Boycott List for God-Conscious Consumers

by Hudwa Jawad

Islamic Insights

November 15, 2010

For years, proponents of a free and frighteningly unregulated global market have argued that all profit is good profit. But not quite. The world has witnessed a consistent exploitation of third world markets and labor at the hands of global multinationals, with ethics remaining an increasingly fickle concept. Horrible violations are carried out by large corporations both in historic records and on a daily basis. Then again, can we quantify ethics or the lack thereof? Two weeks ago, Islamic Insights brought forth an argument in favor of justice and God-Conscious Consumers. This week we present a list of companies whose conduct and history would give Upton Sinclair nightmares.

Due to their labor standards, environmentally destructive policies and human rights records, we must refrain as much as possible from supporting these brands and companies with our dollars.

 

Nestle

Once people realize the dark secret of the chocolate industry, there's a substantial chance that it won't taste as sweet, considering most of the chocolate around the world is made using cocoa beans harvested through illegal child and slave labor. In simple terms, Nestle purchases cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast which, while being the producer of 40% of the world's cocoa supply, also boasts a staggering number of child laborers – over 100,000. Nestle has acknowledged that it uses cocoa beans produced and collected by children as young as 9 in its products and it is the third largest purchaser of these cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast, yet its direct support and encouragement of the illegal farms filled with slave and child labor continues. Check out the documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate for more details.

It doesn't end there with Nestle. The company has an equally disturbing and negative record with its coffee production. In recent years, coffee-dominated agricultural systems have caused major deforestation within the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Indonesia. This illegal coffee is mixed with legally grown coffee beans and sold to numerous companies both in the US and Europe, including Kraft Foods and Nestle. While producing coffee (or any other food item) in the national park is illegal, coffee remains to be the commodity dominating the destruction of a critical national park in Indonesia, in addition to supporting environmental degradation. From 1990 to 1995, 37% of the countries suffering from deforestation were major coffee producers. The thinning of forests for the production of coffee leads to considerable biodiversity loss. Soil degradation is another concern as the land endures practices that lead to soil erosion, rendering it useless.

Nestle is also notorious for its use of water processing which led to complete villages in Mexico being thrust into poverty, and its track record with baby formula has led it to being one of the most boycotted companies in the world. It is also on the boycott list for many Muslims for its support and dealings with Israel.

 

Wal-Mart

It is much easier to ask what Wal-Mart hasn't violated than it is to list out each and every offense. The list offenses range from union busting, to worker rights violations, to labor discrimination. Check out the documentary, Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Prices.

Wal-Mart's domestic infractions, such as gender discrimination in promotions, low wages, union busting and a failure to provide health insurance to over half of its workers is an open secret. However, less known and exposed is Wal-Mart's secret to maintaining dirt-cheap prices. The reason you can buy a pair of shoes for $4.99 at Wal-Mart is because of what child laborers and mistreated workers across the ocean must endure in humiliating and inhumane working conditions.

Daily in the 70 factories spread across 48 countries that produce goods for the company, the Wal-Mart cycle plays out like this: The company continues to demand ridiculously cheap prices from its suppliers, who in turn subject their workers to increasingly outrageous and abusive workplace environments. Workers for Wal-Mart suppliers in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nicaragua and Swaziland have been forced to endure humiliatingly low wages, forced to work overtime without compensation and denied legally required health care, in addition to locked bathrooms, forced pregnancy tests for female employees and termination should workers stand up against these unjust work conditions. Wal-Mart also has no qualms about paying children in Bangladesh 9 cents an hour for back-breaking work for 18 hours a day. It also plays its factories against one another in order to ensure they are getting products at the lowest prices possible. With Wal-Mart, it's not a race to the top; it's a race to the bottom.

 

Coca Cola

Coca Cola should already be on your boycott list for its unwavering support to the Israeli regime. In fact, in 2008 Coca Cola held an elaborate reception at its world head quarters for Israeli General Ben-Eliezer, an wanted war criminal and responsible for the execution of 300 Egyptian prisoners of war during the Six Day War.

