O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant. – William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (II, ii)
Though all internet-based sex workers (like all internet businesses) rely on Google, the search-and-content giant has never been a friend to us. In the past, they were subtle about it; I’ve heard stories of escorts’ gmail and Google Voice accounts closed without warning for unspecified “terms of use violations”, and anecdotal evidence of porn sites which curiously fail to show up where they should. Back in May Google unceremoniously cancelled an ad paid for by “Turn Off the Blue Light”, an Irish organization fighting those who want the Swedish Model imposed on Ireland; the ad was only restored after considerable bad press and a protest by the group outside Google’s Dublin headquarters. But on December 14th, it made its efforts more overt by donating over $11 million to anti-prostitute groups:
Tech giant Google announced Wednesday it is donating $11.5 million to several coalitions fighting to end the modern-day slavery of some 27 million people around the world…”Many people are surprised to learn there are more people trapped in slavery today than any time in history,” said Jacquelline Fuller, director of charitable giving and advocacy for Google. “The good news is that there are solutions.” The Washington-based International Justice Mission, a human rights organization that works globally to rescue victims of slavery and sexual exploitation, was chosen by Google to lead the efforts. It will partner with Polaris Project and Slavery Footprint and a handful of smaller organizations for the multi-year effort to rescue the enslaved, push for better infrastructure and resources for anti-slavery enforcement agencies overseas, as well as raise awareness here in the United States and help countries draft anti-slavery legislation.
…Gary A. Haugen, president of the International Justice Mission, said the coalition would focus on three initiatives: A $3.5 million intervention project to fight forced labor in India; a $4.5 million advocacy campaign in India to educate and protect the vulnerable; and a $1.8 million plan to mobilize Americans on behalf of the millions currently at risk of slavery or waiting for rescue around the world. The remaining $1.7 million will go to several smaller organizations working to combat slavery. “It’s hard for most Americans to believe that slavery and human trafficking are still massive problems in our world,” said Haugen. “Google’s support now makes it possible for IJM to join forces with two other leading organizations so we can bring to bear our unique strengths in a united front.”
Those leading the U.S. efforts will meet in Washington on Wednesday to kick off the joint initiative. The project will focus on improved legislation to protect vulnerable children and adults in the United States, as well as a push for more accountability and transparency in the U.S. supply chain by retailers and manufacturers to make sure their products are “slave-free.” The trafficking of women for the sex trade is common in big American cities. Some illegal immigrants find themselves forced to work in sweatshops, in private homes as domestic servants or on farms without pay under the threat of deportation. The new effort will launch new initiatives that ordinary Americans can take to help abolish modern-day slavery, such as understanding how their own clothing or smartphones might contain fabrics or components manufactured by forced labor…
There’s that “27 million” number again; it seems to be turning into the most common propaganda figure among NGOs and popular faddists, though most government figures are lower. As we know, “The trafficking of women for the sex trade” is absolutely NOT“common in big American cities” unless you’ve got a really weird definition of “common”; only about 1.5% of all prostitutes are coerced, and most of those are controlled by men they’re involved with rather than “trafficked” in any meaningful sense of the term. And as Laura Agustín repeatedly points out, most so-called “trafficked” women all over the world are simply crossing international borders to work the way white middle-class Western men do all the time; it only becomes “trafficking” in the racist minds of trafficking fanatics when those people are brown-skinned women from the “third world”.
There are plenty of worthy charities Google could have endowed with this money, but the evangelical Christian “International Justice Mission”, a “rescue” group well-known for encouraging violent brothel raids and streetwalker sweeps whose victims are then beaten, robbed, gang-raped and starved, is not one of them; nor is the pathologically dishonest Polaris Project, which intentionally confuses stripping and escorting with child slavery and violent pimps even when it isn’t directly lying. Furry Girl reprinted Google’s own list and pointed out that it also contains Not For Sale, a group which “Gets their information on sex work from Donna Hughes [and] advocates that adult sex work criminalization will somehow stop child sex slavery.” The others on the list are ActionAid India, Aide et Action, BBC World Service Trust, GoodWeave, La Strada International and Slavery Footprint; I haven’t heard anything bad about any of these, but any group in bed with IJM and Polaris is carrying the same plague fleas. I know it has to get worse before it gets better, but I hope it doesn’t have to get much worse.
One Year Ago Today
“December Q&A” answers questions on how to explain prostitutes to young children, the causes of vaginal looseness, the definition of “slut”, the right way to try anal sex and whether size really matters.
