Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves

[aviv_b]

Comments

[kleios_kiss]

This is horrible. The line between migrant labor, indentured servitude and human trafficking is very thing, and it's often difficult (or just nobody cares) to regulate and otherwise police migrant labor in this way. Sadly, what we are reading about with this situation is actually unique in that it's actually getting media attention - most of the products that we use everyday, or the infrastructure by which we all live, is made exactly through this type of labor exploitation that often borders on slavery

[kleios_kiss]

This is how we get our oil. This is how we get our commodities in general. Human trafficking and slavery is why we in our Western oligarchical aristocratic nations can enjoy such a luxurious quality of life with abundant material goods that we continuously throw away before going to Wal-Mart to get another $3 shirt, marveling at the cheapness. Our quality of life exists because of this type of slavery that is largely hidden from us. I have a friend who's in his early 20s and is making over $200k a year as an oil-futures trader in the Financial District in Manhattan. And I keep asking myself, what in the world gives him the right to temporarily own, via setting and owning the contract on the price, of great quantities of oil - he had absolutely nothing to do with its creation and has never even seen it, yet he gets to profit in the hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars off of it? What is that? People are enslaved and people die to make that oil, yet some rich white boy in New York can claim that through his "merit" he is making a six

[hinoema]

Thank you for sharing all of that. It certainly helps to put thins in the proper perspective.

[policraticus]

Not to open a can of worms, but the US did not bomb Kuwaiti refineries. Iraq systematically destroyed Kuwaiti oil fields as they retreated as a "scorched earth" strategy intended to slow down and disrupt the UN forces driving them out of the area. It was their actions that booked out the Sun.

This doesn't diminish the man's suffering in the least nor does it justify the inhuman way he was treated.

[kleios_kiss]

Ah I really lack familiarity with what happened then, just repeating what the fellow said, but probably should have looked that up first.

Also I see that my spelling was rather disastrous. I have learned not to type when angry and sleep deprived.

[policraticus]

No doubt that is what he believes.

Spelling is neither here nor there. I wrote "booked" instead of "blocked" myself.