNMoney.com article on job satisfaction reports that 54% of currently-employed Americans plan to find another job once the recession is over and as much as 71% for those aged 18-29.
- Wall Street Journal reported that most Americans are “Drowning in Mortgage Debt” and that 20% of all mortgages on U.S. single-family homes exceed the estimated current value.
- According to an article in the Washington Post, several Wall St. investment banks, after receiving their bailout money (thanks to American taxpayers), are going back to business as usual by compensating their executives and other employees with billions of dollars – at levels even higher than before the bailout.
What does the above point to? To me it says that as long as lobbyists are paid by big business to influence legislators and government buckles under pressure to prevent legislature from passing meaningful, enforceable laws that reign in the “business as usual” mentality that is working hard to preserve the status quo that benefits the privileged few in the short term, we are headed – quickly – toward an unsustainable and disastrous chapter in the history of Humankind.
Why?
Because the more big business is allowed to act irresponsibly, the more the masses suffer.
Why?
Because big business answers only to an unconditional financial bottom line. This bottom line is devoid of humanity, and any shred of reinvestment in Humanity or Society-At-Large is seen as a sign of weakness. What does this mean?
People suffer. When the American people experience a corrosion of the fundamental middle-class due to unemployment, they cannot pay their expenses. When this happens, there is more reliance upon a slow-moving, unresponsive government to help them out. In the meantime, people get hungry, they get scared, and they get desperate. The situation is inherently divisive, with an increasing disparity between the growing ranks of the poor, and the insulated rich. The poor, in effect, become financially enslaved by the rich.
Breeding Ground for Revolution
In a climate such as this, revolution becomes a real possibility. Marie Antoinette said, “If the poor have no bread, then let them eat cake.” This callous remark, smacking of depraved indifference to the plight of the poor people (who, ironically, have always filled the silos of the rich), let to her famous beheading.
The fundamental status quo as an economic “default setting” in the U.S., as well as in many parts of this world must change. It breeds violence and misery. It foments revolution. It is a recursive, self-perpetuating cancer which requires education, advocacy and activism to change. The governments of the world are so profoundly enmeshed in it that they are compromised.
Ultimately, if a very violent final chapter in the book of all Human History is to be avoided, investments in human dignity must be perceived as positive and rewarded, and investments in slavery and suffering must be either taxed or otherwise punished if the pendulum over us is to be stilled. An economic system that embraces its own humanity, is fully transparent to all citizens and is inherently sustainable must be adopted. A positive movement in this direction has to be started at a grassroots level.
We believe that our ever-increasing core of faithful Subscribers is comprised of fundamentally good people. They are blessed with the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. They are receptive, and by virtue of their works, Humanitarian. They have inherent flexibility and adaptability. Our Subscribers have riches that they have not yet fully drawn upon. THE NATIONAL NETWORKER calls upon you to invest a generous portion of your networking and relationship-capital building skills and efforts in benevolent activism. The dividends are great beyond measure. Any failure to use our gifts to do what large, conflicted, compromised and slow-moving government bodies just cannot do makes us a party to our own eventual enslavement and the enslavement of our children and subsequent generations.
Poverty, and a lack of a lawful means to escape it, is indeed a form of slavery. The fear and insecurity that accompany systematic dehumanization are a form of enslavement as well.
Our Subscribers are great people with great promise. We are a multinational nation in heart and mind and cyberspace. We can, if we choose to work together, eliminate slavery from the entrenched short-sightedness of the status quo.
Why?
Because we can.
Until next month...
Author’s Note: Featured Columnist Douglas Castle contributed to the content and editing of this article.
Adam J. Kovitz is the Chairman & Founder of The National Networker Group of Companies, which publish The National Networker (TNNW), provide member services and consulting as well as branding and social media domination.
For more about Adam J. Kovitz, please click here.
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BECAUSE I CAN: Ending Slavery in the U.S. and Abroad
by Thierry Mazué