That's only the tip of it with this company. Coca Cola's violations are as diverse as its products and flavors, including violent killings, kidnap and torture, water privatization and health violation, to name a few. From 1989 to 2002, at least eight union leaders from Coca Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed soon after protesting the company's labor policies. Hundreds of Coca Cola employees in Colombia have also been kidnapped, tortured and intimidated by paramilitaries for attempting to a join a union.

In India, Coca Cola depleted the water supply of countless cities and villages. For example, in Plachimada, Kerala Coca Cola extracted close to 1.5 million liters of water and then bottled and sold it under the name of Dasani. The groundwater was destroyed and massive water shortages continue to be suffered by the region. Coca Cola and Pepsi Co. were also both staunch supporters and lobbied for the war in Iraq.

 

Altria Group Inc: Nabisco, Kraft, and Phillip Morris

It is estimated that Altria products are in 99% of American homes and taking a look at their brands and product names will give us a clear reason as to why. Check out this list of Phillip Morris owned brands.

The acquisition of Nabisco by Phillip Morris was due to an effort to cover up its horrid tobacco abuses and policies and in order to retain its number 2 position in the food industry. The name Altria Group is simply an umbrella and cover used by Phillip Morris who is fearful of a mass consumer boycott of Kraft Foods which it owns as a statement against the tobacco's giants misleading, deceptive, and abusive tobacco campaigns.

Phillip Morris, now officially called Altria is the world's largest tobacco corporation. It is also the world's leader in pushing smoking towards young people around the world. While publically claiming it does not want children and teens smoking, the company has spent millions on researching marketing trends for this demographic. For years it has misled the public about the dangers of smoking and its so called "healthier" alternatives are an insulting attempt to kill society, just slower. For years Phillip Morris has been able to get away with selling deadly products and cigarettes because it controls the debate on public health. It is able to lobby away laws and regulations that would severely limit the impact and scope of smoking, particularly among teens. In the 2000 election cycle, Phillip Morris was the second largest contributor of "soft" money to candidates who ensured no legislation would come forward to regulated the tobacco industry nor expose the dangerous side effects of smoking.

By merging with Kraft and Nabisco, Phillip Morris used money made from the sale of their prized and addictive, not to mention deadly product to gain influence and power in both the business world and the debate on public health. A boycott of these brands and companies will put pressure on Phillip Morris to change their sales and marketing strategies and force the company to admit the true danger of their tobacco products. Currently, 50% of all cigarettes sold to underage purchasers are Phillip Morris brands.

 

We Vote With Our Wallets

The above list is certainly not inclusive of all the companies that we should be careful of supporting with our money. Many successful boycotts have been at the grass-roots level such as the General Electric boycott of the 1980s, the DKNY boycott which ended in 2008, and the most recent boycott against Royal Caribbean.

See original article and Islamic Insights here.

The Invasion Of The Body Scanners.

What's all the fuss about body scanners here in A-merry-ca? You A-merry-cans are such prudes. So the TSA guy saw your business. So what? Do you really think he is going to go home and play palm meet johnson with images of your rump- shaker dancing in his head? Stop it!
And, to think, this all started with some guy out in Cali not being comfortable with his manhood:

"Tyner was irate about having to either undergo a full-body scan or endure security officials' new pat-down methods, which the Associated Press said now include running hands up the inside of passengers' legs. The New York Times said the more aggressive pat-downs – "in which women's breasts and all passengers' genital areas are patted firmly" – began Nov. 1.

Tyner refused to go through the scanning machine, and so was offered a pat-down as an alternative, which he also declined. He then exchanged words with airport security staff, while recording the showdown.

"I don't understand how a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying," Tyner said at one point.

"This is not considered a sexual assault," responded an unidentified airport security official.

"It would be if you weren't the government," Tyner snapped back.

You can hear the exchange on an Associated Press video report here. [See link above]

The airline he was due to fly on eventually refunded his ticket and he never boarded his plane. Tyner later told Fox News that he was concerned about the scanner's invasion of his privacy.

"I didn't want anybody looking at my naked body," he told Fox. Tyner said he recorded the exchange to protect himself"

"Cry me a river"! There is no pleasing the A-merry-can public. They want tighter security and all types of civil liberty protections at the same time. These same people will be the first in line bitching and moaning about how the government couldn't protect them if something goes wrong. "It's all those democrats fault. They are soft on terrorist." And now they have a problem with a hard pat- down because a government employee is doing it. I guess they would feel a little better if security was outsourced to a private company at the airport. Then it wouldn't be those- easy to pick on- government employees doing the frisking.

