Boycott Halloween
Is Halloween Just
Another Innocent Holiday?
Learn The Facts Then Decide.

History of Halloween
Is Halloween simply a family tradition, with candy and scary stories? Or does history teach us that there is more?

Myths and Facts
So many think that education helps us accept differences, but what facts do you want your family to believe?
Halloween is an innocent holiday

Rod and Staff Publishers reported that the former queen of whiches of Europe remarked to a Christian audience in Louisville, KY that she and other withes and satanists would laugh when they saw Christians participating in Halloween. Why? Because witches and satanists know that Halloween is not innocent. While we may decorate and have fun, the basis of Halloween is a pagan holiday where divination and soothsaying are practiced (see History page).

We shouldn't allow anything that looks like or connects with evil to be a part of our lives. Thessalonians 5:22 tell us to "avoid evil of every kind". How can we avoid evil when we actively participate in a holiday that is all about evil ways?

Also, evil tends to be a slippery slope - one which often takes us farther than we really want to go. Be smart - avoid evil and all things that can lead to evil.


Family Alternatives
Great ideas for alternative celebrations year round that send the right messages.

Nestle and Slave Labor youtube

Death in the Phillipines youtube

Halloween and child slave labor commondreams
EXCERPT:
Is There Child Slave Labor in Your Child's Halloween Candy?
New Chocolate Candy Scorecard Rates All the Major Chocolate Makers; Hershey is Dead Last for its Failure to Take Action on Child Labor
WASHINGTON - October 19 - Good news for parents this Halloween: It’s easier than ever to avoid buying chocolate from Hershey, the largest U.S. chocolate company. Hershey fails to ensure that child labor is not part of its chocolate. Two major reports this September called out Hershey’s failure and the prevalence of egregious child labor, forced labor and trafficking abuses in the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana where Hershey’s sources much of its cocoa.

Just in time for Halloween, Thanksgiving and the December holidays, the independent, non-profit Green America has outlined seven ways to find and give Fair Trade chocolate people can feel good about, and take constructive actions to get Hershey’s to go Fair Trade.

Slave labor and chocolate candy and all candy
EXCERPT:
This is a country where an estimated 215,000 children live on the streets, where teachers give children good grades in return for sexual favors and where there is no law against human trafficking, according to U.S. State Department reports.

A chocolate trade group in Washington blames putting kids to work on farmer attitudes in West Africa.

The Western protest groups have videotaped conditions on some of the slave farms, with wrenching narratives from children who were as young as 12 when they were enticed by traffickers with promises of good wages and easy work. One plaintiff, a young boy from neighboring Mali who says he was lured to a cocoa farm in Ivory Coast, describes his plight on tape: "I tried to run away but I was caught ... as punishment they cut my feet and I had to work for weeks while my wounds healed. I stayed in a large room with other Malian children from a neighboring plantation." He was finally freed when another boy enslaved on the farm found his way to the Malian embassy, according to several boys' testimony. A Malian diplomat intervened to help return the boys to their families, according to plaintiff transcripts.

Five years ago Senator Thomas Harkin (D--Iowa) led an investigation into allegations of child slavery in the African cocoa trade. The senator introduced legislation that would have required chocolate sold in the U.S. to be labeled "slave-free." The bill was not enacted, but Nestlé got the message. The company, other big chocolate producers, the ILO and several nonprofit groups signed an agreement promising that by July 2005 they would find a way to certify chocolate as not having been produced by any underage, indentured, trafficked or coerced labor.

Slave labor, chocolate and the holidays
EXCERPT:
An investigative report by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in 2000 indicated the size of the problem. According to the BBC, hundreds of thousands of children are being purchased from their parents for a pittance, or in some cases outright stolen, and then shipped to the Ivory Coast, where they are sold as slaves to cocoa farms. These children typically come from countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Togo. Destitute parents in these poverty-stricken lands sell their children to traffickers believing that they will find honest work once they arrive in Ivory Coast and then send some of their earnings home.

