Comments on: Cotton picking 08

By: david ramos

david ramos — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:01:53 +0000

I picked cotton from the age of 8 to 15 and earned money that we needed to buy school clothes. We lived in extreme poverty. We learned the work ethic and helped our parents. though the texas heat was a killer, not to mention the insects that fell inside our shirts we had fun working and got paid cash every saturday.

By: Oldschool Boy

Oldschool Boy — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:58:37 +0000

I was wrong.
I just found material on slavery in Uzbekistan on fergana.ru. It says that homeless people are used by Tashken Rehabilitation Centre as slaves. It goes lake this:
Policemen collect homeless people on streets and bring them to the Rehabilitation Centre for reward and get paid certain amount for each delivered man or woman.
The Rehabilitation Centre is rather like prison, they physically abuse and make homeless people work only for food and shelter. The Rehabilitation Centre also sells these people to businessmen from all around Uzbekistan and even Kazakhstan where they work just for food.

By: Oldschool Boy

Oldschool Boy — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:01:54 +0000

Noah,
That is a good one on Wall-Mart:). But I am still scared of the situation when big corporations rule the World. You know, if you get inside any of them, pretty dumb people work in management. As, may be, in governments of most countries.

As for the news from your relatives, it is believable but still very weird, isn’t it? I checked on Fergana.ru and Centrasia.ru, but found nothing in regards to that. Plus, one would still think that after the Fergana events Karimov would not be that crazy to drive his people that far to the edge. Although, of course, most of what happens there does not depend on him, but on his regional petty satraps. But even then, it would need some boldness and resources to pull someting like that off.

By: Dilshod

Dilshod — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:30:56 +0000

Never heard of anything like forcing folks to cotton picking? I am always amazed to hear what people think about Uzbekistan. Few years ago I was asked by a fellow from former USSR republic if we still have camels walking on the streets. So no surprise to me that people thousands miles away have pretty, let say, different picture.
There is no police that can force people to pick cotton against their will. Unless they are convicts, but I have not yet heard of convicts being engaged in cotton picking. Through I see them often doing public works (like cleaning, building roads, etc).

By: noah tucker

noah tucker — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:36:28 +0000

oldschool boy–I wouldn’t worry too much about Walmart tanks and planes, even if they do ever exist half of them wouldn’t work and the other half would break down before they ever crossed the county line…

To bring up something a little bit different but related, I heard from some of my relatives in Uzbekistan that they’ve seen people adults getting rounded up by the police this year and bussed out to the cotton fields overtly against their will. I suspected it wasn’t probably anything new, but they say they’ve never heard of this before–anybody else hearing or seeing things like this now or in the past?

By: Oldschool Boy

Oldschool Boy — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:00:35 +0000

If these corporations have people like Hilary Clinton on board, then no wonder they are so vain.
No problem if these corporations can influence by spreading good. But I am affraid next thing we will see will be Wall-Mart establishing democracy in the World with tanks and jet bombers.
It hurts sometimes to see so rich people are so stupid.
It is hard to believe in Wall-Mart’s good intentions after visiting one of their stores and seeing all these underpaid immigrants working for them, and huge stacks of Coca-Cola and all these fat people addicted to fast-food devouring Big Macs and french fries in a MacDonald’s

By: jonathan p

jonathan p — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:32:54 +0000

I’ve never met anyone who, as an adult, still holds to the line that going to pick cotton is voluntary. Is there even a serious question about whether this activity is voluntary or not? Seriously.

The idea that Wal-Mart’s corporate representatives would be engaged in active talks with the Uzbek government on this topic is fascinating. Are we in an age of corporation-led international negotiations? A close friend of mine (who incidentally was born in Uzb and picked cotton as a youth) actually works for Wal-Mart at the corporate office in Arkansas. This friend indicates to me that there has been a climate change at Wal-Mart and the higher-ups there are taking very seriously the fact that a huge corporation like Wal-Mart can actually effect change on a global level. Interesting…