This Is the Straw--Final Straw--In the Roof of My Mouth

I never thought the day would come...that someone would convince me to give up chocolate.
Now, B has been trying to convince me to relinquish my need for chocolate for quite some time, pretty much as a joke due to my compulsive need for something sweet. I don't understand what it is about boys not needing chocolate. Anyway, I mostly ignored him, just like I ignore him when he says I need to kick the coffee habit. As Lorelai says, if I quit the coffee, I quit the walking and the standing and the talking. So when I received an email about how I needed to finally stop with the chocolate because of child slavery in Africa, of course I assumed he was blowing something out of proportion to continue on this ridiculous crusade to get me to give up chocolate.
But no. Click the blog title to see how the Ivory Coast, source of 43 percent of our chocolate, uses child laborers to pick the chocolate. Not only that, but US chocolate and candy makers agreed to take steps to voluntarily end child slavery by July 2005. Now, if you check your calendars, you'll notice it is now July 2006--and of course, nothing has been done.
This country, and its lax business attitudes, are becoming more and more ridiculous. Did you know that we're the only developed nation that will sacrifice an improvement in environmental quality for a scant increase in GDP? What is it we're chasing? We're making money simply to make money...not to make the world a better place, not to enjoy more free time, not to try and remedy the environmental horrors we've already wreaked upon this world. We've been taught that money in itself is the goal.
I've recently come to understand that, as much as we'd like to slam "big business" with the blame, that's simply rhetoric. It's a rhetoric that makes those on the conservative side of the issue, those who believe in free trade above all, simply shut their ears. Why? Because they realize that business are, above all, about making money. Why would a business change? Because we demand it, that's why.
Rhetoric is empty. Railing against "big business" and whining about the corruption we see won't do anything. Yes, it will get to people's ears, but usually those are the folks who already agree with what we are saying. Why is it that some companies are going green or taking pains to show that they pay their workers a fair wage? It's because they realize that consumers are headed down that path, and they want to be at the forefront.
So what's left for me and my chocolate addiction? It's going the way of my coffee addiction...that is, I will buy fair trade as much as possible. HOWEVER, when someone offers me chocolate when I'm a guest, I will except. There's still such a thing as graciousness, after all!

PS-Ten points if you know why the blog is titled in this way...