The fact that child slaves are used in the harvesting of cocoa beans in Cote D'Ivoire is undisputed. The U.S. State Department estimates that there are approximately 15,000 children working on cocoa, coffee, and cotton farms in the Cote D'Ivoire. In June 2001, the ILO (International Labor Organization) also reported that trafficked child labor was used in cocoa production in West Africa. Media reports have unveiled stories about boys tricked or sold into slavery, some as young as nine years old, to work on cocoa plantations in Cote d'Ivoire. ILRF (International Labor Rights Funds) has verified these reports through our own independent investigations conducted in 2002 and 2003, and has interviewed children who have escaped from the cocoa plantations.

These children, usually 12 to 14 years old but sometimes younger, are forced to do hard manual labor 80 to 100 hours a week. They are paid nothing, are barely fed, are beaten regularly, and are often viciously beaten if they try to escape. Most will never see their families again. Aly Diabate, a freed slave, told reporters, “The beatings were a part of my life. Anytime they loaded you with bags (of cocoa beans) and you fell while carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again.”

Hersheys moves to Mexico
EXCERPT:
Hershey's Move To Mexico
Philly.com ^ | June 9, 2007 | By Steve Chawkins / Los Angeles Times

OAKDALE, Calif. - On a warm May weekend in this Central Valley town, the irony was thick.

As usual, the annual Chocolate Festival was drawing hordes of fun-seekers. But Hershey Co., Oakdale's biggest employer and the nation's biggest candy company, is closing its plant here, eliminating all 575 jobs. The company will open a factory in Monterrey, Mexico, to handle the production.

Warning this post may ruin your life
Warning: This Post May Ruin Your Life Author: Luisa Perkins•7:18 AM
I'm really not kidding. I won't be offended if you leave right now and move to the next blog on your "Favorites" list. You may be really, really sorry if you continue reading. Kids under 18, I really want you to go away now; I don't want your parents harassing me later.

Still here? Okay. But I warned you. Don't give me any grief in a comment once you're done here.

According to my Scavenger Hunt spreadsheet, Pezmama gets a rest for a while starting tomorrow. Today, though, her burning question is this: why have both an Almond Joy and a Mounds candy bar? Why not combine the two?

It's something I have often wondered myself. I've come to the conclusion that there are some people who have strong preferences regarding dark and milk chocolate. The decision to have the almond paired with the milk chocolate version seems to somewhat arbitrary, but no doubt the Peter Paul company did some sort of market research into the situation.

I enjoy both milk and dark chocolate, so I find both delicious. If he hasn't heeded my warning and is still reading, poor Patrick is now shuddering. He loathes and despises coconut, but I LOVE it. I prefer Almond Joy to Mounds, since the almond adds that toasty, nutty crunch to the experience, but I have never had a problem eating a Mounds if that's all there was left in the Halloween bag.

Until now.

I don't know if I'll ever eat an Almond Joy again. Or a Snickers or MnMs or a genuine Toll House cookie. I recently read some shocking news on Bitsy Parker's excellent blog (links will come when I get home). Hoping what she'd written wasn't true, I did a bunch of independent research, and I can now confirm her report.

Have you ever wondered why chocolate is so cheap? Why you can dash into a 7-11 and buy a chunk of cocoa-filled goodness for less than a dollar? Maybe you haven't; maybe you've just taken inexpensive deliciousness for granted as a basic human right.

But speaking of human rights, it turns out that virtually all mainstream chocolate--that produced by the Big Four: Mars, Inc., The Hershey Company, Cadbury Schweppes, and Nestle--is made at least in part with cocoa beans grown, harvested, and processed by slaves in West Africa. A little more research revealed that my beloved See's is also a buyer of slave-produced cocoa.

