Va. lawmakers apologize for slavery

[Heracles 417]

and that proves what? Your circular logic makes me dizzy.

I refuted our statement that the founders didn't know better. They did. Maybe you accept that argument and you just want to discuss something else? If you are trying to prove your original statement was correct, you still haven't done it.

Slavery was common practice within many nations. Nonetheless they have appologized. Will all of the other nations around the world and / or all of the other people responsible for slavery also apologize?

It is not as if American soldiers went to African countries, forced them to board ships, at gun point, and shipped them to the US.. There where numerous other parties involved. Should their descendants also apologize?

Edited March 1, 2007 by Infidel

[Alex+R 0]

I honestly don't know why people waste their time arguing with moron-bigots.

[Jenn! 918]

and that proves what? Your circular logic makes me dizzy.

I refuted our statement that the founders didn't know better. They did. Maybe you accept that argument and you just want to discuss something else? If you are trying to prove your original statement was correct, you still haven't done it.

Slavery was common practice within many nations. Nonetheless they have appologized. Will all of the other nations around the world and / or all of the other people responsible for slavery also apologize?

It is not as if American soldiers went to African countries, forced them to board ships, at gun point, and shipped them to the US.. There where numerous other parties involved. Should their descendants also apologize?

Yes, of course. Well, the countries should apologize, not the descendants. The descendants did not enslave anyone. We're back to this being a symbolic gesture on the part of the state, not an assignment of guilt to people who did nothing wrong themsleves.

You had compared mybackpages' speaking to our forefathers feelings about slavery to a KKK member speaking about slavery, which leads me to believe that you were not " just making a point that stuff like this has happened in most countries out there".

The bottom line is, the subject was Virginia's apology, not the apology of the countless other nations who should but will probably not follow VA's lead...

[mybackpages 0]

I honestly don't know why people waste their time arguing with moron-bigots.

touche B)

[Heracles 417]

I honestly don't know why people waste their time arguing with moron-bigots.

Have you ever noticed how most of your views are one line posts. And that anyone who disagrees with you, you find a way to insult. If I wanted to insult someone like yourself, you would leave here crying..

Edited March 1, 2007 by Infidel

[Alex+R 0]

I honestly don't know why people waste their time arguing with moron-bigots.

Have you ever noticed how most of your views are one line posts. And that anyone who disagrees with you, you find a way to insult. If I wanted to insult a dumb ### little girl like yourself, you would leave here crying..

Whatever you say, sweetheart.

BTW, was "dumb azs little girl" supposed to make me cry? I'll get out the kleenex if so.

Edited March 1, 2007 by Alex+R

[mybackpages 0]

I know who my money is on in this battle

[Heracles 417]

Whatever you say, sweetheart.

Seriously, why do you feel you have to insult or attack anyone who disagrees with you?

[bucknekkid 0]

230 somethig posts..is this horse not dead yet?

[Alex+R 0]

Sigh. Run along now.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Sigh. Run along now.

Did you steal that line from me or me from you?

[peezey 0]

I was not attacking anyone personally I was just making a point that stuff like this has happened in most countries out there..

So what. We're talking about the US, the country we all live in, hope to live in, or live in at least part time. The country that asserts its moral authority over the frickin' globe. To compare the US to anything else is an insult to our supposed freedoms we all hold so dear, so much so that we think exporting them to other parts of the world is entirely logical, necessary, and benevolent. But we can't be honest about the mistakes of our past and apologize for them? If you are so upset that Morocco doesn't apologize for its poor behavior, why the heck would you want to compare the US to it?

[peezey 0]

Slavery was common practice within many nations. Nonetheless they have appologized. Will all of the other nations around the world and / or all of the other people responsible for slavery also apologize?

It is not as if American soldiers went to African countries, forced them to board ships, at gun point, and shipped them to the US.. There where numerous other parties involved. Should their descendants also apologize?

Yes, of course other states should make amends, apologize, whatever is necessary to at the very least make sure their history, distant and not so distant, of slavery is addressed. But if they don't, that means the US shouldn't? What kind of logic is that? You can't possibly be suggesting that those of us who approve of, and in fact would demand, our nation apologize for slavery wouldn't demand the same from other nations, could you? Because that would be the ultimate in lameness.

And of course you never addressed your bigotry and arrogance in how you described slavery as a job and slave owners as bosses. I guess that's to be expected. You get the Senator Thurmond Award for Profound Racism.

[mmb 0]

Slavery hasn't gone away in America today

SLAVERY IN MODERN-DAY AMERICA

One of the shining stars of global abolition work is the Washington, DC–based organization Free the Slaves. Kevin Bales established the organization in 2000 to educate the American public about the existence of slavery and to push governments to enact and enforce antislavery laws. The organization reflects the ethos of its founder. Kevin speaks about slavery in a style that is local yet global, strategic yet nonpartisan. Moreover, Free the Slaves consistently produces the most insightful and accurate research on trafficking networks available anywhere.

Between January 1998 and December 2003, Free the Slaves conducted a research project in collaboration with the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley. The final report, published under the title Hidden Slaves: Forced Labor in the United States, thoroughly documents the nature and scope of slavery inside American borders. The investigation exposed a number of noteworthy trends:

Foreigners are trafficked into the United States from at least thirty-five countries. Most victims originate in China, followed by Mexico and then Vietnam.

The states with the largest incidence of slavery are California, Florida, Texas, and New York.

Mexican, eastern European, and Asian crime syndicates run extensive trafficking rings inside the United States. They particularly target migrant groups.

U.S. citizens and permanent residents import thousands of domestic servants into this country as slaves.

Seventy-five percent of all New York apparel manufacturing firms are sweatshops, using forced labor or paying workers below minimum wage.

Forced labor is most prevalent in five sectors of the U.S. economy: prostitution and sex ser vices (46 percent); domestic ser vice (27 percent); agriculture (10 percent); sweatshop/factory work (5 percent); and restaurant and hotel work (4 percent).

It is hard for many Americans to believe that slavery still exists on a grand scale in the world, let alone that it may have a foot-hold in their community. Yet there is no denying the fact that tens of thousands of people labor each day in the United States without pay and under the threat of violence. Because forced labor is often hidden in unregulated work environments or where cheap labor is the norm, most Americans will walk by an incidence of slavery and pay it no notice.

Given a widely held misconception, it must be emphasized that not all incidences of slavery involve undocumented immigrants. For instance, the Detroit Free Press reported in January 2003 that Michigan police had uncovered a multistate sex-trafficking ring involving the abduction of midwestern females, some as young as thirteen years old. The criminal network was exposed when a seventeen-year-old girl fl ed into a store in a Detroit, Michigan, strip mall and pleaded with a security guard for assistance. Soon thereafter, her traffickers burst into the store in pursuit. The security guard noted that the girl was battered and terrified, so he thwarted the predators and called in the local police.

The girl informed the police that she had been kidnapped while waiting at a bus stop in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Her captors drove her to Detroit, where she was forced to engage in commercial sex.

The girl subsequently led the police to the house in Detroit where she had been held, and they arrested the leader of the trafficking ring. Upon further investigation, the police learned that the perpetrators had been kidnapping teenage girls for eight years and trafficking them to cities around the Midwest.

The mother of the girl whose escape triggered the bust declared, “The whole thing is unreal—it’s like slavery. They lure and coerce these girls into doing whatever they want. It’s a sick game they are playing with our children.”

For more information about slavery in the USA and a modern day abolitionist in Virginia look at this Not For Sale