Whole Truth Coalition

The abolition of slavery world wide is far from complete.  Despite international and domestic laws against the practice of slavery, there are now some twenty-seven million people living as slaves .  More than nine of the twenty-seven million are children.  Every year vast numbers of  human beings are trafficked both internationally and within national borders.  In fact it is now cheaper to purchase a slave than it has ever been at any point in history.

 Human trafficking has become a multi-billion dollar business and is the third largest generator of illegal revenue after drugs and illegal arms dealing.  The FBI estimates that 9.5 billion is generated by the slave trade every year.  The International Labor Office stated in a report entitled “Global Alliance Against Forced Labor” claimed the figure is closer to 32 billion.  According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) 800,000 people are trafficked each year across international borders.  Approximately 17,500 new victims are trafficked across US borders and in addition, 30,000 more human beings are trafficked through the USA on their way to international destinations.  Men, women and children in particular in every country are being defrauded, manipulated or simply kidnapped and sold into slavery, even in the wealthiest nations.  

 In impoverished nations debt slavery has become a cultural epidemic.  Many people are forced to work off debts their whole lives.  Debts which can never be repaid due to ever increasing interest rates and additional charges imposed.  Some are even forced to give their children to the lender to work off their debts.  Others in impoverished areas sometimes even resort to selling their children, due to the desperation of their economic situation.  Often young women and children, of both sexes, seeking a better life are taken in by people who promise work or scholarships.   Instead of paid work or schooling, the victims arrive, usually in foreign countries, to find they are slaves, the majority of whom will be forced to work in the sex industry.

 Like all multi-billion dollar criminal enterprises, slavery thrives in part due to the fact that there are always government officials willing to turn a blind eye or even sanction slavery for the right pay off.  Forms of government sanctioned slavery are even endorsed in major western countries like the USA.  The Guest Worker Program has repeatedly been accused of human rights abuses including fraud and human trafficking.  Congressman Charles Rangel stated the Guest Worker Program was, “the closest thing I have ever seen to slavery.”  The reality is if something looks like slavery and smells like slavery it is slavery.

 Allegations of human trafficking and pederasty, in connection with US government officials, were uncovered by former Senator John DeCamp during his investigation into the Franklin Banking Scandal.  Much of what he uncovered was recored in his book The Franklin Cover-up: Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder in Nebraska.  A documentary film called Conspiracy of Silence  also discloses much of the same information.  This documentary, which was scheduled to be aired on the Discovery channel in May of 1994, was canceled due to congressional pressure on the cable network.  Sex slavery, including pederasty, goes on all over the world and not just in Thailand, South America and other places infamous for it.

 When slavery is exposed in the mainstream media coverage, it usually revolves around the sex industry.  Although sex slavery is a pervasive and truly abominable practice, it must not be overlooked that there are many slaves who do all sorts of labor.  Slaves and forced child labor are responsible in part or in full for the manufacturing of many common items including: clothing, toys, household items, jewelry, and even the food we eat to name a few.  

 The people who benefit the most from slavery and child labor are often the large multinational corporations; the chocolate industry is a classic example of this.  Cocoa buyers purchase crops from isolated farmers using slave labor for well below market value.  This ensures that the impoverished farmers will continue to be unable to hire workers and so the practice of slave labor continues.  This practice also deflates the cost of cocoa on the world market and farmers who pay their labor can not compete.  The major food corporations who own the biggest chocolate companies make huge profits internationally, meanwhile the men, women and children of the Cote d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) and neighboring nations suffer.  The “Harkin-Engel” Protocol, which was aimed only at child slavery and endorsed by the Cote d’Ivoire government, has done little good and does not even address the adults being enslaved.

 The global economic condition continues to deteriorate as wars, both international and civil, rage all over the planet.  Pervasive war and poverty have created an almost endless supply of victims for the world slave trade.   Today abolitionists are needed more than ever before.  The victims of slavery need more than liberation; they need help repairing devastated lives once they have been freed.

 It is time for the people of the world to hold the governments, corporations and everyone who profits from the proliferation of the global slave trade accountable.  We can all get involved in helping to end slavery in small ways on a daily basis by being more vigilant with regard to what we buy.  Every time someone buys an item for less than the cost of its component parts, slave labor has undoubtedly been employed.  I would rather pay more, own less and be certain everyone involved in making the goods I buy and growing the food I eat, are free persons, who are well paid for their labor.  

  footnotes:

Instead of the usual footnotes I am listing all the researchers, filmmakers and authors who pointed me in the direction of the information above and not only those whose work would normally be referenced in direct conjunction with the information in this article.  These footnotes are not only an acknowledgment of the scholarship of the people listed below but also a sincere thanks for their contributions towards the education of all humanity.

thank you:

David Batsone, Brandon Leahy, Mary Bauer, Sarah Reynolds, Chidanand Rajghatta, Marley Miller, April Pearce, Sam Burchard, Cedric Therene, E. Benjamin Skinner, Felicia Mello, Ron Synovitz, Barry Estabrook, Michelle Smith, David Icke, Max Igan , John DeCamp, Ted Gunderson, Aaron Russo

 Special thanks to my friends Jonathan at KnowTheLies.com , who helped me edit this essay.

by Megan ‘Verb’ Kargher

 Take a moment to pause and consider what it is you are eating on a daily basis.  More and more people are trying to consume a healthy diet these days.  Just what constitutes a healthy diet is a matter of great contention.  Many including myself contend that limiting your exposure to pesticides, food additives and genetically modified (GM or GMO) foods is a good start and thus have begun eating organic foods.  In order to eat only healthy natural foods we must first determine, how organic is organic?  Will organic and home grown foods be bred and legislated out of existence?  What is Codex Alimentarius and how does it and corporate farming threaten bio-diversity, organic farms and even personal allotments or home gardens?

