As expected, the Obama administration has decided to ignore the atrocities of the Malaysian slave trade in order to make the world even more comfortable for global plutocrats and their unfettered capital. This cynical move is all of a piece with the long American tradition of deploring the behavior of countries our officials don't like (Russia, North Korea, Iran) while turning a willful blind eye to the deplorable behavior of countries which either buy US weapons of mass destruction (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt), or allow the extraction of their human and material resources for the benefit of the American ruling class and its corporations.(name just about any third world country.) These fire sale-type extractions usually follow bribes in the form of loans from the International Monetary Fund. The collateral is the imposition of austerity on poor and working people. Since the countries are rarely able to make timely repayments, the plunder by creditors is then free to proceed with a vengeance. Malaysia is one of the twelve nations included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In order for Barack Obama to salve his alleged conscience enough to sign the accord, his State Department has simply "upgraded" Malaysia to a less-bad level of human rights violations. This is despite the recent discovery of a mass grave containing the murdered bodies of hundreds of enslaved people, or as pseudo-democratic governments like to euphemise them, "human trafficking victims."
The move to officially upgrade
Malaysia from Tier 3 to Tier 2 in the department’s annual report on
human trafficking came despite scant evidence that the country has
improved oversight of the businesses that enslave workers within its
borders. It has raised concerns among some anti-trade activists that the
decision was made for purely political reasons. The trade promotion authority that Congress approved, which was signed into law
by President Obama in June, came with a condition: No country on Tier 3
of the human trafficking report could get “fast-track” status for trade
agreements signed with the United States. In other words, trade deals with a Tier 3 country could not go to
Congress for a guaranteed up-or-down vote without the possibility of
filibuster or amendment. Malaysia is one of 12 countries negotiating
TPP. The White House tried on multiple occasions to neutralize this
language without success. So the State Department’s upgrade for Malaysia
could be seen as a Plan B.
(snip)
Despite the White House’s contention that trade deals like TPP are “the most progressive in history,” it appears to be overlooking significant forced labor violations to get it passed. In 2014, the State Department demoted Malaysia
to Tier 3 status for being a destination “for men, women, and children
subjected to forced labor and women and children subjected to sex
trafficking.” Malaysia’s 4 million foreign workers are threatened by
large smuggling debts and confiscated passports that put them at the
mercy of recruiting companies. Women in particular, recruited for hotel
or beauty salon work, are routinely coerced into the commercial sex
trade. And forced labor runs rampant in agricultural, construction and
textile industries, producing the same goods that would get duty-free
access to U.S. markets under TPP.
Of course, the human rights catastrophe in Malaysia is already the direct result of American foreign policy as inflicted by the IMF. By "progress," Obama presumably means that the slave trade can forge ahead even stronger than ever, if and when the TPP is ratified and signed into ignominy. Just as he and previous presidents have always feebly insisted, the inclusion of "deplorable" nations in the global free market will be predicated on the flimsy promises of said nations to do the nicey-nice in the future.
As The Nation reports, the very existence of the State Department's tiered rating system of human trafficking nations is itself a cynical ploy to make the United States the global moral arbiter which can and will grant altruistic clemency to hardcore delinquent nations like Malaysia -- on the mere promise that they will mend their ways. And once they don't mend their ways, the US more often than not will turn another willful blind eye to the broken promises. The fact that Colombia, for example, continues its abysmal record of assassinating trade unionists with impunity after Obama's signing of CAFTA is a case in point. The Obama administration, as have other human bondage apologists before it, carefully concentrates on only the "trafficking" part of Malaysian slavery -- thus reducing it, in the court of public opinion, to just what it sounds like: a minor traffic violation rather than felony murder, kidnapping and rape. Maybe if Americans were able to view the abused victims of the Malaysian slave trade as thousands of Bill Cosby victims who are never allowed to escape his coercive clutches, they could then begin to feel some empathic outrage. The transatlantic slave trade from the 16th to the 18th centuries was not about the "movement." It was about permanently enslaving 11 million Africans, on top of merely "transporting" them across the ocean. Malaysia, too, is more than a "route." So, the question must be asked: where are the 21st century abolitionists? The reason that Barack Obama can so easily condemn the predations of a Bill Cosby while easily accepting the existence of slavery is the usual one: money, and lots of it. Slavery is a truly progressive growth industry, generating billions of dollars in profits every year, a profit margin greater than any other industry in the world, whether legal or illegal. The State Department estimates that one woman or child is trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation every 60 seconds.
