And for the link-phobic:

It’s the season when the United States issues its annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP). Having named sexual slavery as a particular evil to be eradicated, the United States grades other countries on how they are doing.

On the one hand, it sounds like an obvious way to do good: Describe the ghastly conditions you as a rich outsider observe in poor countries. Focus on places where sex is sold. Say all women found were kidnapped virgins and are now enslaved; announce to the world that you will liberate them. Organize raids. Denounce anyone who objects – even if their objection is that you are intervening in their country’s internal affairs. Ignore victims who resist rescue. Use lurid language and talk continuously about the most sensational and terrible cases. Justify your actions as a manifestation of faith, as though it exists only for you. Mutter about “organized crime.”

This is also the season when tourists leave the United States en masse to visit the rest of the world, where their country is more disliked all the time. People who used to say: “It’s just the president [or the government], ordinary Americans are all right,” now say it less often. Ignorant, destructive interventions into other countries’ business have been going on too long.

Grading everyone else on moral grounds is highly offensive, particularly when such grades are accompanied by threats of punishment if the line isn’t toed. It’s distressing to witness the deterioration of what good will is left toward this country since the post-2001 wars were initiated and campaigns intensified that presume the United States Always Knows Best.

For crusading politicians and religious leaders, a rhetoric of moral indignation is effective in uniting constituents and diverting the collective gaze away from familiar problems at home. So the culprits, those who get bad grades in the TIP, live far away from U.S. culture, which is assumed to be better. Intransigent local troubles – prisons overflowing with African Americans, millions of children malnourished – are swept aside in the call to clean up other people’s countries.

This moral indignation emanates from people who live comfortably, who are not wondering where their next meal will come from or how to pay doctors’ bills. These moral entrepreneurs do not have to choose between being a live-in maid, with no privacy or free time and unable to save money because the pay is so bad, and selling sex, which pays so well that you have time to spend with your children or read a book, money to buy education or a phone.

It is easy to haul out sensationalistic language (sex slavery, child prostitution), but it is much harder to sort out the real victims from the more routinely disadvantaged and trying-to-get-ahead. Those who know intimately the problems of the poor in their own cultures rarely deny that they can decide to leave home and pay others to help them travel and find work, in sex or in any other trade.

“But sex for money is disgusting and degrading; no one should have to do it.” And should anyone have to clean toilets all day? Risk being maimed in unsafe fireworks factories? Should children have to spend their lives in lightless tunnels of mines, or women have to remain married to men who are cruel to them? The world is full of things we wish we could eradicate – but isn’t starvation the first of them? Why is there no equivalent moral furor over hideous poverty? Are we meant to believe that sex without love is worse than military violence? All over the world, selling sex pays better than most jobs readily available to women, and many do not believe it is the worst possible experience they can have.

What’s questionable about the TIP is not the defense of children or anyone else against true violence – it’s one government’s assumption that it has the right to judge everyone else and apply a draconian definition of exploitation that does not ask people whether and how they would like to change their lives. Questionable is the focus on the photogenic, cowboy moment of rushing in to rescue slaves, with no interest in what will follow.

Victims are “protected” rather than granted autonomy. At the Empower Center in Chiang Mai, Thailand, signs written by migrant women “rescued from” selling sex include: “We lose our savings and belongings”; We are locked up”; “We are held till deporation”; “We are interrogated by many people”; “Our family must borrow money to survive while we wait.”

From the standpoint of social science, the TIP is gravely faulty. It never explains how data were gathered and compared across so many languages and cultures, or who did it exactly under what circumstances. A raft of other research shows enormous diversity among people who sell sex, and a wide variety of experiences in the sex industry among both migrants and people who stay at home. Studies show that the worst kind of trafficking can happen to people doing other kinds of jobs – and to men. Women all over the world, including the poorest, repudiate being characterized as above all sexually vulnerable.

In assuming its creators’ moral values are or should be universal, the TIP ignores local cultures and the complexities of human desires and functions – yet another reason tourists from the United States will be less welcome everywhere this summer.

The only problem I have with the daughter’s decision is her signing that contract which allows the site owner to use her photos for whatever purpose. That sounds a little manipulative and dangerous. Other than that, if this were my child, I wouldn’t make a fuss if she were posing nude. I’d be more offended if my kid became a CEO.

D:

A more lengthy update (including that post about violence and catharsis!) later.

Please spread the word about this. This is incredibly weird.

ETA: more info here.

Cursive–The Recluse

Death Cab for Cutie–I Will Follow You Into the Dark

Desaparecidos–The Happiest Place on Earth

Fiona Apple–Extraordinary Machine

Hole–Doll Parts

Wheatus–Teenage Dirtbag

Mewithoutyou–Gentlemen

These are all uploaded onto various sites (I found them through a website that has a bunch of mp3s uploaded, so if you’re interested in a certain song or band, you can listen to it and decide if you like it, without downloading it onto your computer.) and they’re in mp3 format, so it should work on most browsers.

http://sm-feminist.blogspot.com/

I’ll have more to talk about soon, including:
–the concept of violence in media as catharsis ( I was actually inspired by Trinity and her posts on BDSM and violence in entertainment)
–Women and immigration
–exceprts from one of bell hooks’ books: Killing Rage: Ending Racism

I’ve been really rushed/stressed out with AP exams, getting ready for prom, getting ready for finals, figuring summer plans…etc, etc, so that’s why I took a break. Plus I needed to put aside some spiritual time for myself. Now that I’m back in the saddle, I plan to post a lot more, especially since the summer is coming up and I’ll have TIMMMEEEE, PRECIOUS TIME!

