[Trigger warning for sexual violence, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and dehumanization.]
[Transcript below.]
On the actual episode of Anderson Cooper 360 on which this aired, Lyon went on to note (emphasis mine): "Jim Buckmaster says they work tirelessly with law enforcement. So we've been conducting the majority of this investigation out of Washington, D.C. It's one of the worst cities in the nation for sex trafficking. We spoke with the local PD here. They say they have never been contacted by Craigslist, and Craigslist is not working tirelessly to help them out in their investigations."
Craigslist is a company making more than $35 million a year from its "adult services" ads. They won't admit they've got no way of knowing whether an ad is selling consensual sex with an adult, because that would force them to acknowledge they're profiting from rape and human trafficking, and that might affect their revenue stream, which is more important to them than protecting women and children from sexual violence.
They just want to be able to say, "Well, we're not profiting from it deliberately," and have that be good enough.
It isn't.
"Jessica," age 20 (in voiceover, over images of her sitting, walking, putting on makeup at a vanity; she is seen only from the neck down, to preserve her anonymity): I don't know. The men just disgust me. Everything about them, they disgust me. You know, doing the things I do with them is just not, like I said, what I pictured myself doing when I was a kid. You know, I wanted to work with animals, and—or be a meteorologist or a doctor or something, not a whore.
Amber Lyon, CNN Correspondent (sitting on a hotel room bed w/ Jessica, whose back is to the camera): Why Craigslist?
Jessica: Craigslist is just the quickest, fastest, easiest way to get money.
Lyon (in voiceover, over images of Craigslist ads on a computer screen): We found 20-year-old Jessica after spotting her ad on the Virginia adult services section of Craigslist. (on camera) So, you spend most of your life in a hotel room like this?
Jessica: For the past two to three years, yes.
Lyon: How—how many guys do you sleep with on an average day?
Jessica: Three to five, on an average day.
Lyon: How—how much money is that?
Jessica: I get $150 for a half an hour and $250 for the hour. That's what I charge, I mean.
Lyon (in voiceover, over images of Craigslist ads on a computer screen): Jessica says she and most of the girls she knows who sell sex on Craigslist are being trafficked by pimps, who take their money and their freedom. (on camera): What would happen if they said, you know, "I'm sick of this, I'm done selling myself on Craigslist, I want to leave"…?
Jessica: I can't leave. I cannot leave. I'm his. I'm his property. He owns me. I cannot leave him. And that's how it is with most girls, I would think. They can't.
Lyon (sitting at an outdoor café): Since our investigation aired last week, anti-sex-trafficking organizations took out an ad in the Washington Post.—and, in it, two girls who claim they were sold for sex on Craigslist plea with Craig to shut down the adult services section. They even addressed the letter to Craig. (in voiceover, over images of the text, and then video of Lyon looking at Buckmaster's blog post, the images of police reports): One of the girls says, "I was sold for sex by the hour at truck stops and cheap motels, 10 hours with 10 different men every night. This became my life. Men answered the Craigslist advertisements and paid to rape me." Another one of these girls was underage when she was being sold on Craigslist. And she writes, "Dear Craig, I am MC. I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28-year-old man. I am not an exception." So, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster wrote a response to the Washington Post ad. He wrote this blog—Buckmaster says, "Craigslist is anxious to know that the perpetrators in these girls' cases are behind bars." He asks the advocates to email him the police the reports, so "Craigslist can improve preventative measures." CNN has seen the police report for the so-called AK; MC is still a minor, so her records could not be released, but two sources tell us they have seen her arrest records for prostitution. (sitting outdoors with Saar): This is Malika with The Rebecca Project, and her organization posted that ad in the Washington Post.
Malika Saada Saar, Founder and Executive Director of The Rebecca Project: I think that it's also important for him to acknowledge that the stories of these girls are true. It's thoughtful that he wants to catch the perpetrators. I think if he wants to catch perpetrators, then he ought create better screening processes, so that children aren't raped and sold online.
