Human Trafficking

It is amazing how masses of people move from place to place. It happens everyday and no one thinks about it.

A century ago people had to walk from place to place. Think of the armies of the civil war stomping up and down dirt roads in the heat and the rain and the cold while being shot at. How did so many volunteer for that duty? If you were lucky enough to corral a beast of burden it could carry you or pull a wagon for transport. How long would it take to walk to Gettysburg?

More recently I look at films and cannot imagine the logistics gathering and housing and feeding all those guys and all their stuff before they shipped off to Normandy beach. The Gulf War, from what I remember from the nightly news, was the time to create the staging area that had to accumulate all those tanks and cannons and trucks and planes and people and tents in the desert on the other side of the world before they could fight.

Bringing it back home, everyday there is a traffic report of highway and byways and detours and constructions and wrecks that could delay the commuters schedule who must find a place to park before taking the elevators to fill the skyscrapers until they empty out and reverse the journey. If the roadway system is not fast enough or the train doesn’t go there or the plane is delayed, you can always hoof it. Since digital transformation or automated transition, we used the fastest available transport checking our GPS.

According to the newsreels, there are many people moving about the globe. They may be looking for a better job or to be near family or move away from danger or just glamping, but as every immigrant learns they have to start all over again once they stop. The usual connection is to find family to help settle to the new area requirements while other times the invader is an alien. With some speculation and trepidation, the new arrivals are assimilated into the community.

Still we group to our clans, tribes and religious beliefs for comfort and safety. How we adapt or quickly the community accepts is the unknown. Imagine a family showing up on your porch in the rain seeking shelter. (Don’t bring up the biblical reference).

As this migration continues the places they land should (humanitarian) provide food and shelter and clothing and health care and safety for the new comers to make them feel welcomed.

Yet the new country may decided they don’t want these ‘outsiders’. While no one acknowledges their fear, laws are written to protect from the unknown.

Maybe no one has noticed we are becoming a police state? Whether it is Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Special Response Team, Enforcement and Removal Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Federal Protective Service, Federal Marshalls, State & Local Police and all the others who were initials on the back of their jackets and carry weapons, if your profile doesn’t agree, you might not be accepted.

While the governmental agencies and social welfare associations will attempt to decide who will stay and who must turn around and go back, that is human trafficking. Set up tents and hand out blankets, cook basic staples and hopefully provide porta-potties. This all requires volunteers or hired workers like taking care of a Woodstock festival where the bodies keep coming. What do you do with the children? What do you do with the elderly? What do you do with the sick? What do you do with the pregnant? What do you do with the mentally distressed? What do you do with the troublemakers? What do you do?

And who pays for it?

Did when we ventured out of Africa expect to have chic nuggets provided by women wearing plastic gloves? When we crossed the great divide did we expect the native communities to provide us with warm blankets hand made on looms and buffalo skins after we pushed them into reservations? What did those in Exodus expect to find at the end of the ride other than hope that it would be better than what they left?

Planning a family vacation or the process for an office fire drill is the most for us to understand about human trafficking. Those who also plan festivals and events and games have the experience on how to move bodies from place to place better than most.

Just stop by the beer truck to refresh.

When I moved into this neighborhood, it was familiar to me, but I was a stranger to the neighbors. What did they think of this new guy filling a vacant house with books and records and guitars and God knows what is in those boxes? Started out with a truck backed up on the lawn. Followed by a row of motorcycles parked out front. Then there was the ‘party’. Certainly assimilating into a neighborhood requires cutting the grass and toasting lemonade with the folks over the fence. I certainly was younger and maybe a bit hairier than what they had hoped for a neighbor, yet I had learned the art of being polite and respectful of elders. No one threw rocks at me and I settled into an ever-changing neighborhood where now I’m the establishment. There are more fences and dogs and lights and the prices of homes have risen to a point to keep only a few from buying.

Whether we segregate or integrate is up to us, but we are on the move. Don’t put me in a cage.