I am declaring right here and now that I have no problem with body scanners or extra pat downs. Please feel free to feel on me. Hell, I might enjoy that s*&%. ("Sir, you will have to put your laptop in the bin". You can't keep it between your legs.".....let me stop )

Finally, I am going to stay with a certain theme and leave you with the following story:

"The evacuation of a Chester County hotel earlier this month was caused when staffers entered a room, found an Indiana man's naked, lifeless body next to various sexual devices and a gas mask, and smelled the stinging odor of unknown liquids, police and sources said.

The liquids turned out to be cleaning solutions that the man had been huffing as part of a solo sexual act, a source said yesterday.

State Police responded to the Fairfield Inn and Suites, on Baltimore Pike near McFarlan Road, in Kennett Square, on Nov. 4, after hotel employees found the 48-year-old man, whom police did not identify, dead in his room.

A chemical odor and unknown, potentially hazardous liquid substances found in the room prompted a partial evacuation of the hotel.

As a result, the Chester County hazardous-materials team was called to the scene, which was deemed safe, police said.

The substances were various inhalants, including VHS tape cleaner and other cleaning solutions.

Police believe the substances were being inhaled by the man to create a euphoric sensation.

A source said that the sexual devices and the gas mask indicated that the man's behavior may have been "ritualistic."

Although the investigation into the death is ongoing, police do not suspect foul play." [Story]

Well I will be damned! "Ritualistic" masturbation? You A-merry-cans are freakier than I thought.

I wonder if this guy would have objected to a full body scan?

Falling

I was falling from a plane and holding Wendy tight in my arms before the hotel phone rang too early this morning.

"Let go of Wendy and save yourself," I heard my moms shout.  "I will never do that," I shouted back as Wendy wriggled from fright in my arms.

As we fell down to earth I was thinking that it does not take a long time to descend.  I could see a lot of green and brown coming up very fast.

I wondered if somewhere in the fall there was a point where I could get back onto the plane and avoid the inevitable.

Wendy felt familiar in my arms.  On trips back to Number 11 we would play on the kept grass and I'd pick her always tense body up and set her down gently time and time again.

Though just a dog to passersby, Wendy was part of the spirit to me.

As we neared the ground I tightened my grip and our bodies slowed to a float.  I could see my legs just moments before we landed safely on the grass of Number 11.

I set Wendy down gently and she looked up at me knowingly.

"We gonna be OK Wendy," I said.

"Edmund Edmund is that you.  Good morning."

"No you have the wrong number," I replied trying hard to hold onto my dream at half past the uncivilized hour of 5.

Wendy passed just five months after my dad in 2009.

I laid her down gently into the soft soil of number 11 facing Mecca because moms wanted it so.

A few hours later I was sitting on my bed working through waves of sadness when our 8 year old Chihuahua walked over to me and stood up on her hind legs and laid her head on the side of my leg.

The aloof alpha female, Cindy, had come to console me.  Even now I can still feel her head on my leg.

I have struggled with mortality and life and meaning in the last year and a half.  Losing my father is still very much unfinished business and many frames of falling and not being in control haunt me. 

Just minutes ago I opened an email that read "Cindy passed away peacefully last night.  I am sorry because I know how much you loved her."

Cindy on the left and Wendy on the right at Number 11

I expected that she would pass soon.

I last saw her in September and she had grown frail and thin.  Her eyes were not so bright anymore and she seemed to be saying "goodbye".

I guess if you live long enough you get to know death very well.

Though the  falling is inevitable it is never ever easy to comprehend or to accept.

Until that reckoning ...

Onward!

Sorry Ms. Kaufman, unlike "Mr. Smith" you won't be going to Washington.

Let me hurry up and get this post out of the way so that I can watch "5" and Vick mix it up down in D.C. (BTW, congrats to "5" and his new contract. I guess sometimes it pays to shuffle.)