Lyon (in voiceover, over images of Craigslist adult services ads, with female faces blurred out, then over footage of Newmark): Sex-for-hire ads are against Craigslist's stated policy. The company says it, quote, "manually screens all adult services ads" and will reject any that look or sound like they are selling sex. We caught up with the Craig in Craigslist, Craig Newmark, at a speech he was giving in Washington, D.C., on trust. He agreed to this interview on trust on the Internet. (on camera, speaking face-to-face with Newmark): What are you guys doing to protect these girls?
(Newmark stands and stares, silently, at Lyon for seven seconds, with a smirk on his face. After seven seconds, the video cuts off and jumps to another question.)
Lyon (showing Newmark a printed Craigslist ad): You guys say in the blog that you will remove any ad that looks like the person might be suggesting they're going to offer sex. Look at this ad. It says, "Young, sexy, sweet, and bubbly." Clearly here she writes "$250 an hour." I mean, what do you think she's selling in her bra and underwear—a dinner date? And she's in her bra and underwear. What are you guys doing?
Newmark: Have you reported this to us?
Lyon: But you guys say you screen all these ads manually in your blog.
Newmark: Have you—I have never—I don't know what this is.
Lyon: But in Jim Buckmaster's blog, he says these are being screened.
Newmark: Have you reported—have you reported this to us?
Lyon: Why do I have the responsibility to report this to you, when it's your website? You are the one posting this online.
(Newmark stares at her silently again until video cuts.)
Lyon (in voiceover, over more images of ads): Under the Communications Decency Act, Craigslist is not liable for what users publish on its site. But if Craigslist knows it's happening and vows to stop it, why do they allow it to continue? Victims' advocates say it's about one thing: Money. The Internet research firm AIM Group projects the site will make $36.5 million, a third of its total revenue, from the adult services ads this year. (edit; Lyon is sitting in a studio onscreen): After our first story aired, we were contacted by Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, and he sent CNN this response: He says, "Craigslist is vigilant in barring child sex ads and prominently features anti-trafficking and –exploitation sites." He also says, quote, "We will continue to work tirelessly in tandem with law enforcement and key nonprofits to ensure that any of these victims receive the assistance they desperately need and deserve." Amber Lyon, CNN, Washington.
[The video cuts off here, but on the actual show, Lyon went on to note: "Jim Buckmaster says they work tirelessly with law enforcement. So we've been conducting the majority of this investigation out of Washington, D.C. It's one of the worst cities in the nation for sex trafficking. We spoke with the local PD here. They say they have never been contacted by Craigslist, and Craigslist is not working tirelessly to help them out in their investigations."]
I've mentioned before that Amnesty International is one of my favourite activist organizations, one I've done low-level volunteering for for over twenty years now.
To stand with the people of Burma all you need to do is:
1. Read the list of cases below and decide which prisoner(s) you would like to support through this action 2. Write their name on your right hand (or get a friend to!). 3. Hold your right hand out, palm facing the camera 4. Take a picture. Then either: 5. Login to Flickr upload your picture and add it to the group or 6. Email your picture to amnestyphotoaction@gmail.com/text it to +44(0)7733 134 670 and we will add it to the group for you 7. Tell a friend to do the same
Here's mine. Mie Mie, the prisoner whose name I'm carrying there, was arrested in 1988 as a high school student taking part in anti-government protests. She was sentenced to 65 years in prison. She's now 40, and has spent her entire adult life behind bars as a prisoner of conscience.
As ever, if you're looking for an organization which will be able to accept even small time donations, Amnesty may be a good org to try. They always have campaigns on which can be participated in by as little as writing a letter. Even doing that once a week means contributing to fifty different human rights cases a year.
That, according to the NY Times headline, is the question being asked by the nation of India. The actual focus of the article is on competing ideas of how to deliver government-subsidized food to those so poor that they would otherwise not have enough. Even if one could learn enough from one Times article to adequately consider that question, this article would not be the one.
