Thai Fishing industry Slavery

lukep

lukep

He Hath Arisen
Sep 18, 2010
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Sooner or later this is going to wind up in here, so I'd rather such a somber conversation be started by me, respectfully.

I love Thailand and have family there, and until recently even had a flat there in Bangkok. I don't mind the political skirmishes that much, but this story in the Guardian today is way too much to stomach.

Trafficked into slavery on Thai trawlers to catch food for prawns | Global-development | The Guardian

(Warning: If you have a weak stomach for human torture and gore, do not click that link!)

In a nutshell, the entire Thai fishing industry, which is one of the largest in the world and has fed you personally on an ongoing basis, is made up of around 500,000 slaves in the worst conditions imaginable! This is every bit as bad as the american slaves pre-1865. To call this an atrocity is taking it lightly.

I know that in the past I have said the corruption in Thailand was bearable because it was small, and didn't extract as much of your income as our corruption does in the west.

Today I am officially changing that stance. Thailand's corruption is worse.

I was wrong.

I saw Burmese immigrants being treated like a sub-class there on a day-to-day basis, much like Americans treat their Mexican gardeners and housecleaners... But I thought that's as far as it went. Not anymore, after seeing the horrors in this article today.

I cannot abide such widespread slavery. From now on I am swearing off of shrimp unless I know it didn't come from Thailand, too. I'd advise you all to do the same, and spread this Guardian article to everyone you know.

Hopefully Walmart, Costco, Carrefour, Aldi, Tesco & Morrisons will all be pressured to fully ban all Thai seafood. Such an extreme situation requires such an extreme response.

You all ate this food too. Now let's do something about it.
 
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No offense but it only took me about 24 hours in Bangkok to realize the Thai's valuation on human life was close to fucking nil. Unless it was profitable, then it was regarded as highly as it's ability to earn. Congrats on seeing through it, I'm sure it's hard to view it pragmatically when you have family there.
 
lukep said:
You all ate this food too. Now let's do something about it.
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Vegetarian. I vote we get the WF team together and go cowboy up on some slaver ships upon the high seas.

Or, not. Whatever.

Which is worse? Overt slavery, or systemic slavery through social and political pressure resulting in a class that doesn't even realize they are slaves?

At least slaves who know they are slaves can rise up or die trying, mostly the latter I'm sure.
 
SkyFire said:
At least slaves who know they are slaves can rise up or die trying, mostly the latter I'm sure.
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Until chemical slavery becomes truly affordable. Then the choice is to slave away for a dose of chemical that prevents you from dying or rise up and die within X amount of days without antidote. Good times. We already have a very popular version of this in western world, it's called a mortgage.

*edit* better clarify this: no, I'm not comparing western life to slavery in any shape or form - we all have a way out over here, huge majority just never uses it.
 
janinaherz3 said:
Grindstone is right.
I think the local government has to take some steps towards this.
We are in 21st century and this kind of things are really horrible.
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No he's not. Slavery is awesome. It's what built America. Woohoo:music06:
 
^^^ Slavery seems to be a huge problem in India, too.

The first ever Global Slavery Index found that between 13,300,000 and 14,700,000 are enslaved in India. This means India is home to nearly half of the world's entire number of 30 million slaves worldwide. India stands fourth as per proportion but right on top of this shameful list when it comes to absolute numbers.
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Britain publishes world's first Modern Slavery Bill - The Times of India
 
To the tagger that suggested I'm "waking up" - I assure you that I will spend the majority of my energy (after making monies) on freeing the greater humanity, not just the slaves in the more harsh conditions. That includes the slave who made that tag.

This is eye-opening however in that we are all a couple of degrees of seperation away from these slaves because we likely all eat seafood that they produced. -And pretty much the entire western world's seafood economy would 'crash' if they were made to stop being slaves.