So anyway, I can't help but wonder how many dumbocrats share the view of the two honorary house Negroes and traitors on my side-bar. Let me see, his O ness is two years in and there is actually talk that he shouldn't run in 2012? And, to make matters worse, the Washington Post actually allowed these two clowns to do an entire editorial on the subject. What a disgrace!

I have some advise for anyone who wants to run a credible news organization in A-merry-ca: Do not put anyone who appears on FOX NEWS on your network, and do not allow anyone who appears on FOX NEWS to write one letter in your newspaper. Everyone in A-merry-ca gets the joke but them. Honestly,the s&^# is getting past pathetic. The political and ideological buffoonery in this country has reached epic proportions.

And, speaking of buffoonery; I was going to give this brotha a chance ------even though I suspected that he was going to be just another empty headed wingnut, but, -true to form- he already did some dumb stuff that has me writing him off.

Allen West actually wanted to take a wingnut shock jock to Washington with him as his chief of staff, ( a woman who has called for the hanging of illegal immigrants) but thanks to public outcry, he had to withdraw her name from consideration. As is typical of the woe is me wingnut, Girlfriend channeled her inner Clarence Thomas and called it an "electronic lynching."

"Right wing talk radio host Joyce Kaufman told her listeners Thursday that she telephoned Congressman elect Allen West Wednesday night and informed him that she would not accept a job as his chief of staff.

“I owe you an explanation, and I owe Congressman West a statement,” Kaufman told listeners before making the announcement during her noon to 3 p.m. show on WFTL-850 AM in Fort Lauderdale.

The withdrawal follows an outcry over comments Kaufman has made in the past, calling for the hanging of illegal immigrants, and saying if the election did not go West and Republicans’ way, her followers should get out their “gun cartridges.” Among her statements at a July 4 tea party rally for West: “If ballots don’t work, bullets will.”

Saying she was proud of West’s accomplishment in getting elected in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, Kaufman said she was withdrawing because of what she called “vile” attacks on her by unnamed enemies, which she said were designed to hurt West.

“I will not be complicit in this effort to diminish his stature [through] attacks against me,” Kaufman told her listeners. “I will not allow myself to be defined by others. I return to my program on WFTL And as I have always believed, I’m in God’s hands.”

Kaufman, who is half-Puerto Rican and half Jewish, even played the race card in her denunciation of those who have criticized her comments.

“I will not be used in an electronic lynching by proxy,” she said during the show. “The insanity of using a Hispanic woman to lynch a black American Army hero elected to congress — what they’re trying to do is bring down Congressman-elect Allen West. They’re not fooling me, and they’re certainly not fooling you." [Full story]

If you are in "God's hands" I hope she drops you on your head. Wait, I think she might have already done that.

Minister Says Bushmen Live in 'Dark Ages'

by Niren Tolsi
Mail & Guardian
November 12, 2010

Kitso Mokaila

Botswana's minister for environment, wildlife and tourism, Kitso Mokaila, stoked the growing controversy around his government's treatment of Bushmen living in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve by telling the BBC that Bushmen are "living in the Dark Ages in the middle of nowhere". 

Mokaila's remark prompted a sharp counterblast from indigenous rights group Survival International.

"Mokaila's remarks are the latest in a long line of insults by government officials and are an indication of the deep-rooted racism towards the Bushmen," said the director of Survival International, Steven Corry.

Corry's statement follows Survival's launch of an international boycott of Botswana's tourist and diamond industries and of tourism company Wilderness Safari group, which has lodges in the reserve.

Celebrities -- including actresses Sophie Okonedo and Joanna Lumley -- have publicly pledged their support.

Corry told the Mail & Guardian Botswana has been on a "concerted drive" to remove the Bushmen from the reserve as it attempts to grow tourism and diamond mining in the area.

'Strangled out'
"Since 2002 the Bushmen have been refused access to boreholes, while animals and tourists are allowed water, and they are not allowed to hunt or keep animals.

"New boreholes for animals have been drilled by [jewellery chain] Tiffany but the Bushmen are not allowed access. The government is strangling them out," said Corry.

The reserve is thought to have one of the largest diamond deposits in the world. According to Survival, the Botswana government denied that there were diamond deposits in the area before the eviction of Bushmen in 2002.