 For those of us committed to improving or maintaining our health by eating a balanced organic diet, the agenda of corporate farming and governmental regulations complying with the Codex Alimentarius proposals spell disaster.  This not only affects our access and right to additive-free, pesticide-free, industrially produced chemical-fertilizer-free and non-genetically-modified organic foods, it also threatens every participating country’s rights of national sovereignty.  In the United States of America the new federal food bills also threaten the constitutional sovereignty of the states.  

 What is Codex Alimentarius?  Codex Alimentarius is an organization which works in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, which were all formed by the United Nations.  Let’s have a look at what they have to say about themselves on their website,

 http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_en.jsp. 

 Under the heading ‘Understanding Codex Alimentarius’ in the very first paragraph of the prefix you will find: 

“The Codex Alimentarius, or the food code, has become the global reference point for consumers, food producers and processors, national food control agencies and the international food trade. The code has had an enormous impact on the thinking of food producers and processors as well as on the awareness of the end users – the consumers. Its influence extends to every continent, and its contribution to the protection of public health and fair practices in the food trade is immeasurable.”

 The reach and influence of Codex Alimentarius is undoubtedly global.  There are 180 member countries, including such notables as Canada, the USA, every member state of the EU, Switzerland, Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, China, Japan and Australia.  Has this influence done more harm than good?  Has the world seen an increase in the availability of healthy food products and fair trade?  China is producing toxic baby formula.  The USA is trying to legislate seed cleaning and seed banks.  Use of toxic food additives like aspartame are increasingly pervasive in common international food products, including those products intended for children.  More land is being planted with GM food crops every year. 

 All of the countries on the continent of Africa except one are members of Codex Alimentarius and a fat lot of good it has done them.  There are still slaves used in the agricultural industry in many parts of Africa, most notably the cocoa industry.  Many who work for the big food producing corporations are little better than slaves, not just in Africa.  I have personally seen the effects of the large fish canneries in West African Nations such as Ghana and Togo.  I have seen the brands on the market shelves in the USA, Europe and Canada while the local Africans dry their small catch on the pavement or smoke it in small community smoke houses, left with barely enough to survive.  

Why is it Africans are starving when their governments ascribe to Codex Alimentarius?  They are starving because their food is in Western shops for sale and not their own markets.  Why are we drinking wines from Africa when those grapes could be dried into raisins and distributed to feed the children of Africa?  Many Africans are starving because availability of indigenous hardy plant seeds is reduced and the prices of quality indigenous strains of seeds inflated.  Farmers in Africa and all over the non-western world are finding that GM and western plant seeds will not grow properly or at all, particularly when using the traditional farming methods in these areas.  Crop failure equals starvation in many agrarian societies and GM crops have been a total failure for many poor farmers.  The bottom line is they are starving because both governments and Codex Alimentarius are corrupt and serve not the public interest but the interest of the large multinational corporations, like Monsanto. 

 In the Western countries the influence of Codex Alimentarius and its corporate cronies is just as pervasive.  In the USA more and more restrictive food laws are being passed as I write.  A new bill introduced in the house of  representatives, H.R. 875: Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, has ominous implications for organic farmers.  It also threatens farmers’ ability to collect and store their own seeds as they have been doing for centuries.  In addition, the American government’s refusal to label products containing GM foods means that any food product sold or exported from the USA can potentially contain GM ingredients.

 You may be exposing yourself to GM ingredients even when buying organic products.  A recent study done by Professors Mark Partridge and Denis Murphy, at Glamorgan University in Wales, detected traces of GM ingredients in 10 of the 25 organic food samples tested.  Professor Murphy stated, “We have recently observed that many soya products now carry ‘GM free’ or ‘organic’ labels, both of which imply an absence of GM ingredients in these foods.  However, most of the soya now produced in the world comes from GM varieties.”  

 Plants in non-GM crops are having their genetics affected by neighboring GM fields.  Wind and insect borne cross-pollination is threatening many of the corn species in Mexico.  GM pollen has also affected at least one man’s honey crop in Germany, causing him to dispose of his harvest and relocate his bees so they would not have access to GM plants.  

 A wide verity of livestock are fed GM grains and then people eat the eggs, milk products and meat from these animals.  If the grain does not need to be labeled GM, how can you be certain you are eating eggs, dairy and meat that are organic?

 The world’s food supply is under attack due to corrupt governments and organizations like Codex Alimentarius.  This is most obvious in Africa, but the signs of encroaching food control can now be seen in almost every nation on Earth.  The same institutions that have been set in place to safeguard the public are the very ones who foist unfair trade practices and unsafe foods upon humanity.

 Natural foods are essential in order to ensure your own good health and that of future generations.  Buy your food from local reputable organic farmers.  Where and when possible you should grow your own produce.  We must all refuse to accept unreasonable governmental restrictions on organic farms and gardens by actively resisting these laws and bills.  Make your voice heard before it is too late.  Human beings have the unalienable right to grow and eat healthy foods as well as a right to harvest and store the seeds produced by their crops.

 footnotes:

Instead of the usual footnotes I am listing all the researchers, filmmakers and authors who pointed me in the direction of the information above and not only those whose work would normally be referenced in direct conjunction with the information in this article.  These footnotes are not only an acknowledgment of the scholarship of the people listed below but also a sincere thanks for their contributions towards the education of all humanity.

thank you:

Ben Stewart, Max Igan, David Icke, Mark Partridge, Denis Murphy, Adriana Stuijt, farmwars.info

 Special thanks to my friends Knowthelies and omz13 who helped me edit this essay.

 by Megan ‘Verb’ Kargher