My Turn

I'm reading that IPod, AKA Apple Computer, Inc., is profitting from slave labor: 200,000 workers who live in dorms, who are not permitted visitors, who work 15-hour days and who receive $50 a month.

According to an official, non-profit watchdog organization, these conditions are common, "very typical."

The same holds true for a variety of other US corporate giants that employ hundreds of thousands in sweatshops worldwide.

Is this our American dream? Is this what our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting for? Is this the vision of democracy we want to project to our neighbors in the international community?

Corporate America is exploiting laborers both from within (12 million "illegal, alien" workers) and from without.

The young woman who is currently taking care of my 91-year old mother (Mom 's been living with us for close to 8 months now.) tells me stories of her work in Bulgaria. She was a seamstress and would toil day after day after day hunched over a sewing machine and stitching hundreds of zippers into jeans or hundreds of sleeves into jackets. Her salary amounted to the equivalent of about $100 per month.

Thanks to winning a green card through the Lottery and coming to California, she now earns a nice $1850 a month for an average 5- hour day. Another perk in caring for Mom is that this young woman no longer suffers from horrible pain in her back and shoulders. She comes to our home with a smile.

The US is one of the wealthiest nations. Compared to other peoples, we are filthy rich. We need to put our money where our mouth is and share our gifts with less fortunate folks, not "steal" from them in order to pad our own wallets.