Grindstone said:
No offense but it only took me about 24 hours in Bangkok to realize the Thai's valuation on human life was close to fucking nil. Unless it was profitable, then it was regarded as highly as it's ability to earn. Congrats on seeing through it, I'm sure it's hard to view it pragmatically when you have family there.
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I hope you're not confusing Thailand's class system with their overall valuation of life. There are lots of countries with separate classes, especially in Asia, where the serfs have no chance of breaking free of serfdom and the nobles treat them like serfs... In Thailand at least, those serfs have rights, and can be treated very well, too.

I'd often see dirty street beggars laying down on sidewalks in downtown BKK get great tips from passer-bys. Most Thais feel sorry for them, even the business class ppl sometimes do. They aren't an unkind race in general by any means... I wouldn't have married one if I thought so. They just have their prejudices & xenophobia. (Especially against Indians. Oh boy they fucking hate Indians!)

This Chattel slavery is too inhuman for the common thai on the street to stomach. They keep these poor bastards out at sea practically their whole lives so most thais don't know about this at all. -Hopefully this Guardian story will alert them and we see some quick improvement.


charlesmartel said:
Slavery seems to be a huge problem in India, too.
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Yeah, India's a real problem too of course. Damn that's a lot of slaves... I doubt we normally use those slaves' products though; I may be wrong.

Even one outright slave is just too many. I wonder how long it will be before someone figures out a way to get slaves their own (undetectable) bitcoin wallets so donors can send individual slaves the cash they need to escape. Hmm... Another damn new market to explore.
 
lukep said:
I wonder how long it will be before someone figures out a way to get slaves their own (undetectable) bitcoin wallets so donors can send individual slaves the cash they need to escape.
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original


Edit: 1000 posts, woot.
 
lukep said:
-Hopefully this Guardian story will alert them and we see some quick improvement.
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Think about it. Almost no Thai person reads the Guardian, or reads anything written in English for that matter; the vast majority can't read English anyway. That story won't get translated to Thai and it certainly won't get any play in Thai MSM. If it gets noticed at all it will be quickly denounced as another case of those darn foreigners trying to make Thailand look bad. I would bet that under the current junta it would be deemed illegal to speak about it because it would harm the happiness of the Thai people.

That's the big kick the junta is on - restoring happeniness. They are going to make sure you are happy, with free haircuts and concerts, young female soldiers trying to be sexy,
thai-junta-pr.jpg


the new happiness song written by the junta leader
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-JnwTmGLsU]เพลง คืนความสุขให้ประเทศไทย - YouTube[/ame]

and if none of that works then you get a free 7-day visit to a "reconciliation" center.
 
You'll need a catchy name, off the top of my head: The Bitcoin Anarchist Freedom Fighter. Peeps could call you BAFFman. < hmmm not bad...

But wait - how do you look in colorful tights? Because I think you might need a costume too Luke.
 
Andrew Scherer said:
They Laughed When He Sat Down At the Piano But When He Started to Play!

glb
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He also orders dinner in French.

I'm thinking it was Caples who wrote both those great ads. But it might have been Mr. Schweppervescence.

And if your hinting at what I think you are, you're right... he's gonna need a theme song too. Now we're gettin' somewhere!!
 
GerardWon said:
You'll need a catchy name, off the top of my head: The Bitcoin Anarchist Freedom Fighter. Peeps could call you BAFFman. < hmmm not bad...

But wait - how do you look in colorful tights? Because I think you might need a costume too Luke.
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GerardWon said:
He also orders dinner in French.

I'm thinking it was Caples who wrote both those great ads. But it might have been Mr. Schweppervescence.

And if your hinting at what I think you are, you're right... he's gonna need a theme song too. Now we're gettin' somewhere!!
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But hold your horses Luke, if a Country like Murika shouldn't meddle in the affairs of other nations: should a fledgling superhero like BAFFman get involved? I dunno...

Ok, so besides the costume, and the theme song - it looks like you're also gonna need a sidekick to bounce ideas off of. I'm thinking a moose and squirrel kinda situation here, but if you went for an Alfred instead: I could understand that.
 
Yay free market. Can't wait for the glorious arrival of anarcho-capitalism so we can have lots more of this.
 
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