It describes a debate going on within the ruling Congress Party on whether the current government food distribution system should be expanded and the right to food be made part of India's Constitution, or whether, as the Times' Jim Yardley describes the alternative, the country should "begin to unshackle the poor from the inefficient, decades-old government food distribution system and try something radical, like simply giving out food coupons, or cash?"
Well, when you put it like that, Jim . . . for gosh sake, yes, unshackle those poor people! I mean, if I were to come across a bunch of shackled, starving people, the first thing I would do would be to unshackle them! No wonder they're starving, they probably can't even reach the food! After all,
Many economists and market advocates within the Congress Party agree that the poor need better tools to receive their benefits but believe existing delivering system needs to be dismantled, not expanded; they argue that handing out vouchers equivalent to the bag of grain would liberate the poor from an unwieldy government apparatus and let them buy what they please, where they please.
Yes! Liberate those people! Let them buy what they please, where they please! Wow, that sounds like a great deal for India's poor, doesn't it?
Call me a gloomy gus, but it almost sounds too good to be true. That's some loaded language Yardley is using to describe the possibilities. And, as far as you can tell from this article, there are only two: Put having enough food to live in India's Constitution while keeping poor people shackled to an old (not sure why its age matters, independent of how well it's actually serving people — tragically unhip?), inefficient system rife with corruption, or (cue the harp music and the sparkly shit) Magic! The magic of the Free Market!
Yardley refers to "many economists and market advocates", but he quotes only one economist in this story, briefly, with no indication as to how zie would be inclined to answer hir own question.
“The question is whether there is a role for the market in the delivery of social programs,” said Bharat Ramaswami, a rural economist at the Indian Statistical Institute. “This is a big issue: Can you harness the market?”
But the market is already involved in this system, deeply, broadly, and corruptly.
Moneylenders are common across rural India, often providing loans at extortionate rates. Some farmers hand over food booklets as collateral.
There's some free market action, right there. When government inspectors extort payments from clerks who sell the subsidized grain, they're just doing a little business on the side, but business it is.
To the extent that the problem is corruption or inefficiency among those responsible for providing the food booklets or, as also cited in the article, low-level officials having extra booklets printed for themselves and their families, or outright stealing money from the program, turning the food distribution system over to a voucher or cash distribution system solves nothing. You don't solve the problem of theft by giving the thieves something different but of equal value to steal.
Yardley says that India "vanquished food shortages during the 1960s with the Green Revolution", "has had one of the world’s fastest-growing economies during the past decade", yet "poverty and hunger indexes remain dismal". Are there any reasons for that other than a corrupt and inefficient government food distribution system? If there are, Yardley doesn't mention them, other than a brief mention of cultural customs such as one in which a groom's family is expected to provide a "bride price" to the bride's family.
That custom left the poster family for Indian poverty whom Yardley has chosen landless and impoverished, "yet he and his wife kept having children." Ah, that's the other problem, then, besides the natural decrepitude of government programs. The funny old customs and irresponsible child-having of poor people. Some traditional customs may, indeed, contribute to keeping the poor impoverished, but exploration of that issue seems to be outside the scope of this article.
Still, let it not be said that the Times reporter is lacking in compassion for such folk. In fact, he begins the article with a description of the malnutrition ward of an Indian hospital into which the father of this family "and his ailing children have staggered . . . after falling through India’s social safety net." The article is illustrated with graphic photos of more starving children.
So, we get the pix of starving dark-skinned children, with their funny-custom-having, inexplicably-breeding, illiterate parents, and examples of corruption within the food-distribution system, and a shocking, if vague, statistic: "Studies show that 70 percent of a roughly $12 billion budget is wasted, stolen or absorbed by bureaucratic and transportation costs." (How many studies? Of what kind? Who carried them out — scientists, or "market advocates"? Dunno.) We are given Yardley's summation of what "many economists and market advocates" think — Unshackle the poor! — the rallying cry of market advocates the world over, no doubt.
