> Don't know. But let me point out that there is difference between
> China as national power with its hierarchical elites and
> whatever internal systems of power that are exercised from Beijing, and
> Chinese labor doing the work.
>
> China gains power, wealth and influence by subjugating its own masses,
> just as the US power elite do over people like me. (I am sounding more
> nasty these days because I am back with the exploited masses again.)
>
> Joanna brought over a photography book the other night that makes the
> point better than any analysis. ``Workers: An Archaeology of the
> Industrial Age'', Sebastiao Salgado, Aperature, 1995. Nice big format
> 10 x 13 black and white, 395 pages of photographs with almost no
> text.
>
> Most of the photos were taken in the `developing' world. Auto
> factories, textiles, shipping, steel, agriculture, fishing,
> mining---Africa, India, China, Cuba, Brazil, oil fields in Iraq and
> Kuwait (from the first Gulf War), Ukraine, Sicily, Spain, France,
> Azerbaijan, Indonesia and the US (slaughter house). Some of the true
> grit places of the earth.
>
> There's no doubt about what's going on. Tuna heads bigger than men,
> dead hogs moved by fork lifts, textile mills that count floor space by
> the acre, miles of shipping cranes like giant grasshoppers in fog,
> vast slaps of iron moved by hydraulic rams, cauldrons from hell,
> bicycle frames stacked to the ceiling,, a sea of
> bricks, worker's tea shops filled with smoke and tables---page after
> page of work on a vast scale.
>
> The most famous of these photos is a series done in Serra Pelada in
> Brazil. An open pit mine teaming with laborers climbing down bare timber
> ladders hundreds of feet into this vast pit of tiers. It looks like
> something out of a Hollywood Bible movie of Egyptian slaves laboring
> for Pharaoh. Or a scene from Dante's Inferno.
>
> CG
-------------------------------------
Link to the photos at the bottom; the archives have even more:
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2003/2003-December/030085.html
Talking Heads - Cool Water
Day by day ... Whistle while you work ... Our
backs are breaking ... Up from hollow earth ...
>From end to end ... The noise begins ... In the
human battle stations ... And the big one's
coming in
Work, work, work, work ... Work till holes are filled ... Work, work, work, work ... Bags of bone and skin ... Lovers hold hands ... Tossing their heads ... Tangled in hair ... Tied to earth ... With skin and glue
But their skin is the same as yours Coming in for the world to see They can sit at the table, too The same blood as you and me
Speak very softly .. Hold my hand ... Someone is sleeping ... In my bed ... Priests pass by ... Worms crawl in ... One dreams to be ... One dream for all His skin is the same as yours Is he not made the same as you? And some have fallen down And blood spilled on the ground
Work, work,work Till his life is done The old man .. Is at our door ... And he's knocking ... knocking ... As his neighbors weep ... Each day repeats ... Are we nothing in your eyes? ... Someone answer, someone answer ... This rusted garden gate ... Can barely even stand ... Their work is over now ... And rest will be at hand
Is their skin not the same as yours? Can they sit at the table to drink Cool water Cool water And his lungs are filled with rain... And the water's rushing in..