#global exploitation

[titleknown]

I will say, I'm glad folks are talking about the issues of global exploitation and the way the small-creator-merch production pipeline has a fucked up role in it, I think it's a conversation that absolutely needs to happen...

But I feel like y'all need to find a way to actually organize a campaign to materially do something about it instead of letting it devolve into a guilt-stick people bludgeon others over the head with without doing anything.

Like, for clarity's sake I'm the last person who should actually head such an org, and I'm saying this from a perspective of hypothesis, but I do at least have a list of questions you should ask yourself if you do want to start an org/movement.

Like, for the general ones:

What are your end-goals? both short-term and long term? What is a good immediately-achievable goal to work towards at the start to recruit?

What levers of power are available to use to get your goals done? What could you do to expand those levers of power?

What forces stand against you? What pillars support their power? How can you undermine those pillars?

Where is an adversarial framing avoidable? How do you build solidarity in that context? Where is adversarial framing unavoidable? How do you go forward then? How do you tell when that framing is avoidable and unavoidable?

How do you get people onboard? How do you get them to stay? How do you get them to actively work on this?

And for the ones specific to this:

What is your immediate goals for the production of these luxury goods? For it to cease because it is logistically impossible to do ethically? For it to be done with a fair wage by unionized workers if that is possible? For creatives to diversify and divest into smaller, more ethically producible merch? A combination?

How would you establish contact with those overseas workers to address their needs? Who would you ask amongst them, and how would you center their input? What would acting as a representative of your organization to speak with them entail?

What would more ethical small artists merch production entail? What methods are logistically possible? What barriers might prevent small artists from engaging in those methods? How does one deal with the problem of a consumer base that might not buy that ethical merch from said artists?

How do you propose dealing with the potential loss of income from this production for those artists who potentially cannot afford to lose it? Are there any other things causing artistic poverty or mitigations of the problem that can be addressed by this campaign as potential means to fill in that gap? Are there any orgs working on those you could potentially ally with?

What can be done to create solidarity between global north artists and global south workers rather than the current adversarial arrangement? Is that even possible? If so, what goals would achieve that in the immediate term, short term, long term?

Note I mean none of this as a bad faith rhetorical-question "gotcha," but rather, as the first steps to thinking about how one might go about this, because we need an org for this because it's an important issue we need to address as both creatives and as a larger society.

And like, while org-building is easier said than done, if this remains just in the realm of "vagueposting and scolding on social media," well...

...I ain't gonna stop you, but have fun being politically irrelevant.

[weaverofthoughts]

[kropotkindersurprise]

Michael Parenti on the extraction of wealth from the so-called Third World by Western Capitalism. [video]

[alwaysbewoke]

[she-is-ovarit]

Sign the petition: Stop forcing women and girls into sex for water!

Imagine being so desperate for water, you’d do anything to get it. Anything. Experts estimate that tens of thousands of women and girls around the world -- and maybe many more -- face this situation every single day. And corrupt water vendors in Kenya are taking advantage in the worst possible way, forcing them into sex for just a few litres. Children are being abused, women’s lives shattered. They have no choice. But here’s the really crazy thing: since there’s no law against this vile exploitation, it’s completely legal! We could change that. Kenyan women’s rights groups say the government is considering a law to make this abuse illegal – and that massive show of global pressure could make all the difference. They’re asking the Avaaz community to help – let’s lend our voices to some of the poorest, most vulnerable people on Earth, and demand an end to sex-for-water abuse. When our call is huge, we’ll deliver our voices to Kenya’s government. Photo Credit: Mariella Furrer Posted: 12 January 2024

[homeostasister]

Was anyone going to tell me the new Sultai are incredibly based?

[in4newz]

Married Chicago teacher charged with m*lesting a 15-year-old Student During a Tutoring Session

30-year-old Christina Formella is accused of s*xually assaulting a student before school at Downers Grove South High School.

The incident reportedly happened in the classroom and was discovered by the boy's mother when she looked through his phone. Formella was a special education teacher and also coached soccer at the school.

"The allegations against Ms. Formella are extremely disturbing," said DuPage County Attorney Robert Berlin.

"It is alleged that she used her position of trust and authority as a tutor and a coach to s*xually assault a minor student. The type of abuse and behavior alleged in this case will not be tolerated."

Formella recently married her husband, who she went to college with, in August 2024. She was charged with two counts of aggravated criminal s*xual abuse and one count of criminal s*xual assault, as reported by the New York Post.

[birdmenmanga]

"Getting rid of inequality and making things fair for everyone" is a fairly reasonable place to start developing one's political stance. However many people when faced with the statement "only some people can do/access/have [whatever thing in question]", have a knee-jerk reaction to go "and so actually, EVERYBODY should be able to do/access/have [these things]" when SOMETIMES it should be "well actually, NOBODY should be able to do/access/have [these things]"

[tauindi]

tbh i don't think you can put an end to single-use plastics without also reckoning with capitalist + imperialist worker exploitation.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

had a really interesting convo yesterday about ethics and whether intent or results matters (eg if you tried to make an ethical purchasing choice but the business was actually exploitative as hell, does that "count") and very much came to the conclusion that sure, if you're concerned with your personal immortal soul, as a christian might be, then intention counts. but if what you're focused on is your impact on the world, then intention means nothing if the actions have negative results, right? (that doesn't mean you're to blame for them! you didn't know! but you also don't get "ethics points" for trying, you know?)

