Pentagon has yet to craft a policy to bar human trafficking

— By Diane E. Dees | Tue December 27, 2005 8:33 AM PST

It has been three years since George W. Bush announced his "zero tolerance" of human trafficking by overseas contractors, and two years since Congress backed zero tolerance up with law. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act authorized more than $2 million to combat human traffickiing, including women and girls forced into prostitution.

But the actual adoption of a plan to stop human trafficking is stuck in a mire of defense contractor lobbying tactics and disagreement over the Defense Department's intentions. Last summer, the Pentagon drafted a proposal prohibiting defense contractor involvement in human trafficking for forced labor and prostitution, but lobbying groups objected to it because, they say, key parts of it are unrealistic. At the same time, experts on human trafficking say that the Pentagon's proposed policy would only formalize practices that have made it possible for contractors working overseas to escape punishment for their involvement in human trafficking.

A new bill reauthorizing the nation's efforts against human trafficking was just passed, but only after the a measure that would have created a trafficking watchdog at the Pentagon was removed. Lobbying groups have also fought against a plan to have contractors police their overseas subcontractors with regard to trafficking. On the up side, though, the new law also deals with trafficking within U.S. borders, and holds non-defense federal employees accountable.

Gar Alperovitz's article Another World Is Possible, is really just another empty liberal lament about what has happened to our political and economic system that offers no real alternative to what is currently happening. While he complains about the rise of the Old South Order in the New World Order (my paraphrasing) he offers scant little substance in the form of ideas that can change the capitalistic fascism which has taken over BOTH primary political parties.
The truth is, he is right to be optimistic, but then he should put his optimism in his writing and keep things like "nor can the core political relationships that now define the South be easily unraveled." out of his lamenting rhetoric. Frankly there is one primary reason why we are where we are at now as a nation. Democratic Party leaders such as Lieberman, Hilary Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy, Leahy and Reid, think they can legislate their agendas while eating from the same money trough as the Republicans. This lends them to look just like Republicans. They end up voting for certain issues which run against Democratic principles in the hope of not being targeted in their next election campaign. Then they are surprised when the Republicans Swift Boat war veterans and themselves soon enough. A policy of complacency has equated to guilt for these Dem's. There is no opposition party.
There are however, at least 2 things which can be done to wrest control of our nations destiny from this ruthless gang of murderous thugs and criminals. First, we should be working for real change in education funding across the nation. Currently the funding of our public education system is done by local property taxes which equates to a classed system of funding. In other words, the more property taxes collected, the better the education system in a given county. A truly deomcratic system of funding would be based upon the # of students and be done equally per capita across all school districts in each State. 50 ways to leave your lover seems like an appropriate phrase here.
The next thing to do is to eliminate, not play with, modify or otherwise twist, campaign financing. Imagine how many children who live in poverty could be helped with all the money spent on political ads currently. I'm talking billions each election year, nationwide. None of these ideas will be easy to accomplish but until they are started, there will be no changes.
Capitalism is a system of competition based upon speculation or what I call more honestly, legalized gambling. Our entire economy is based on the gaming theory developed by a guy who has since gone nuts at Princeton University. Nothing against him, but it is clear to me that the voices in his head which got him diagnosed as Schizophrenic were the same voices where he got the gaming theories from, in his own words.
Capitalism flies in the face of every major religion in the world today as well as some of the older mythologies from history. The fact is the human race has survived this long through cooperation, not competition. Human competition generally ends in warfare if you study world history. Until we change this model, we will always know warfare. If you look at the origins of capiptalism, the Hapsburgs of Austria and the original merchants of Munchen (Munich) who began taxing traders for passage through Munich to the western European markets - you see that since the first stock market or publicly traded companies began operation in Europe 500 years ago, Europe has been at war mostly since then. When you compare that with the Native American tribes of both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and those of ancient Asia you see a more cooperative economic system with far less bloodshed. Genreally the bloodshed got out of hand in these societies just before their demise, from a variety of causes, not just European invasion. We here in America though, have to begin to consider the thought that what we know today is not sustainable and will not help us to survive in the future. the misguided belief that the system which is broken can be fixed is as fatal a plan as continuing on as we are today. It cannot be fixed, because it is not broken, its very design is fatally flawed. So yes, throw the Democrats (baby) out with the bathwater (Republicans) and let's get something real going here before it is too late. Hope is the last to die.