- May 2019
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www.thisamericanlife.org www.thisamericanlife.org
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This American Life has retracted the above story because we learned that many of Mike Daisey's experiences in China were fabricated.
Even thought they have retracted the story, people still read it and learned about it so what is done is done.
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When they’re looking for territory to grab, the militias first seek out minerals. Throughout this part of the world, there’s gold, diamonds, coltan, cassiterite (the ore that gives us tin), and niobium for electronics, as well as molybdenum and wulfenite for making highgrade steel; all of these are near the surface and easily mined
Niobium; never new it was used for electronics, hadn't heard of it till this. All of these things are easily mined which means people can easily grab it... but they want others to do it for them.
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Nyiragongo’s unusually fluid lava sped down streets at up to sixty miles per hour, swept away buildings, covered part of the airport, destroyed 12 percent of the city, and made 120,000 people homeless.
Why was this not talked about more in the media? 120,000 people homeless is too many.
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The same cycle that fueled the slavery and genocide of 1901 continues to revolve today, not just in Congo but around the world. It’s a four-step process; simple in form yet complex in the way it plays out.
It is a process that such few people know about. The word needs to start going out.
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But the truth is out under there in the rain forests and protected habitats suffering the onslaught of slave workers driven by rogue militias. That’s why I’m in Walikale with my co-worker Zorba Leslie, lugging my backpack along a dirt track with ruts that would swallow a motorcycle.
As I continue to read I feel like statements such as this one really show me just what is happening. Just how real this situation is.
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At the very beginning of the twentieth century there was an unquenchable demand in America and Europe for an amazing new technology—air-filled rubber tires. The Age of the Railroad was ending
It is funny to think that now in 2019 we wouldn't even think twice about getting new tires on our cars. We don't even think about where they came from or where they go, we just know we need them. 100 years ago that was barely an issue. Time is crazy.
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Nineteen years later they are still there, living like parasitic plants, their roots driven deeply into the region
The use of this simile really shows exactly what they did when they moved it. It creates a pictures that enforces the shock and devastation.
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“This is why I am here,” I thought, “I can’t live without my phone, and people here are dying because of it.”
This sentence is the one that stood out to me the most throughout this article. My first thought was "that is me" I am constantly checking my phone and looking but as I have now learned people are dying over them. Something that I use all the time
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Adding together their slave-based deforestation and other CO2-producing crimes leads to a sobering conclusion. If slavery were an American state it would have the population of California and the economic output of the District of Columbia, but it would be the world’s third-largest producer of CO2, after China and the United States.
This builds off of my last comment about how 1 person can really make an impact so those 35.8 million really make an impact that currently the world is trying to ignore.
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how can the estimated 35.8 million slaves in the world really be that destructive?
Isn't there a phrase that says "1 person can be the difference" or something along those lines? 38.5 million SLAVES is a lot of people and it is sad that sometimes that we think about it that way. That those are people and not just numbers. They can do a lot of good things and a lot of bad things.
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Some of the best and cheapest tombstones come from India. In 2013 India produced 35,342 million tons of granite, making it the world’s largest producer
This is interesting to me because I guess I never really thought about where the tombstones came from, I just knew that they came engaved and i never thought about who had to do it
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