and this also got me thinking about the whole christian idea that sinful thoughts are as bad as sinful actions because. they're just not imo. maybe for the sake of your Immortal Soul they are points against you, if that's your jam. but in terms of putting good into the world, in terms of your impact on other people, the ONLY thing that matters is what you choose to do with those thoughts. there is no way that "was kind to someone who was pissing me off, for the sake of community harmony" or "helped an acquaintance with a task even though I felt resentful about the time spent doing that" is a Bad Thing for the world

and it made me wonder how much purity culture and thought policing is rooted in (mostly evangelical) cultural christianity and this idea that ethical choices are an individual thing because what matters is the impact of them on YOUR soul and not, you know, things we do because of what we owe the world around us / because of love for others / because a world where people are trying to put good into it is a hell of a lot nicer to live in than one where people are only worried about themselves

i grew up evangelical but like. fairly mild evangelical and even though there wasn't a big focus on hell and stuff, i definitely fixated on imperfect thoughts and behaviours that were putting absolutely no harm into the world, rather than focusing on what i could do to put good into it, and that individualistic vs outward-focused approach to morality has been something i've grappled with a lot as an adult. but i never really thought about it as simply as this and really that's what it boils down to. are you making the ethical choice because you're trying to put good in the world, or because it would make you a "good person" to do so? because the answer to that 100% defines whether it's the thought or the result that counts

[lesbianboyfriend]

this is actually insane i mean neurodivergent imagine you turn in a bad paper and your teacher writes you a shitty poem about how much it sucks uses you as academia inspo porn on twitter and then gets thousands of likes

[coochiequeens]

If your so desperate for a baby you arrange for one to be born in a country where surrogacy is illegal, you don't have the best interests of the children in mind and should question why you want a baby so eagerly in the first place.

This new case making headlines in Cambodia demonstrates that, despite the 2016 ban, surrogacy continues to thrive in this impoverished Southeast Asian nation through underground networks.

By Antoine d’Abbundo January 2nd, 2025 

Although surrogacy has been banned in Cambodia since 2016, the lucrative business of “baby factories” persists in this poor Southeast Asian country. Evidence of this is the recent dismantling of a network that led to the arrest of 24 foreign women—20 Filipinos and 4 Vietnamese—recruited to serve as surrogate mothers for foreign clients.

This trafficking operation was uncovered during a police raid in late September at a villa in the Prek Anchanh commune, Kandal province, south of the capital Phnom Penh, where the women were housed. Eleven of them, who were not yet pregnant, were immediately deported to their home countries. The other 13—three of whom had already given birth—were sentenced in late November to four years in prison, two of which were suspended under Cambodian laws that penalize human trafficking.

Particularly attractive prices

Pardoned by a decree from King Norodom Sihamoni, the 13 Filipinos returned to their country December 29 without any clarity on the fate of the children already born or yet to be born. “If we conclude that they are unable to care for the children, then the babies could temporarily become wards of the state, and we must consider options such as adoption,” explained Nicholas Felix Ty, Philippine Undersecretary of Justice.

The traffickers, however, remain at large. According to Cambodian authorities, the agency responsible for the recruitment is based in Thailand and primarily caters to Chinese clients, driven by the relaxation of the one-child policy, as well as Australian and American clients. These childless couples are drawn by the highly competitive prices: in the United States, surrogacy costs can exceed $100,000, while hiring a surrogate in Cambodia is reportedly ten times cheaper.

Laos: The new surrogacy haven

This explains why, despite the 2016 ban, Cambodia remained a hub for this trade, as evidenced by several high-profile cases in recent years.

In 2017, an Australian nurse and her two Cambodian accomplices were sentenced to one and a half years in prison for running an illegal clinic. The following year, Cambodian police announced the dismantling of a trafficking ring in Phnom Penh involving 33 surrogate mothers. These women were eventually released on the condition that they agreed to keep their babies. In 2019, authorities again reported the release of 11 women under the same promise not to sell their children.

“The surrogacy market is expanding in Asia, as it is in all countries where many women live below the poverty line,” lamented a representative of CoRP, a feminist collective advocating for the global abolition of surrogacy, to La Croix. This is particularly true in Laos, Cambodia's even poorer neighbor, which is emerging as the new surrogacy haven. There, open clinics boldly advertise “substitute maternity packages at the lowest prices” online with slogans like, “Let us help you achieve your dream of having a child.”

[alwaysbewoke]

[shotofstress]

Everytime a westerner, specially a gringo, says that they can't deal with "the things" that are happening "right now" and that they want thing to be "normal again" is a reminder that they have spent their whole live living in the blissful ignorant imperialist bubble of the empire.

Not a single thing that is happening is abnormal, every single thing that is happening has been happening for decades in the best of cases and for centuries in the worst of cases, even millenia. But they just didn't cared nor didn't want to know nor want things to change and what they call normal life is just keeping be a beneficiary of imperialism and capitalism, and not having to deal with the 1% of what Global South has to deal with every damn second since centuries.

Gringos are crying bc they are seeing (most not even living in the flesh, just seeing it) the 1% of what, for example, capitalism and the usa regime* has cause in South America since the literal foundation of usa (bc usa regime has always be an imperialist regime). And yet they want that things just keep not happening to them (which to be honest are not many things) but because they live in a bubble of privilege and the benefits of being imperialists they see it as an assault to reality, an absurdity, a destruction of the world and by "world" they just mean their country. The countries they destroy with wars, coups, cultural colonialism, capitalism, transnationals, enslavement, them coming to live, etc everyday since usa foundation? Nah, don't count. Not human enough bc we are not gringos.

*and others like UK, Canada, Australia and other sparkling from Europe and even Asia

[nando161mando]

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

This isn't surprising.