Read the rest here.

Comment: It is an absolute tragedy what Botswana is doing, and has done, to the San/Basarwa (Bushmen) people.  This round of insult adds to decades of discrimination that has removed the indigenous San/Basarwa from their ancestral land.

Botswana is not alone.  Namibia, South Africa, Angola, and Zimbabwe are guilty of doing much the same.

The insult that Survival is a "neo-apartheid" organization as alledged in the above article is just a smoke-screen to hide the fact that Botswana wants to permanently remove the San/Basarwa from their land (the Central Kalahari Game Reserve).

So much for the post-colonial era.  Botswana is the 'new' colonizer with the help of De Beers and adventure outfits like Wilderness Safari who cater to western tourists.

Onward!

Sign the Survival petition urging Wilderness Safaris to take their game lodge off Bushman land.


Picture Credit

Cigarette man! Cigarette man!

"There's something about the icecream truck that makes kids lose it. And they can hear that shit from ten blocks away. They don't hear their mothers calling but they hear that motherfucking icecream truck. " ~Eddie Murphy~

Yes, kids in the hood love the ice-cream man. It's not like they have shit else to look forward to from day to day. Anyway, apparently one corporation figured this out. But, instead of the ice cream man, it's the cigarette man they allegedly went pushing on the kids from the hood.

"BOSTON (AP) — Leslie Adamson said the white truck that stopped at the Boston housing project she grew up in brought adults and children running, much like a visit from the ice cream man.

But instead of sweets, the truck brought free cigarette samples.

The cigarette giveaways are a central issue in a lawsuit brought against Lorillard Tobacco Co. by a man who claims his mother was introduced to smoking as a child through the free samples and became so addicted that she was unable to quit and eventually died of lung cancer. Lorillard denies that anyone from the company gave out cigarettes to children.

Willie Evans, the son of Marie Evans, alleges in his lawsuit that Lorillard gave away Newport cigarettes in urban neighborhoods in an effort to hook black children and teenagers on cigarettes. Marie Evans died in 2002 at the age of 54 after smoking for four decades.

Adamson, Marie Evans’ younger sister, was the first witness to testify as the trial opened in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday. She said she first began getting free cigarettes in packs of 4 when she was about 7 or 8 years old in the Orchard Park housing project.

“It looked like a Frosty truck,” Adamson said. “I just remember people clamoring and cigarettes being handed out.”' [Full story]

WTF? The "Frosty truck" pushing Newport? "Oh come on now field, you know you black folks love your Newport cigarettes. So this company is trying to start them out a little young, what's the difference? We all know that they are going to end up smoking the damn things." Yes, black folks do love their menthols. Maybe some smart company can develop ice cream with nicotine in it. That way they can kill two birds with one stone. Or, one ice cream truck.

Finally, as if the poor post office isn't having enough problems. Now you have white folks taking out their frustrations on postal carriers of color; all because they happen to be the messengers. "Don't shoot the messenger", or, call the messenger the "N" word. I wonder who the certified letter to this frustrated woman was from? I am guessing it was the committee to re-elect Barack Obama.

Clinton Recommends Bush Memoir

News24
November 14, 2010

New York - Critics are mixed about George W Bush's new memoir, but the former president has received a rave review from a fellow White House alumnus, Bill Clinton.

In a statement released on Friday, Clinton praised Bush's Decision Points as "well-written and interesting", recommended it for "people of all political stripes" and said the book would help other Democrats understand why he liked Bush, a Republican.

Clinton is also friendly with Bush's father, former President George HW Bush, whom Clinton defeated for re-election in 1992. The bond between Clinton and the elder Bush is noted in Decision Points, which came out Tuesday. (AP)
 
Comment: I am going to need more than a memoir to understand why Bill Clinton likes W. and daddy Bush.  Has he forgotten that W. and a pack of Republican thieves were not elected in 2000 but 'selected' in a stolen election that was similarly consolidated in 2004?

I guess it would be too much to just call the memoir what it is huh?

See Ahmed Amr's "Bush Didn't Write No Damn Book" (Dissident Voice, November 11) for a more honest and real appraisal of the "hoax" memoir.

Onward!