Worse, many of the slaves are children, children who have been sold by their parents to the plantation owners for a few dollars. Or they've been lured off the streets with promises of bicycles and high wages, but once they reach the cacao farms, these children are horribly abused and malnourished and live short, horrifying lives of backbreaking work and despair.

Reports by UNICEF and the International Labor Organization confirm this. The BBC did a documentary on the problem in 2000, and the next year The Philadelphia Inquirer put out a series of articles on the horrors of slave chocolate as well.

After some limited public outcry, the Big Four agreed to a four-year plan called the Harkin-Elgin Protocol to eliminate child slave labor from the cacao industry. But according to many human rights groups, that deadline has come and gone, with the big chocolate doing little, if anything, to keep their agreements. Crocodile tears have been shed, but not much has changed.

What are we chocolate lovers to do? The only way to be sure that your chocolate hasn't come to you at the expense of slave labor is to make sure it says "Fair Trade" on the packaging. Fair Trade cocoa has been produced by workers paid a living wage and who are housed decently.

Believe me: I know this news is depressing. When I first read about it, I wanted my ignorance back, because knowledge brings accountability. It's tempting to make a disconnect, to try and forget about the tragic reality so that I can satisfy my base desire for sensual gratification in the form of an Almond Joy.

Then I think about the cotton plantation owners in this country 150 years ago, living with the evils of slavery but unwilling to make changes to their lifestyles because they didn't want to sacrifice their comfortable way of life. We look back at those slaveowners with horror and disgust, but are we any better when we support the slave industry one step removed? In a way, it's worse to be the disconnected consumer, because we then add hypocrisy to our list of sins in the matter. Most of us would never beat a child or force him to sleep on a wooden plank in a padlocked shack with a tin can for a urinal. But how many of us will continue to turn a blind eye when a craving hits us?

Again, l'll post all the links to the reports I've read once I'm home. Until then, do an internet search of your own, if you feel up to further shock. It's not pretty, and you may never be able to look an MnM in the eye again--at least not until drastic change comes to the chocolate industry. Which will not happen until you and I stand up and vote with our dollars.

Nestles kills
EXCERPT:
Nestle Kills Workers! Tribute To Pangulong Diosdado "Ka Fort" Fortuna Part 1 of 2

"Continue our struglle until we achive the ellussive justice that rightfully belongs to the workers.
The blood sheds by our departed comrades will never be waisted,not one drop"

Diosdado "Ka Fort" Fortuna 1954-2005
Previous videos:
Oct 7 - Nestle Kills Workers! Tribute To Pangulong Diosdado "Ka Fort" Fortuna Part 2 of 2
Sep 24 - Nestle kills Workers!!! 3rd Death Anniversary of Diosdado "Ka Fort" Fortuna
Oct 7 - Nestle Kills Workers!!! The Saga of Unprecedented Brutal Dispersal of Nestle Mgmt. Against The Striking Workers in Nestle Philippines Cabuyao Factory. Part 1 of 3

THE CONTINUING STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE OF NESTLE WORKERS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Halloween and child slave labor commondreams

Parents who miss conferences may be locked up? What do you think?

What accountability do the politicians in Detroit have toward the youth? Kym Worthy who took Kwame Kilpatrick's Mayor job thinks locking up the parents is what it'll take to make parents go along with the way politicians think parents should act??? hmmmmmmmm, how can parents do what's right by their children when their examples are BIG CROOKs?

Ms. Worthy was on the news this AM and I was taken aback by her stance. I was even more astounded when I talked to two young adults this morning that agreed with her, OMG!!! (I have yet to show them Kwame Kilpatrick's scandal.)


Parents who miss conferences may be locked up
July 7, 2010 5:42 AM
Detroit Parents Who Miss Teacher Conferences Looking at Jail?
Posted by Edecio Martinez
(CBS)
DETROIT (CBS/AP) The next time you ignore a call from your kid's teacher who is trying to schedule some time to "talk"... consider this.