Of the advocates for including the right to food in the Constitution, and for expanding the existing food entitlement, we hear only that the Congress Party has won votes, especially in rural areas, by supporting such entitlements, and that to its president, Sonia Gandhi, "and many left-leaning social allies, making a food a legal right would give people like Mr. Bhuria a tool to demand benefits that rightfully belong to them." Not much of a case made on this side of the question. No harnessing of powerful forces, no unshackling for the poor.
Toward the end of the second online page of this article, there is an acknowledgment that "efforts are underway to reform the national system. Tracking of grain shipments has been computerized in one Indian state, for example, so that they cannot be diverted and resold by corrupt officials.
In any case, Yardley does not feel that, in order to attempt to understand this complex issue, we need to hear from the likes of the President of India (and her left-leaning allies) as to what other reforms have been or could be undertaken to improve the system, or why they feel it is better to do so than to change to a cash or coupon system. The question of whether the food necessary to survive should be considered a right must be examined in the light of the votes such an idea brings to its supporters, but the motives of "market advocates" need not be examined further than their unquestioned desire to unshackle the poor.
I am quite obviously not qualified to address the question of how India can best meet the needs of the desperately poor people among its population. Indian Shakers could perhaps tell us more. I do know, however, that when politicians and "market advocates" start implementing their plans for "harnessing the free market" to serve powerless people, it is rather those powerless people, generally given no say in the process, who are more likely to be harnessed, and the free market unshackled.
And I also know that how you talk about a thing matters. How the press covers an issue has everything to do with whether solutions seem possible, and what solutions get considered. And the NY Times is a flamingly liberal newspaper. I know that because, well, because I've heard it described that way so many times that it must be true, right?
The employment situation in the United States is much worse than even the dismal numbers from last week’s jobless report would indicate. The nation is facing a full-blown employment crisis and policy makers are not responding with anything like the sense of urgency that is needed.
The worst news, with the most ominous long-term implications, was that the reason [July's] unemployment rate was not higher was because 181,000 workers left the labor force... With many of them beaten down by the worst jobs situation since the Great Depression, they just stopped looking for work. And given the Alice-in-Wonderland way in which we compile our official jobless statistics, they are no longer counted as unemployed.
We’re not heading toward the danger zone. We’re there. The U.S. will not remain a stable society if this great employment crisis is not addressed head-on — and soon. You cannot allow joblessness on this scale to fester. It’s wrong, and the blowback will be as destructive and intolerable as it is inevitable.
Yep.
Alice-in-Wonderland indeed. When we moved out to the rust belt (interestingly enough, because it was the only place where I could find work), we figured it would be at least three months before my partner could find work. Twenty five months later, I guess we were right. Our contacts with connections and decades of experience have all been laid off. I dunno what they're doing... early retirement, I guess.
My partner's gone from wanting a job to planning on waiting until after all of our kid(s) are in school. This isn't because we don't need the money or because my partner doesn't want a job, but have you seen the want ads lately? Me neither.
We're looking at a lost decade. I mean, yeah, there'll be great times n' such, but saving? Not so much. Dental issues fixed? Not so much. Other medical issues? Nope. House? No way in hell. College funds and family vacations are just laughable. It's the same throughout my city. Two years ago, I moved to a city where seemingly every other building was abandoned. Since then, factory after factory has been shuttered, and the jokes have gotten more and more macabre.
Not having a paying job can give you plenty of time to pursue any number of things, but a lot of them are off limits if you need to savor every last gallon of gasoline. Sure, you could get a hybrid, but.. oh. You could take the bus, but the buses don't come very often these days. Do you have any idea how much the zoo costs?!? You might as well sit on the couch and watch Maury Povich. Before Michigan or Ohio adopts that as state slogan, we might want to do something, because our collective depression is positively crushing.