Trafficked sex slaves are by far the most lucrative slaves in the world. Only 4.2 percent of the world's slaves are trafficked sex slaves, but they generate 39.1 percent of slaveholders' profits. To benchmark the astounding profits generated by the exploitation of sex slaves, one need look no further than the fact that the global weighted average net profit margin of almost 70 percent makes it one of the most profitable enterprises in the world. By comparison, Google's net profit margin in 2006 was 29 percent, and it is one of the most profitable companies in the United States."
Slavery has always been an integral, even necessary, part of capitalism. Globalization and "free trade" deals have made it even more so, creating as they do crisis situations in countries bearing their brunt. As jobs disappear and wages plummet, millions of women and children become vulnerable to exploitation. The IMF's prescription of the "shock doctrine" of austerity in the name of the free market has actually encouraged and accelerated slavery. Malaysia found itself in the neoliberal crosshairs in the early 90s, as speculators and hedge fund predators "invested" money in the country, leading to bubbles and currency devaluation. Then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad was blunt in his assessment:
We are told we must open up, that trade and commerce must be totally free. Free for whom? For rogue speculators. We had tried to comply with the wishes of the rich and mighty, but when the big funds use their massive weight in order to move the shares up and down at will and make huge profits by their manipulations, then it is too much to expect us to welcome them, especially when their profits result in massive losses for ourselves. The currency traders have become rich, very very rich through making other people poor.
The IMF/banking cartel did not take this radical rebellion against the Invisible Fist graciously, and the longest-serving prime minister in Malaysia's history was eventually forced to resign, with much help from Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and austerian vice president Al Gore.
Punishment by the IMF/global banking cartel for debtor states' failure to adopt "reforms" (austerity) always comes with a price. Just look at Greece. Just look at Detroit. Just look around your own foreclosed neighborhood.
And now, with the Obama administration's renewed, tacit acceptance of Asian slavery as an engine of economic growth, it is not hyperbole to label any complicit politicians who vote for "trade deals" not only whores, but pimps, high and free on capitalistic crack.
The victims of the global sex trade are the comfort women of the plutocrats -- each and every one of whom calls himself a devoted family man, or a simpering feminist with a shallow verbal penchant for "empowering" poor women and breaking the glass ceiling. Where are the 21st century abolitionists? Where are the protests? Where are the scolding magazine covers that shame and call out the political pimps and the plutocratic predators? "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength". -- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
"The fact is some folks are just opposed to trade deals out
of principle, a reflexive principle. And what I tell them is, ‘You know
what? If you’re opposed to these smart, progressive trade deals, then
that means you must be satisfied with the status quo.’ ” -- Barack Obama at Nike Headquarters, May 2015, doing Orwell one better. Not only is slavery free, and freedom slavery, but the whole abomination is eminently sane. The slaves are just too damned stupid to realize that their progress across national borders is preferable to just staying put in their miserable countries of origin.
"This is a testament to when we're not vigilant in defense of human rights, what can happen". -- Barack Obama on his visit to the Senegal Slave Trade Memorial, June 2013.
Wall Street Powers Higher on Greece Hopes: because The Market is a sadist. Greek crisis worse than the Great Depression: Plutocrats of the World, unite! Tsipras Just Destroyed Greece: It seems that the popular referendum against neoliberalism was just a head fake, and that the Syriza leader never really expected hoi polloi to reject austerity. Perhaps the lefties over at the World Socialist Website were right about Tsipras being an Obama clone all along. I hear tell that the Masters of the Universe might even give him a ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes, using the leftover confetti from today's World Cup festivities. Only kidding, of course. But at the very least, he can probably expect a commiserating congratulatory phone call from Obama, whose own bank-protecting economic policies he says he greatly admires. If, that is, the Troika doesn't pull a fast one and reject an austerity offer even better than the last one. The lunatics have definitely taken over the capitalistic asylum.
I nominate the people of Greece for the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite their own hardships they are welcoming refugees with open arms, feeding and clothing them and sharing their dwindling medical supplies. Over here in the USA, meanwhile, the corporate media give Donald Trump unlimited air time to vomit out his xenophobia, while the Obama administration has quietly imprisoned Central American women and children in privatized border internment camps. As Hillary Clinton has so hawkishly proclaimed, we have "to send them a message" that this land is not their land.
But, up with actual slavery: President Obama plans to deny the existence of human trafficking in Malaysia in order to grease the skids for passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As long as slave-owners promise to tone it down a tad, maybe even abolish it by the next century, Obama can live with it. I somehow doubt that Michelle Obama will be holding up another one of her "Bring Back Our Girls" signs in solidarity with the kidnapped victims being smuggled through Malaysia. The Market could not bear it.