I took a critical (and disturbing) look at the board of directors of Not For Sale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F20sBCs1qLs
Even though the following comment applies to your blog of a year ago, I thought I would post it. Cannot claim authorship of it, but really like it and would not mind being called a slut even at my advanced age; if fact I would consider it a compliment.
“Slut – “A person, regardless of gender who has the courage to lead life according to the radical proposition that sex is great and pleasure is good for you.'”
La Strada are a good group. They’re part of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, which takes the approach that trafficking is primarily an issue of exploitation of migrant labour, and therefore should be addressed by protecting workers’ rights and increasing opportunities for safe and legal migration. They are openly opposed to the anti-sex work agenda of the other groups that Google is funding.
Google has a lot of money to flush down the toilet now it seems.
It’s all snake oil – really no different than what the “traveling snake oil salesmen” and the “Rainmakers” peddled in the 1800’s. It’s just packaged in a more contemporary and “slick” package for our times.
We’ve got so-called “scientists” peddling us this myth of man-made global warming and everyone just eating it up. We’ve got so-called “doctors” and “nutritionists” peddling vegetarian diets in complete ignorance of the evolutionary factors of our DNA and everyone just eating it up. Millions of people on statin drugs wasting their bodies away and waiting for death when all they really need to do is listen to their DNA and eat what it tells them to – but hey, the doc’s and big pharma need plenty of sheep forking over that cash for the drugs right?
Oh yeah – and we’re out there paying taxpayer subsidies for every Chevy Volt sold (thus far) to the tune of $250,000.
We got all up in the asses of the cigarette companies almost two decades ago – now we’re up the asses of transfats, soda companies, candy makers, and McDonalds. No one – and nothing is safe from “Big Brother” but …
Such ignorance – CAN NOT continue. As George Harrison said – “All things Must Pass” and these things are about to pass rather quickly.
The day of reckoning is coming, brothers and sisters. The global debt crisis is only in the beginning phases, and we already see people and nations abandoning follies like global warming, greenhouse gas trading schemes, the Kyoto agreement, and even people fighting back in the name of “McDonalds”.
Busy bodies need two things … the first is money and the second is a sedentary population that lives in such luxury it’s unconcerned for it’s own survival.
They’re about to run out of both.
I hate to break it to you, Krulac, but most people outside of the United States accept man-made global warming as a fact. Many rivers are drying up because of it, and islands sinking into the ocean. Sure, Canada backed out of the Kyoto Protocal, but they’re not feeling the effects of global warming, and they stand to make a huge profit off the environmentally devasting industry of tar-sands processing in Alberta. But I guess when you feel the effects of global yourself, maybe then you’ll start changing your tune.
I hate to break it to you Susan – but Europeans believe in a lot of bunk …
And there is no American who understands the European mind better than mine – I have spent the majority of my life outside of the United States dealing with people from all over the world.
The fact is the Earth heats and it cools – and it’s done that since the beginning of it’s existence (long before any of us came about). It’s not stable – we live on a dynamic planet.
There has been no warming in the last 10 years – this has been proven by the very Scientists who’ve attempted to prove to us the earth is warming …
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/30/surprise-no-warming-in-last-11-years/
Notice that the #2 Scientist on the team – a woman, was completely cut off from reviewing this report even though the team leader placed her name on it – she completely disagrees with the report and want’s no association with it because of it’s conclusions that the Earth is still warming – except that – the data in the report proves it hasn’t warmed.
Global Warming “Scientists” routinely violate the custom of peer review in favor of glamourous photo-ops and press releases for the Lame Stream Media – who eat this crap up.
And – I haven’t even BEGUN to talk about the “Scientists” at East Anglia – the one’s who were “hiding the decline” … destroying raw data … evading FOIA requests for raw data and findings … etc, etc …
It was THEIR propagandistic data that the apocalyptic and hyperbolic predictions of the UN’s IPCC were based on.
They’ve completely ignored ARGOS buoy data – which is accurate data that proves the oceans are not heating up – and ocean heating MUST occur for this runaway global heating to become self-sustaining and beyond control of man to impact. They completely ignore that NASA satellites are now proving that the models are wrong about heat capture – and the Earth is still shedding much more heat than the models predict.
In fact – when you place the data from the past into these models – they fail to predict what actually occurred in the past – but somehow we’re supposed to believe they’ll accurately predict the future?