A Detroit-area prosecutor wants lawmakers to pass an ordinance that could jail parents for up to three days for repeatedly missing scheduled parent-teacher conferences.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy says such an ordinance is aimed at making parents responsible for their children's education, which may keep more young people out of trouble.

She's still working on the details of her plan, but says it could go before county commissioners next month.

Worthy also is considering whether to approach state lawmakers with the idea as well.

Civil libertarians say her plan may be outside the law. Challenges are expected.

Republican Kentucky state Rep. Adam Koenig submitted a similar bill last year that gained little acceptance and failed to make it out of committee.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: Should parents face jail for missing meetings with teachers?

Kym Worthy wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Kym L. Worthy (1957- ) is the current prosecutor of Wayne County, Michigan. She is the second African-American to serve as a county prosecutor in Michigan, the first one being Stuart Dunnings III in Ingham County, Michigan which includes Lansing. She has received a large amount of notice since filing charges against Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick at the beginning of March, 2008, however this is only one of many cases her office has been involved in.

Kwame Kilpatrick Scandal On Nightline 2-28-08 youtube

Christine Beatty wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Christine Rowland Beatty (born May 1970) served as the Chief of Staff from 2002 to 2008 to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

In January 2008, Beatty resigned amid an emerging political-sex scandal and criminal charges of perjury related to a whistleblower trial for lying under oath about their extramarital affair and that they sought to mislead jurors when they testified that they did not fire Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown. Kilpatrick has already pleaded guilty September 4, 2008, to two felony obstruction of justice charges, and was sentenced to four months in jail on October 28, 2008. She was offered several plea bargains from Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy--one for as little as 150 days of prison time—but she has refused.[1] Beatty was a respondent in a $25,000 settled slander lawsuit initiated by two other police officers.

On December 1, 2008, Beatty agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts, serve 120 days in jail, pay $100,000 in restitution, and be on probation for five years. She was sentenced and began her jail term on January 6, 2009.

Detroits city hall slowed investigation
EXCERPT:
Thursday, November 20th 2008, 2:35 AM
Related ArticlesDetroit mayor pleads guilty, resignsDetroit mayor under pressure to resign in steamy text message scandalDetroit mayor pleads for forgivenessProbe into Detroit mayor text messagesDetroit mayor under investigation for racy text messagesEx-Detroit mayor gets up to 5 years in prisonDETROIT - Text messages of Detroit's former mayor and other city officials have been turned over to a federal court in the case of a $150 million lawsuit that alleges City Hall stifled a police probe into a stripper's shooting death five years ago.

Norman Yatooma, who is representing the children of slain stripper Tamara Greene, had asked the court to force the city to release the hundreds of thousands of text messages, saying they may reveal communications about Greene on the night of her death.

The lawsuit alleges that former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, ex-Chief of Staff Christine Beatty, recently retired Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings and others hampered the police investigation into Greene's slaying.

Kwame Kilpatrick wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Kwame Malik Kilpatrick (born June 8, 1970) is the former mayor of Detroit, Michigan, United States.[2] When elected at the age of 31, he was the youngest mayor in the history of Detroit. Kilpatrick's mayorship was plagued by numerous scandals and rampant accusations of corruption, with the mayor eventually resigning after being charged with ten felony counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice. Kilpatrick was sentenced to four months in jail after pleading guilty to reduced charges, but with good time awarded to county jail inmates in Michigan, he was released on probation after serving 99 days. On May 25, 2010, he was sentenced to 18 months to 5 years in prison for violating his probation.[3] He is currently in Federal Correctional Institution, Milan, a federal prison. After he was indicted in federal court for additional crimes related to alleged misuse of his campaign funds, Kilpatrick lobbied for a transfer from the Oaks Correctional Facility Michigan Department of Corrections facility in Manistee Township, Michigan, where he was prisoner number 702408. Kilpatrick is Federal Bureau of Prisons# 44678-039.

Parents who miss conferences may be locked up