This week: Operation Underground Railroad Edited by: Shannon  
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Welcome to the Short Stories Newsletter. I am Shannon and I'm your editor this week.
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According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 800,000 children are reported missing every year in the United States. When I first heard that number I couldn't believe it. 800,000? How is that possible? How is this not headline news?
"We now have the largest number of slaves on Earth than we've had in human history" ~ Andrew Forrest, founder of the Walk Free Foundation (1).
Human trafficking is an uncomfortable topic that no one wants to talk about, but it's a topic we need to talk about. We need to educate ourselves and our children. They depend on us to protect them, and if trafficked children must endure heinous abuse on a daily basis the least we can do is listen to their stories.
More and more schools across America are teaching students about the dangers of online predation, how to recognize a threat, and what to do about it. This isn't a topic we should hide from. The predators rely on our discomfort, our naiveté, and our unwillingness to talk about this, and the world's children are paying the price for our overt negligence.
"Tim Ballard worked as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, for over ten years. During his time working for the American government, he worked on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and worked as an undercover agent for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team" (2).
In 2013 Ballard heard the story of a 3-year-old boy named Gardy who was born in Utah. Gardy was kidnapped from a church in Haiti where his father was pastor. Tim wanted to help bring Gardy home since that is his area of expertise, but his superiors said no. Despite the fact that Gardy is a U.S. citizen, Haiti is outside its jurisdiction. Tim realized he could do more, save more children if he quit his government job. He did just that, starting Operation Underground Railroad and going undercover to save trafficked children around the world.
Why the name "Operation Underground Railroad"?
"People have asked me why I decided to name our foundation Operation Underground Railroad, and there's a long story to that. The original Underground Railroad was a secret network of people of all colors and creeds who came together to rescue people who were enslaved. It's one of the most inspiring stories of American History that I've ever studied" (3). ~ Tim Ballard
Human trafficking is the fastest-growing enterprise in the world, and since the Covid-19 lockdowns began these illicit online activities have increased by 5000% with America being the #1 demand. Yes, the United States is one of the top destination countries for human trafficking (see video below). Operation Underground Railroad--featured on CBS News, MSNBC, ABC News, and The Washington Post, just to name a few--has a team of experts who have dedicated their lives to traveling around the globe to rescue victims (4,000) and arrest perpetrators (2,100+ to date).
Remember last month when the whole Wayfair thing broke? Who knows what the hell's going on there, but time will tell. Tim says law enforcement will sort it out sooner rather than later, but he says kids are sold that way online.
When I was 10 years old two of my friends (a brother and sister who lived near our family in rural Alaska) disappeared. They were never found. I am haunted by these stories of missing children, and their fates hit a little too close to home. I've even written about it, albeit from a historical fiction point of view: "The Game" [ASR].
Check out Operation Underground Railroad's YouTube Channel as well as their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages. "Join Tim and his special forces team as they go undercover in Haiti to bring a ring of sex traffickers who bribed their way out of jail, to justice" by watching their documentary, Operation Toussaint, in its entirety below.
Did someone you know get kidnapped? Did you lose a loved one to human trafficking? Have you written a story about abduction or slavery? Share your thoughts, comments, and creations by responding to this newsletter and I will share them in my next edition.
Thank you for reading.
References:
1. There are more slaves now than any time in human history
2. Timothy Ballard
3. Why the name "Operation Underground Railroad"?
Further Reading:
 Operation Underground Railroad
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Education
The Abolitionists
Inside Nxivm, the ‘Sex Cult’ That Preached Empowerment
Walk Against Child Trafficking 2020
P.S. Every registered author who shares their ideas and/or creative endeavors relating to or inspired by this week's topic will receive an exclusive trinket. I will retire this month's limited-edition trinket at 11:59 p.m. WDC time on Tuesday, September 29, 2020, when my next short stories newsletter goes live.
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I hope you enjoy this week's featured selections. I occasionally feature static items by members who are no longer with us; some have passed away while others simply aren't active members. Their absence doesn't render their work any less relevant, and if it fits the week's topic I will include it.
Thank you, and have a great week!
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The following is in response to "A History of Riots in America" :
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Beacon's Anchor  writes: Since you brought up the riots in 1992, I was in high school when that took place, I don't think it was right what the. Officers did but King shouldn't have ran from police either. So I think it's a touchy subject with most people. Does anyone think about what happened to the truck driver and he's white and the people were beating him and that's not right either. So another, the black chief officer from St Louis got killed by a looter by protecting his friends store, I don't see anyone saying anything about him so its not fair to the ones who need justice like the police chief. Sorry I had to say something about the police chief. All in All, its sad on both sides.
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Jeff  writes: I think it's really important to distinguish a difference between "protesting" and "riots" as the two terms are not synonymous. In the Venn Diagram of protestors and rioters/looters, the overlap is actually statistically very small. There's ample evidence that rioters/looters use the cover of protests to carry out a selfish, destructive agenda that doesn't have anything to do with the larger motives of the protest.
I also think it's really important to look at the context under which protests (and even riots) start. A large part of the Rodney King response in Los Angeles was an objection to the savagery of the police response to King (and its history of similar responses to black men), not simply because they thought King was innocent. Similarly, with the NMSP riots, I think saying that a bunch of inmates "got drunk on hooch and decided to take over the institution" is a bit of a dismissive assessment of a situation where the facility was running at nearly 130% of capacity with extremely limited resources and where prisoners may have felt they had no other options for how to express their objection to unreasonable living conditions.
