But the first is a milder form of the second. They are different in degree, not in kind. Throw away that dictionary definition argument, it sounds too much like TB.

As for the "mechanism always eluding me", I know when I'm getting screwed, it matters little to me to know my rapist is wearing a condom.

The Jews were never enslaved because of race. In fact, they were never enslaved at all (except in Egypt and Babylon, and we know nothing of those episodes except what the Jews themselves wrote down). They were exiled by the Romans because they rebelled, segregated by the Christians because they allegedly killed Christ, and killed by the NAZIs because they were convenient. Are you saying what happened to the Jews was OK because "after all, they were never TECHNICALLY enslaved"? As for the Neanderthals, we don't know why they disappeared. Modern anthropology admits they and Cro-magnons probably competed for resources, but it was not necessarily a war of extermination. And there is no evidence either group enslaved the other on a mass scale. We also know there is much of that going on in any competing communities of primates. The Cheyenne were always at war with the Blackfoot. Losers in those wars were often enslaved, but it was never organized along industrial, capitalistic lines. It is precisely that mass organization as an industrial institution that became widespread under Capitalism.

Slaves are often mentioned in Homer. They are the losers of wars, or captives taken in raids carried out expressly for the purpose of capturing slaves. People of different culture, language and national origin are mentioned. Race never is. In fact, its not really clear if Homer or his audience even knew that some people had different skin, hair or facial features. Homer mentions travel to Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia, but he never mentions Negroes.

I'm not defending the Bible. I've always felt it was all just Bronze Age bullshit. It doesn't have a Commandment Against Torture, either. So what? True, Christianity or its predecessor Judaism, never specifically prohibited slavery, but Christianity became popular in the Roman world because it didn't go out of its way to promote it. Christianity was the first religion that ignored the circumstances of your birth, only accepting God mattered.

As always, your objections are disconnected and irrelevant. But they always have one thing in common: to defend the concepts of capitalism, property rights, and accumulating wealth by expropriating the labor of others. You nit-pick to avoid facing the fundamental contradiction. I'm not fundamentally opposed to Capitalism, it has many benefits, too, but it must be regulated and reformed and that requires criticism and debate and compromise. Its negative aspects can be softened and made more humane.
The history of human civilization is primarily a record of our doing that successfully, and Capitalism struggling to frustrate the process.

Quit making excuses for these bastards.