Hasta La Gadget!

One hundred forty-nine years ago, on December 6, 1865, Congress ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and slavery formally ended. The amendment was a remedy for 250 years of enslavement forced primarily upon a specific group of people on the shores of what was now called, the United States of America. Perhaps, equally important, passing the 13th Amendment helped to reconcile inconsistencies that were forged into our founding documents about: who we are as a nation, who we are as a people and how we wished to define ourselves as individuals.

No one did more to characterize America, Americans and the American spirit than Thomas Jefferson did when he famously stated, in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal.” Considering the obvious incompatibility of slavery with the concept of a people “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” it’s reasonable to assume that Jefferson would have denounced the colonies’ ongoing slave trade, within the same document. In fact, he did just that with his original draft of the Declaration of Independence by calling slavery a “cruel war against human nature itself.” In the final version, however, any mention of slavery was edited out to make the Declaration acceptable to slave states. It would be easy to view such an historic failure as a simple matter of the bad guys taking one from the good guys, but that would be wrong because our history is rarely simple. Jefferson himself embodied the insidious and complex nature of slavery by being both a champion of personal freedoms and a life long enslaver. What counts is that the 13th Amendment finally made it possible for us to be a nation where all men were perceived as being created equal.

Another founding document that was influenced by the industry of slavery in this newly formed nation was the Constitution. Though not mentioned by name, slavery lived within that document. The three-fifths compromise of the Constitution allowed slave states to count each enslaved person, for the purposes of federal representation, as three-fifths of a person. A compromise on the importation of enslaved individuals was also reached allowing Congress to impose a ban by 1808 (21 years after the Constitution was ratified). The fugitive-slave law (enforced through legislation of 1793 and 1850) allowed owners to pursue and capture freedom-seeking, formerly enslaved individuals outside of their home state (including free states after 1850). All of these Constitutional compromises were voided by the 13th Amendment: every person would henceforth be considered a whole person; never again could the forced importation of individuals be allowed and, with the abolition of slavery, no person could ever be returned to their owner as no person could be owned by another. The 13th Amendment restored the founding ideal “that all men are created equal” (as are women!) at least under the law. Nearly one hundred and fifty years later, we may ask whether or not the letter and the spirit of the law are still being enforced or if, once again, people are falling victim to compromise.

This might be a good time to look at the full text of the 13th Amendment:

Section 1.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Is there still slavery within the United States? The answer is YES. We know that people are currently being bought and sold for sex in the U.S. This is a form of slavery that flourishes. People are also being forced to work for little or no pay in factories, fields and various businesses. There are also domestic workers trapped and isolated in homes in parts of the country. This kind of exploitation must be confronted by law and, perhaps, with the 13th Amendment.

Is it possible that the U.S. is responsible for slavery in other countries? Again, the answer is YES. Over the last few decades, the nature of how products are produced — the ones that we use every day – has changed. Large American corporations often set-up manufacturing facilities in other countries or contract with foreign companies because the cost of labor is cheaper in places like China, Bangladesh and Mexico than it is in the United States. Cheap labor equals lower-priced goods and higher profits for the companies that sell them. Unfortunately, the never-ending competition to sell more products and generate higher profits can translate into unfair and unsafe labor practices. In fact, some of the products we’re using now were produced by slave labor. Take a look at two lists provided by the U.S. Department of Labor:

• List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor,
• List of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor.

So, what can be done?

A good place to start is with Jefferson’s ideal “that all men are created equal.” If the 13th Amendment prohibits slavery “within the United States, or anywhere subject to their jurisdiction”, shouldn’t U.S. companies that produce goods overseas be responsible for insuring fair and safe working conditions for the people that produce their products? The products that we use? In recent decades, there has been a revolution in the way products are made. Over the next year, let’s help revolutionize the way in which labor is used to produce those products both here and overseas.

Photo courtesy of Don Peterson – Special to The Roanoke Times

Young people make excellent revolutionary leaders. Take, for instance, 17-year-old Joshua Wong. He has been leading throngs of protestors in Hong Kong to demand free elections that were promised by the Chinese central government but are now apparently being rescinded. Or, students at Standley Lake High School near Denver, Colorado; they protested proposed changes to the state’s AP history curriculum — which they called censorship – by walking out of class and gaining national notoriety on the issue. And, 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai; she became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Prize thanks to her ongoing campaign for the rights of girls to receive an education.

Some young leaders have already started to Globalize the spirit of the 13th Amendment by using the Globalize 13 service-learning curriculum for secondary schools. Students at Soledad Enrichment Action schools in Los Angeles, California; Westwood High School in Blythewood, South Carolina; William Byrd High School in Vinton, Virginia; the High School of Computers and Technology in the Bronx, New York and Benedictine Academy in Elizabeth, New Jersey are all helping to remove slavery from our supply chain and bring more awareness about the issue to their communities. This is how leadership works!

Maintaining our rights and supporting the rights of others requires constant vigilance. As we approach the 150th anniversary of the 13th Amendment, it’s a great time to consider how much we value our right to live free.

If you’re a teacher or you know a teacher, they can get the complimentary Globalize 13 digital curriculum by going to: www.Globalize13.org.

