Tempest

We're all to blame because we want cheap products....

Take the massively rich Sugar Barons as a prime example...

For decades the hand-cut harvest of sugarcane in Florida was among the greatest domestic disgraces in the US. Until the US Sugar Corporation was indicted in 1942 for violating Constitutional prohibitions against slavery, the then-infant industry lured African-American workers in southern states with promises of free transportation and payment of six dollars a day. A typical recruit told an interviewer that when he arrived he learned that he owed eight dollars for the ride, another ninety cents for his cane knife and sharpener, plus room and board. He also learned that he would receive $1.80 for a day of labour. Many who tried to escape were apprehended by gun-wielding overseers who also happened to be deputized sheriffs for the county.

In the mid-1990s workers, who for years got less than the legal minimum wage, joined class-action lawsuits to sue the cane growers. Sometimes they succeeded, winning millions of dollars in back wages. Yet the victory prompted industrial manoeuvring rather than lasting justice. For the 1997 season the US Sugar Corporation switched to 100-per-cent mechanical harvesting.

So since the Sugar Barons had fired everyone and were now doing mechanical harvesting, they needed to find a way to also produce sugar cheaply.. so what did they do??? They went further south and did what they had done decades before...

The lush sugar cane fields in places like the Dominican Republic are still tended by men who are expected to cut a ton of sugar a day in stifling 50 degree heat for a mere $2.

When Ellam visited the 240,000 acre spread he found shantytowns full of Haitian sugar cane workers who were lured over the border to work with promises of a good job. Once they arrived they were trapped, kept stateless and forbidden to leave. Central Romana hires 90,000 of the 650,000 Haitian workers on the island.

Workers told him that they were barely paid enough to buy food from the company store - at twice the cost available elsewhere. They could be deported if they left the property to buy goods in town and weren't they allowed to grow vegetables to supplement their diet.

There were no doctors and little medical attention for injured cane workers. Men on horseback wearing pith helmets rode through town regularly to ensure that everybody was kept in line.

So everytime you have some candy.. chocolate.. sugar in your tea, coffee.. or basically eat or drink anything... Think about how we all get so much of what we use and rely on daily due to slavery. In our so called "civilized" societies we can pat ourselves on our back because we don't do that "here" (although it does but we choose to ignore it), but as long as we want cheap goods, others will do it to provide us with what we want.