None of this is to say that violence should be encouraged as a method of response, but we should all be careful not to wholly invalidate the entire cause of a protest or riot until we've properly considered the full context. Civil disobedience rarely begins out of nowhere with a pure desire to destroy things or intentionally cause pain and suffering. It's far more often the result of objecting to some injustice present in a system that already exists.
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QueenNormaJean snow?forgetit..  writes: I too live in a peaceful area, rural Montana. We don't usually get upset about too much here. The latest thing we are protesting is the cancellation of the 4th of July parade, due to social distancing, lack of proper sanitation for onlookers, possibility of losing insurance for the town, and a few other regulations that the state has thrown in. So the town 'elders' decided to cancel the traditional parade. Darn. But we may have a protest parade. That is about as wild as we get here. We citizens voiced our frustrations on Facebook and to each other. We didn't march down Main Street and burn down the town, that happened a few weeks ago when a business caught fire by accident. We have enough excitement just making it through the day it seems. So while we are sorry for the loss of a man, we respect our government, our police and our city.
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BIG BAD WOLF is Merry  writes: Sometimes one is surprised at what happens.
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Ugly Christmas Sox  writes: I was only blocks from the riots in my town. We had eight o'clock curfews for several days and the target was ransacked but we seem to have calmed down. What the police did wasn't right but two wrongs never equal a right.
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Jacqueline  writes: I live in Australia, and have never been apart of riots. I have seen many on TV. Like America, our Aboriginal are always been conceded low citterns. My heart goes out to America at this time. It sadden deeply
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Elisa: Snowman Stik  writes: This newsletter hit very close to home for a couple reasons. First, I woke up on May 29 and looked out my living room window to see smoke over the treetops. I hadn't slept well, anyway, thanks to all the sirens and helicopters. Since that day, it's been a crawl as Minneapolis rebuilds both businesses and public safety. This has been happening under an international microscope, and fighting to get nuanced reporting of it out to people keeps some of the trauma at bay (but not all of it). I don't live close to the worst of the damage, but a couple stores in my neighborhood were vandalized and looted. Protests also regularly marched through my neighborhood. I've had a front row seat to all this. While this is certainly the most intense I've ever witnessed, it's not the first time.
The first time was actually in 2008, a moment that inspired this newsletter: "Drama Newsletter (October 1, 2008)" . I actually went with Kraken through the Snow to observe the protests surrounding the Republican National Convention in St. Paul back in 2008. Things went south about three hours into my visit, and we ended up on the last bus out of downtown. It took a while to get out of downtown, and people pelting the bus with anything they could grab did not help matters. It was a really hot day, to boot. I've wanted to write a story about this adventure but never figured out how to tackle it. I have a feeling that story may not be written for a while. I am dealing with greater shock right now.
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mykel  writes: I have seen rioting up close (not as a participant) and I have participated in protests.I have never written about the experiences, but some are still vivid in my mind even after the passage of years (in some instances). People often react violently when they are subjected to violence, and the "monkeys in the zoo" mentality avoids looking at the real reason for violent escalations: violent oppression results in violent response. People are human beings and need to be treated with dignity, justice, and love.
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eyestar~* writes: Wow! Your research and share is chilling. Good tie in to today's world. Thankfully, I have not witnessed or been near anything like this and I really have compassion for others. Thanks for the wise words of M.L. King. When will we as humans learn the lessons of history?
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Lilith 🎄 Christmas Cheer  writes: Thank you for another awesome newsletter!
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Elizabeth writes: I haven't been able to protest this year because I have a compromised immune system, but I have gone to numerous protests in the past. I'm in Canada, and a lot of people (inside Canada and internationally) seem to be of the opinion that the injustices that exist in the USA are not a problem here. They are. Police brutality is a problem, and when I spent a couple of weeks putting together anti-racism resources for Canadians, I had to keep updating the introduction to my post because the police kept murdering more BIPOC whose names I was adding to the post. Early this year there were mass protests against a pipeline being built on unceded Wet'suwet'en territory, and when the protests blocked traffic and trains, many white Canadians who were inconvenienced called for land protectors to be run over. I've been especially passionate about writing about these topics this year since I don't have the health to be at protests in person during a pandemic.
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~Brian K Compton~ writes: Very informative newsletter. I feel rioting results from prolonged oppression and restricting rights or freedoms like speech. It's not hard to imagine the emotion that people feel, when set into motion, become overwhelming and unstoppable. Unfortunate parts of our history. Makes me wonder what the greatest riots around the world were. China has protests. Some countries are too afraid to speak out against their government. We have a bit more freedom to speak out in the U.S. Although, if we really cared about our voices, we'd vote rather than begrudge who ends up being in charge. Good, thought-provoking article.
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WakeUpAndLive  writes: Wow, I keep your newsletter on Riots in America. So much background information. Thank you for sharing. Much needed.
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sindbad  writes: Hi
Shannon, this article, and our current situation has a lot of practical implications. I was deeply touched and educated with this well-drafted and lucid article on an event that happened 29 years ago. I enjoyed and appreciate your sequential capture of similar events and damaging consequences as well.
Sindbad
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Short Stories: August 05, 2020 Issue [#10302]
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