COAUTHORED BY REP SCOTT PETERS

This autumn was a significant time for climate action and raising awareness about climate change, featuring the massive People’s Climate March and the United Nations’ Climate Summit. Despite these events, Congress hasn’t acted. But there is an opportunity for Congress to lead, that won’t require the elusive consensus on comprehensive climate legislation. Congress can begin tackling greenhouse gas emissions right now, by going after super pollutants.

While carbon dioxide (CO2) is a significant driver of global climate change, almost half of human-made global warming is a result of super pollutants that are many times more potent than CO2. Super pollutants, which include methane, black carbon, and refrigerants like hydroflurocarbons (HFCs), have a ‘global warming potential’ that is 100-3000 times that of carbon dioxide.

We already have many of the technologies needed to fight super pollutants. Given how harmful these super pollutants are on our environment, it only makes sense to use these existing technologies to reduce our emissions and slow climate change before it is too late.

Action is already being taken by the Obama Administration to combat super pollutants: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is actively engaged in cleaning up aerosols and U.S. private sector companies announced commitments to significantly reduce their HFC emissions to an amount equal to 1.5 percent of the world’s 2010 greenhouse gas by 2025.

If we can get rid of these nasty pollutants, we remove the annual emissions equivalent of between 6.5 million and nearly 9 million cars from America’s roadways. Phasing down HFCs could avoid from 0.35°C to 0.5°C of warming by 2100. Removing super pollutants would also prevent 2 million premature deaths, prevent 30 million tons of crop loss, and cut the rate of sea level rise by 25 percent, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme.

Congressional action to reduce super pollutants doesn’t require stripping cars and stores of their air conditioning units. It will mean that safer, more energy-efficient alternatives that are currently available will be standardized and mainstreamed. Europe is already moving away from hydrofluorocarbons, with a goal of reducing HFCs by 79 percent by 2030, making the market ripe for a U.S. transition. 

In San Diego, decisive action is already happening. The city has committed to significantly reducing greenhouse gases. San Diego Mayor Kevin Falconer’s recently announced Climate Action Plan draft lays out a path for the City of San Diego to cut greenhouse gases in half by 2035 and significantly expand the region’s already burgeoning green economy.

Given how pervasive super-pollutants are in American industry and individual livelihoods, the effort to reduce them will require an all-hands-on-deck approach, including public and private coordination like we are seeing in San Diego.

That need for a collaborative approach was why the Super Pollutant Emissions Reduction Act (SUPER Act) was introduced last year. The SUPER Act would reduce overlap and fragmentation in the response to super pollutants by creating a task force to review existing policies and develop best practices. This legislation is also an important step to maximize limited government resources and put the United States on firmer ground for international climate negotiations like the ones that just took place in New York and those coming in Paris next year.

Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) recently introduced similar bipartisan legislation, the Super Pollutants Act of 2014, which will put in place the necessary framework for fostering interagency cooperation, prioritizing commonsense emissions reduction strategies, recycling high-global warming potential refrigerants, mitigating methane leaks, and expanding access to diesel-scrubbing technologies.

All of this makes sense from an economic, environmental, and public-health perspective. Taking action to reduce our greenhouse gases is now a mainstream agenda, supported even by financial titans including Hank Paulson and Mike Bloomberg who are constantly thinking about risks to business and our economy.

Super pollutants are a key piece of this risk assessment and require our quick, decisive efforts to minimize their harm to our health and the environment. In Congress, there is an opportunity to come together in a bipartisan way that will make our industries cleaner and greener. We must seize this opportunity to have the United States lead the world.
 
Peters has represented California’s 52nd Congressional District since 2013. He sits on the Armed Services and the Science, Space and Technology committees. Shank, Ph.D., is adjunct faculty at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. This piece first ran in The Hill.

If you’re like me, you’re probably champing at the bit to get your hands on some sweet VR action. Smartphone-based VR is the quickest to the market, and the Carl Zeiss VR One has now launched with support for the iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S5. That said, what’s cool about this goggle is that the phone is held an interchangeable mounting bracket, and Zeiss has promised many, many more of those, so that most of the major phones will be supported. If you want to see your phone supported sooner rather than later, vote for it here.

If your phone is already supported, you can buy the VR One for $99 now. App selection is limited to a demo program and a virtual movie theater with 3D support for now, but a space flight game of some sort is coming soon, and I’m sure a flood of additional apps isn’t far down the road. I think it’s cool, but I’ll be still waiting for a goggle specifically designed for PC games.

This week the folks at Deep Silver USA have released a magical teaser for their upcoming release: Saints Row: Gat out of Hell. This lovely trailer takes the main characters from the upcoming title, making them sing. It’s a tale of love, relationships, betrayal, and guns. Lots of guns. This game is a spiritual successor to Saints Row IV, going … Continue reading

Do the math: after the One, there’s a Two, right? A new rumor says as much, and that OnePlus, makers of the highly desirable (but hard to get) One will be rolling out the successor to that device, of course named the Two, next year. In the report, we also get a glimpse of what the Two will have under … Continue reading