Susan – don’t be a sheeple. Rivers dry up – they’ve done that since the beginning of time – it doesn’t mean that the world is coming to an end. Hell, Al Gore even had to photo-shop the pic of the poor Polar Bear on the broken sheet of ice fighting for his life. Ask yourself – if this is all true then why do these “scientists” so often resort to trickery, obfuscation, and outright lies to convince you?
Did I mention that Canada has withdrawn from Kyoto? The US was NEVER IN Kyoto? And no nation on Earth who signed on to Kyoto ever met their original goals for cutting emissions without massaging their math several times?
And the Chicago Climate Exchange was shut down – due to lack of interest the last I checked.
Let me also add – that at least 60 days out of every year – I spend in the Arctic – not as a tourist – but as a guy living on the ice shelf in primitive conditions and transiting the arctic waters on a ship.
It looks the same every year I go there – some ice melted here … oh … but look – that ice over there wasn’t here last year but it is now!
Dynamic planet … a wonderful dynamic planet that we live on that cares not a whit for you and I or what we do or what car we drive.
Great points, Krulac,
I read an article in American Scientist back in the mid 80’s when the global warming scare was just getting a foothold. There was an executive summary at the beginning of the article that touted much of what is being spread about AGW. But when you read the article, the purported effect they were looking for was 2 orders of magnitude less than their admitted margin of error.
Now, aside from the propagandistic executive summary, such an article would be useful for displaying methods and so forth. But obviously, such useful information was not the reason it was published.
It’s kind of like the physics papers written in the Soviet Union where the scientists had to genuflect in their executive summary to the impact that the dialectic had on their methods. And then they just went and did the science. Nowadays, the genuflection is more important than the science. So much so that the science is changed if it doesn’t meet the requirements of orthodoxy as East Anglia amply demonstrated.
It’s all a conspiracy. A global conspiracy. Lasting decades and involving dozens of governments, scores of universities, and hundreds of scientists. All in it together, all trying to fool us. But we’re too smart to fall for that! Oh yes siree we are.
And after all, scientists have been wrong before. They don’t say exactly the same things now as they did sixty years ago! How can we trust them when they can’t make up their minds?
Long Live the Illuminati! Or is it Death to the Illuminati? I get confused sometimes.
😉
Looks like Google is not following their own advice of “Don’t Be Evil”. Well, they’re supporting people doing evil stuff.
Indeed. Unfortunately, as much as I wish to after this, it is practically impossible to boycott Google…
I’m not against funding anti-slavery efforts, as long as we’re accurate about who the slaves really are. They usually (almost never are) women found in sex work in American cities. Or most foreign cities. They usually are men, women and children forced to work for usually legal businesses in bad conditions and for little or no wages. They are victims of capitalism. Is Google going to fight that?
I agree, except that I would say “victims of capitalism without any checks.” Unfortunately, the check is government, and they are pretty quick to victimize also. Of course the check on government is supposed to be We The People. That’s how we put it here in the States, but of course we’re not the only ones doing it. Ah, but are we doing it? Is anybody?
Do you know of this organisation Maggie?
Anti-Slavery International (www.antislavery.org) were asking for donations among a number of fliers inside today’s “The Daily Telegraph”. It’s quite eye-catching because it’s printed to look like a facsimile of “The London Advertiser” of maybe 100 years ago.
It alleges that 15,OO0 slaves are brought into this country every year and prints the ‘experiences’ of a sex worker from Lithuania, a domestic from India and two hotel workers from Sierre Leone with an endorsement for it’s work from the actress, Dame Judi Dench.
It’s designed to tug at heartstrings but there’s no way of telling how authentic the stories are.
The problem with those groups is, due to the hysteria they’re springing up like mushrooms to make a profit while there’s money to be made. I haven’t heard of that one in particular, but unfortunately when it comes to such organizations we have to treat them as “guilty until proven innocent” because the vast, vast majority of them are just anti-prostitute, anti-migrant and even anti-women’s rights groups cloaking themselves in popular rhetoric.
Their stories are nearly always exaggerated and/or distorted, sometimes by the “rescue” groups without the woman’s permission, sometimes by the woman herself through “reframing experiences” brainwashing, and sometimes they’re authentic stories but endlessly repeated with details slightly altered to make them seem like different accounts when in fact it’s the one unusual experience told over and over.
Turnoffthebluelight.ie seems to have disappeared.