What Injustice Tastes Like

Child Labor in Your Chocolate

Valentine's Day is this Friday so we cannot help but connect the sheer importance of this holiday to the gift of chocolate. This year, think about something as you take the first bite of that gourmet chocolate-which may have been harvested by a 10-year-old slave who picked the cocoa beans which made that chocolate, for 12 hours only to be whipped and poorly fed, just to export to a company he has never even heard of, so it could manufacture a product he has never even tasted, just so there will be enough chocolate hearts on the shelves at Wal-Mart-all in the name of love. Has the chocolate taken on a slightly bitter taste? No way! It's Valentine's Day-the day we should confirm our love for... wait... all of humanity? I don't think Hallmark makes a card for that!

It's a pretty grim thought, especially for a holiday founded on the principle of love. What is even bleaker are the circumstances surrounding the cocoa industry as a whole. Cocoa prices are falling, and already struggling farmers are cutting laborer's wages and increasingly turning to the use of child labor. U.S. chocolate companies have failed to respond with sufficient action while most consumers are not even aware at whose expense their Snickers bar came from. [Full Article]

Murder is Forever: The Secret Life of Diamonds

The $6 billion a year diamond industry wants you to think of love and jewelry on Valentine's Day, not severed hands and corpses in Sierra Leone. Blood diamonds, also known as "conflict diamonds" by the diamond industry, are diamonds used to pay for the weapons of terrorist groups (including al-Qaida) and ruthless killers.

Using weapons bought with "blood" diamonds, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) sparked a war that has killed 75,000 people, mutilated another 20,000, and turned 80% of the people in Sierra Leone into refugees. Greg Campbell's new book, Blood Diamonds, explains how the RUF smuggles its diamonds to Guinea or Liberia (which exports more than 30 times as many diamonds as it could possibly produce in its own meager mines), where they can be sold in Belgium as "clean" diamonds. According to Campbell, "the RUF was quickly revealed as an army of murderous thugs rather than justice-seeking rebels." Soldiers named themselves, "Rambo", "Blood Master", "What Trouble", "Colonel Backblast", "Queen Chop Hands", and "Wicked to Women." Their brutality was notorious. Innocent people would routinely be killed or have their hands cut off. Soldiers would bet on the sex of a pregnant woman's child and use a bayonet to determine the winner. [Full Article]

Howard Zinn Against War

Howard Zinn served in the United States Air Force during World War II as a bombardier. Zinn is a prominent historian and professor emeritus at Boston University in Massachusetts. He has written countless books on U.S. history and foreign policy from the perspective of the marginalized, oppressed and forgotten (including A People's History of the United States). He travels the U.S. speaking about current social issues and the importance of activism and dissent.

1) Anthony DiMaggio: What do you believe are the Bush Administration's motives for a war on Iraq?

Howard Zinn: The Bush Administration's main goals in proposed war on Iraq are: 1) to obtain control of Iraqi oil; 2) to gain a political advantage at home during election time; 3) the extension of American power into still another part of the world; and 4) the removal of a regime which won't play ball with U.S. interests. [Full Interview]

Love & Hate: A Guide to U.S. Courtships

Valentine's Day is all about love. And the United States government has had plenty of love to give throughout the past several decades. For this reason, the Indy has compiled a short list of foreign regimes that our nation has sponsored in the past. Unfortunately, though, love simply does not last forever. Here is our list of dictators and regimes that our government has loved in the past, and, in some cases, the events that led to the end of each loving relationship.

Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi - This Iranian Shah was in indispensable ally to the West. After all, who better to run an oil-rich nation than a man who will allow Western corporations to benefit? When Mohammad Mossadegh was elected as Iranian Prime Minister in 1951 promising that Iranian oil would finally benefit Iranian citizens, the Shah fled, much to the glee of the Iranian population. The United States, of course, could not allow Mossadegh to take charge of Iranian lands at the expense of our corporate interests, so a coup ousted him and put the Shah back into power. The Shah suppressed opponents for years with the help of his intelligence agency, the Savak, and he allowed a distinct ruling class to emerge. In 1979, as his population once again became discontent, the Shah had to flee again. He sought refuge in the United States, and our friendliness towards this repressive ruler led to the Iranian hostage crisis in November of 1979. [Full Article]

War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know

If there exists an authority on whether Saddam Hussein retains weapons of mass destruction, that authority is former Chief United Nations Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter. Ritter was chief inspector for the United Nations until 1998. Ritter resigned after his protests of the U.S. government regarding its use of the U.N. inspectors to illegally spy on Iraq were ignored.

Being that Scott Ritter is so knowledgeable about the current situation concerning weapons of mass destruction (WMD), common sense would dictate that the Bush Administration should use his skill wisely. Unfortunately, this has not been the case, mainly because the Bush Administration is not content with the reality that Ritter has presented to them. Ritter has continued to disagree with the Bush Administration concerning their claims that Saddam Hussein and his supposed WMD are a threat to the U.S. and the world. Although the Bush Administration has chosen to ignore Ritter, his knowledge concerning Iraq has been put to good use in a new book by William Rivers Pitt, entitled War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know. The book begins with an analysis of the situation in Iraq by Pitt, followed by an interview between Pitt and Ritter. The book is valuable in that it covers three essential points. Pitt and Ritter emphasize that: 1) the Bush Administration's pre-text to invade Iraq is completely fraudulent concerning real prospects for democracy in Iraq, 2) The Bush Administration's rhetoric about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction is largely a hoax, and 3) the U.S. history of supplying Saddam Hussein with WMD and past U.S. support for Saddam's atrocities cast serious doubt upon the sincerity of the Bush Administration regarding the proposed war on Iraq. [Full Article]

Angelo Capparella's Top 10 + 1 List of Books Everyone Interested in Environmental Issues Should Read

By Angelo Capparella, Associate Professor of Zoology and Director of the Conservation Biology Sequence, Department of Biological Sciences, Illinois State University.

• Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens our Future by Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
  This team of biologists pierces the disinformation campaigns of anti-enviromentalists and reveals the real science behind the issues. Indispensable for those wanting the consensus science on key environmental issues.
• The Black Robin: Saving the World's Most Endangered Bird by David Butler and Don Merton.
  Shows the good work humans are capable of when we care, and the incredible passion to fight againsts all odds that conservationists bring to their work.
• Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future by Mark Hertsgaard.
  Provides a critical international focus on the complex environmental issues affecting all of the world's citizens that require us all to work together.
• Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth by Lester Brown.
  A master of synthesis, Brown thoroughly covers global environmental problems, and shows how we can solve them. Environment by Peter Raven and Linda Berg.
  True, it is a textbook, but it gives an excellent and readable foundation covering all environmental issues. Excellent graphics too. I recommend this to all teachers.
  
• New Roots for Agriculture by Wes Jackson.
  This 1980 book by a visionary agriculturist documents the failure of industrialized agriculture and where we need to change for a sustainable system.
  [Full List]