Herbert's right, this economy is destructive. The media's coverage of economic issues is equally so. We are not in a recovery. I do not want to discuss how long this recovery will take, or whether this recovery is slowing, or whether the stimulus worked enough. There has been no recovery. Acting as if there has been a turn around only serves to alienate my neighbors from our leaders even further. Do they not see us, or do we just not matter? Perhaps both.
"There's a large part of me that's four years old. I wake up in the morning and I know that somewhere there's a cookie. I don't know where it is but I know it's mine and I have to go find it. That's how I live my life. My life is amazingly filled with fun."—Newt Gingrich, a leading contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, former Speaker of the House who oversaw 1994's Contract with America and the subsequent Republican-led witch-hunt of President Clinton, conservative firebrand, known misogynist, racist, homophobe, and religious intolerant, disgraceful family values hypocrite, and general asshole, in a new interview with Esquire, who are inexplicably willing to help this shitsack rehabilitate his career ruining America, despite his undiluted contempt for average Americans.
And to whom is his long-delayed righteous ire directed...? Liberals.
The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.
During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.
"I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it's crazy."
The press secretary dismissed the "professional left" in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality."
...The lack of appreciation or recognition for what Obama has accomplished has left Gibbs and others in furious disbelief.
To be filed under Things That Will Not Compel Me to Vote for Obama in 2012: Calling me a drug-addled ingrate. Gibbs has completely gone off the rails.
(BTD says: "Robert Gibbs thinks he is still working for Dick Gephardt's 2004 campaign." LOL!)
Larry Berman, an expert on the presidency and a political science professor at the University of California-Davis, said he has been surprised that liberals aren't more cognizant of the pragmatism Obama has had to employ to pass landmark reforms.
Yes, that's it. We're just too fucking stupid to understand that the President has to be "a pragmatist" and "compromise" to get things done. Either that, or we're actually paying attention and have noticed that The Great Bipartisan always starts from a position of compromise, and never expresses regret that the current political climate limits what he's able to do. It's not like Obama's out there saying he fervently wishes we could have gotten socialized healthcare for every USian; no, he's sending out Gibbs to mock progressives who want "Canadian healthcare."
Look, I don't expect ideological perfection, but I do expect some evidence that a Democratic president and I are on the same side, and I have seen precious little evidence that we are. From where I'm sitting, the White House is occupied by another corporate stooge, and, given the havoc corporations are playing with the US (and global) economy, that's not someone an economy voter can trust.
And it isn't because I'm stupid, it isn't because I'm on drugs, it isn't because I'm in ingrate, and it sure as shit isn't because I secretly enjoy being profoundly disappointed in my president.
And singing that tune ain't gonna endear me to an administration that has already alienated me at every turn.
All 14 episodes, uncut, 5 discs, 660 minutes Starring Matt Frewer, Amanda Pays, Chris Young and Jeffrey Tambor
Four featurettes: The Science Behind The Fiction Live On Network 23: The Story Of Max Headroom Looking Back At The Future: A Roundtable Discussion The Big-Time Blanks with Morgan Sheppard and Concetta Tomei
Your guide to understanding the basic concept of Max Headroom:
[Bryce explains how he put Edison Carter's brain circuits into his computer and created Max Headroom. And this is the future. And they are reporters or something.]
First, the dog in question had what many people think of as "partially formed" "male genitalia" and "female genitalia" which isn't f*&king trans when we're talking about people. Second, we're not. It's a f*^king dog, and therefore isn't trans. Non-human animals aren't gay, or trans, or crossdressers, or Republican, or stylish, or affluent, or any other adjectives that humans apply to describe how other humans are situated within arbitrary cultural contexts.
As for the need for surgery in the first place, I'm no zoologist, er, I'm not a veterinarian, but wha??
Become? By which you mean people are still killing us at an alarming rate?
Have? No, this is not debatable.
You are officially 0 for 5 with words. :(
Try this: Violent criminals attack and kill trans people with alarming frequency.