All shall know the wonder of purple summer.

It’s from a new musical called Spring Awakening.

When a ton of crap is dumped from way high above into the lake of our lives, we rarely worry about the tiny arcing droplets splashing on our face mainly because we’re too busy keeping our boats afloat and our breathing apparatuses above water, but I would like to spotlight a seemingly insignificant drop of moisture pooling at the end of our nose that is destined to affect us for the rest of our natural born days. Namely: the name George. Which is getting such a bad rap these days, it will soon qualify for 12 step status. “Hi, my name’s George and I’m a George.”

“Hi George.”

Even though this honorable moniker stands as a symbol of our country’s birthing struggle due to the father of our nation wrestling its honor from the crazed clutches of King George III, parents must be having second, third and no thoughts whatsoever about naming their kids George lest it be seen as a tacit approval of the ways and means of the current administration.

Hell, I bet the names Mothra, Dweezil and Philomena get better placement in the baby name books than George and/ or Georgette do over the next couple of decades. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear Prince George, British Colombia attempts to change its handle to Margaritaville.

Like the demise of free buffalo chicken wings during happy hour, all it takes is one or two little snortie pigs stuffing the plastic bag-lined pockets of their overcoats to ruin it for everybody. Well, in this case, everybody named George. No, scratch that, I was right the first time: ruin it for everybody. And for lowering the bar on this whole Jorge thing so deep you’d have to dig about six feet under ground just to get a sonar detection on it the responsibility lies with the usual suspects; Presidents number 41 & 43. But god knows, they are not alone.

Earlier this month, the alleged Boy George was busted for allegedly imprisoning an alleged male prostitute and triple extra credit for anybody who can hold that image in their head for more than fifteen seconds, and now… NOW… along comes Medal of Freedom winning (hack) former head of the CIA, George Tenet, who writes a book saying he was never that big of a fan of the Iraqi war, and was a reluctant player, simply going along to get along and now he’s not sure if it was a good idea or not and enh, enhhhh enhh, weh weh weh weh weh, all the way home, and hey!

What’s that noise? Oh, it’s the sound of the final nails being hammered into the George coffin. Dearly beloved, it is my sad duty to inform you, that George, as we know it, is over. Exists no more. Its history. In the archives. Elapsed. Expired. Its gone. Say bye.

This might even prove to be fatal blow. A death knell for the venerable name of George. Kind of like what happened to Attila and Adolf and Dick and Maynard. Of course, pets will still be called George, based on the modern children’s classics: George of the Jungle and Curious George.

While we grown ups can only fantasize about how truly marvelous this world would be, if only we were blessed with a president whose mind had a predilection towards the latter rather than the geography of the former.

Though touted by the Bush administration as the “silver bullet” that will force teenagers to “just say no,” random drug testing is of questionable effectiveness. It is also costly, counterproductive and violates basic American values. That’s why the million-member California State PTA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Education Association, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, and the majority of the nation’s school districts oppose school-based drug testing.

According to the Academy of Pediatrics, “There is little evidence of the effectiveness of school-based drug testing in the scientific literature.” In fact, the only federally funded, peer-reviewed study, which compared 94,000 students in 900 U.S. schools, found no difference in illegal drug use between schools with and without a testing program.

Before subjecting secondary school students to a policy as invasive as random drug testing, evidence of its efficacy should be more conclusive than anecdotes offered by a few enthusiastic proponents and a drug testing industry that stands to reap billions.

Drug testing is costly. With federal grants, individual schools, many of them strapped for funds, spend between $10,000 and $40,000 per year for testing. This money could be used more productively for sports, arts, drama, music and other extracurricular activities that keep teens engaged between3 and 6 p.m., when they are bored and unsupervised. The funds could also be used to hire credentialed counselors who could focus full-time on substance abuse and related mental health issues.

Drug testing, regardless of how it’s packaged, is an invasive diagnostic procedure. Like other health issues, alcohol and other drug use should first and foremost be the domain of parents and physicians. If parents want to drug-test their own children, they can easily buy over-the-counter kits at their local pharmacies or see their family doctors, leaving schools out of it.

There is no quick fix for the complex issue of substance abuse. Quality drug education and after-school programs that help students thrive will best result in the kind of responsible decision-making that endures beyond the teen years and into adulthood.

Also, All For the Taking fights for affordable housing for everyone and preserving communities. They are currently fighting against plans for casinos to be built in certain neighborhoods. The casinos would break up the communities and cause more housing and poverty issues, and possibly cause gentrification of the areas, which leads to higher rents, pushing low-income families and individuals out and contributing to homelessness.