If the ruling class can declare victory over racism by simply taking down a flag, how easy it then becomes to declare victory over slavery the wide world over by a simple stroke of the pen. Orwellian possibilities for blanket deniability in the name of profits for The Market are legion, and they are endless.
As Pope Francis saliently observes, unbridled capitalism is "the dung of the devil." And he also took a swipe at Obama's "free trade" deals and the finance cartel's assault on the Greek people while he was at it:
The new colonialism takes on
different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of
mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain 'free trade' treaties, and
the imposition of measures of 'austerity' which always tighten the belt
of workers and the poor," he said.
Never having met an idea or a lower House vote for the public good that it couldn't crush through sheer inertia, corruption, stealth, or just a flick of its contemptuous middle finger at the body politic, the United States Senate will once again try to give President Obama authority to fast-track democracy into permanent oblivion. Zero Hour begins on Tuesday, June 23, at approximately 11 a.m. President Obama probably won't need to make a personal desperate appearance this time. Neither will the mass media. The pundits are too busy analyzing and marveling at how casually and boldly he was able to say "nigger" while they make their squeamish PC excuses about why they can't allow us to actually hear him say "nigger" on TV. "Nigger" might be a trigger.... it might remind viewers that the secretive TPP is actually a deal for a resurgence of the slave trade -- among its many other abominations.
A typical deflection/distraction, broadcast by The Terror Channel, (aka CNN) whose programming is sponsored by the same voracious multinationals dictating the secret terms of the corporate coup trade packages:
While it's grand that they're talking about finally retiring the Confederate flag in Dixie, the rest of the globe's population will watch in horror and disbelief as the plutocrats turn the planet into one great big toxic plantation.... if Obama and his plutopals get their way. For some reason, the president thinks "Obamatrade" is a legacy to be proud of. The realization that he is a right-wing free market ideologue, and always has been, is slowly beginning to dawn even on some of his biggest fans. So he chose last week to schmooze with a comedian about race. It's the politics of mass distraction. The post-racial president comes out of his closet and boldly suggests that racism is still in our DNA -- a statement which, by the way, sickeningly dog-whistles the racist right wing ideology (biology is destiny) of Charles Murray, whether Obama meant it that way or not.
But the centrist punditocracy celebrates his refreshing honesty and bravery even as he displays the most egregious dishonesty and subterfuge about the TPP. His administration has even threatened to prosecute any member of Congress who divulges its details to the public. Sorry, but you don't get to call yourself anti-racist or liberal, and then not speak out against the TPP. It's just as white-supremacist as the hate group that inspired the Charleston massacre. It supports the Malaysian human trafficking cartel and perpetuates labor abuses against Asian people making 40 cents an hour in sweatshops, and family farmers eking out a bare bones existence both here and abroad. The TPP will off-shore more American jobs and further depress American wages and have an adverse economic affect on already oppressed Black and Latino Americans. It's a de facto acceleration of global slavery -- which has its roots not in bigotry, but in greed and unfettered capitalism. So as reader Valerie urges, call your Dinosaurs one more time and tell them so. Remind them that as the populist climate heats up, those electoral extinctions sure have a strange way of occurring without warning. A list of their phone numbers is here. Video accompaniment is here.
*Update, 6/23: The Senate advanced Trade Promotion Authority (fast-track), 60-37. The same Democratic quislings who'd voted for it previously -- Michael Bennet (D-Colo), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Thomas R. Carper
(D-Del.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Heidi
Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Patty
Murray (D-Wash.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Mark
Warner (D-Va.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) -- were not swayed by the wishes and demands of their putative constituents, aka The Little People, to change their minds. With any luck, they will go down in electoral history as The Unlucky Thirteen.
"It's a great day for the big money interests, not a great day for working families." -- Bernie Sanders, democratic socialist of Vermont. "Occasionally, even President Obama gets things right." -- John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.
Now the Democrats, Obama included, can pretend to fight for the regular folk by throwing a few extra crumbs to a couple displaced workers. (Trade Adjustment Assistance) The Republicans will pretend to balk, but in the end each side will embrace slavery and plutocracy.
The silver lining is that once Obama completes his deal, we will have an actual opportunity to see it. Hell will hopefully break loose. So we should keep up the pressure. Another silver lining is that 11 other countries also have to approve this travesty. A lot of their citizens (notably in Australia, Canada and Japan) are less than enchanted with it, too. The battle against neoliberalism is global, because neoliberalism itself is global. Individual nation-states are rapidly becoming superfluous to the interests of capital.