And what about the actual article? Lack of context when describing trans people (actually transsexual women; simultaneous erasure of trans men, gender queer and gender non-conforming people FTW!) in sex work: check
Discussion of how trans people are rare, and how transsexuals [sic, FTW] are rarer than Toby Keith fans at a Prius dealership: wrong and irrelevant, but check
Bizarre pseudo-journalistic sentence wrangling? "Murders are obviously at the extreme end of the spectrum and remain very rare." Check. I mean, that murder is pretty extreme is in fact obvious. At least when it comes to "regular" people, lolsob. However, murders of trans and gender non-conforming people are not "very rare", unless of course you're comparing such murders to blue cars.
Y'all in medialand keep reaching for larger audiences with your sexy, sexy headlines. I think I'm gonna lie down for a bit.
If so, what's the the last DIY project you completed? If not, what's the last DIY project you screwed up, or the last project you wished you could DY, but had to hire or ask someone to D for you?
"I really do not think that we should have homosexuals guiding our children. I think that it's a lifestyle that I don't agree with. I realize a lot of people do. It's my personal faith, religious faith, that I don't believe that the people who do this should be raising our children. It's not a natural thing. You need a mother and a father. You need a man and a woman. That's what God intended."—Florida Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum, who, I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear, is a Republican. Oh, and a fuckneck.
As a result of the devastating flooding and subsequent landslides in India, Pakistan, and China, which started last week, more than 2,000 people have died across all three countries, thousands are still missing, and millions of people have been affected. According to CNN, more than 150 people have died and more than 400 are missing just in the town of Leh, India alone.
Large swaths of Asia look like New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Katrina:
Flood victims wave to receive food relief being dropper by Pakistan Army soldiers during air rescue and relief operations on August 9, 2010 in the Muzaffargarh district in Punjab, Pakistan. An estimated 5 million Pakistanis have been affected by the floods and are bracing for more destruction as heavy rains further bloat rivers and streams. Deadly flooding across Pakistan, has claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people and has forced hundreds of thousands from their homes, in what is the country's worst floods since 1929. [Getty Images]
People wade through floodwaters at Alampur village, about 200 km (124 miles) from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, October 7, 2009. Rescue workers with boats and helicopters struggled on Tuesday to deliver rations to about 5 million victims of flooding triggered by torrential rains in southern India. [Reuters]
A survivor jumps into floodwaters as rescuers (background) evacuate people from flooded buildings after a deadly flood-triggered landslide hit Zhouqu, causing flooding in northwest China's Gansu province on August 8, 2010. Soldiers and rescuers battled on August 9 through an avalanche of sludge and debris as they raced to find survivors of mudslides that killed at least 127 people and left 1,300 missing in northwest China. [Getty Images]
As after any disaster of this proportion, relief agencies are in need of donations.
Donate to Doctors Without Borders, about whose efforts in the region you can read here. Donate to CARE.org here.
Please feel welcome to make recommendations of other relief agencies you like in comments.
I am politely but firmly requesting a 20-year embargo on the use of any scenes of a pregnant woman's water breaking in a film and/or television show.
Should you fail to accommodate this appeal, and decide to include comedic scenes of a very pregnant woman—wearing, naturally, a skirt—splashing a gush of perfectly clear liquid onto her high heels, thus precipitating a mad rush to the hospital with an unlikely bystander set to Motown music, please be forewarned that this may result in the delivery of a bag of stinky dog poop to your front step.
After the 20-year embargo can be lifted, I would advise you to remember that only around 10% of pregnant women experience a rupture the amniotic sac as a precursor to labor—and an even smaller percentage have that experience in public. Rarely is this a hilarious experience.
In which Liss re-imagines masterpieces of postmodern cinema, making them tinglingly better by adding me (Deeky: The American Holly Johnson) to their classic posters. Today, a film written by an adult named Babaloo.
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
