coca-cola: unofficial sponsor
of china's violent and illegal
destruction of neighbouring state
From THE GUARDIAN:
First Tibetan exile groups attacked Coca-Cola for sponsoring the Olympic torch relay. Now the soft drink company is under fire from the other side of the political divide - with Chinese nationalists boycotting the brand after a blogger claimed one of its adverts supported Tibetan independence.
The poster - spotted in a German railway station - shows Buddhist monks on a rollercoaster with the slogan: "Make it real". It stirred the ire of an expatriate Chinese blogger, who posted a photograph on the popular Tianya website.
"Germany has started to really show adverts for Tibetan independence. Coca-Cola! Okay, I will remember. From now on I will not touch this shitty product. The three monks represent Tibetan lamas. They are riding a rollercoaster, which represents freedom. 'Make it real' means 'make this [freedom] real'".
A spokesperson from Coca Cola said last night: "We regret if the use of an image featuring monks from an old print advertising campaign from 2003 has caused any offence. This was certainly not our intention ... The old image was being used in the window of a shop in Bremen and has since been taken down ... This image was designed to encourage people to try something new. The image is not linked to Tibet and is in no way an expression of support for any political issue ... "
COMMENT: I know it's more sickly but from now on MadPriest will be drinking Pepsi.
THINGS
GO BETTER
FOR TIBET
IF YOU
BOYCOTT COKE
17 comments:
I had to give up Cokes a couple of years ago for health reasons. I have been pining for them ever since.
Thanks for giving me a reason not to pine.
Asshats.
I'm a Dr. Pepper drinker myself. Although Lord knows what's rattling in their closets.
Our corporate masters like the Chinese and their money and their cheap labor. They couldn't care less about Tibet.
I like the Chinese just fine. I just don't like what their leadership is doing to Tibet (and several other things that it is doing).
I'm not in favor of a total boycott of the Games, but a boycott of the opening ceremony, or some kind of similar gesture might be appropriate.
Our fat cats like their cheap labour but, don't forget, they like our dollars. Perhaps our efforts should be directed towards hurting the corporate sponsors who are far more influential in China than any head of state. Boycotting Coca-Cola and Adidas would seem a good place to start.
Splendid idea!
For me, boycotting Coke is no problem, or Adidas for that matter.
I don't drink fizzy drinks at all and don't wear sports clothes. What shall I boycott instead? Apart from Nestles, of course, but that's nothing to do with Tibet.
I traded Coke for Twinnings's English/Irish breakfast long ago... But I digress.
Here's some grist for the collective mill... The Olympic "Torch Relay" didn't originate with the rebirth of the Olympic Games. It was Nazi Germany and Mr. Hitler's contribution.
Pax Deus...
Andy
The first torch lighting was in the 1928 Games, but the torch relay did indeed begin with the 1936 Olympics and was the idea of Max Diem, a Nazi official. The Krupp arms manufacturer, famous for building German armaments (along with Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the current President of the USA), made the torches for the relay race.
Hitler was the first to deliberately politicize the games, using them as a pageant of Aryan supremacy and to win international legitimacy and respectability for his regime.
And yet, the star of the 1936 games (and of Leni Riefenstahl's great movie about the games) was the very non-Aryan Jesse Owens. The old story about Owens snubbed by Hiter is not true, Hitler was not at the games when Owens competed. Owens always said that he was snubbed by the American Olympic Committee which treated him so shabbily before and after the games, and which made him pinch hit for Jewish athletes pulled from the games at the last minute to avoid offending Hitler.
And with all that in mind, and seeing the turmoil around the current games, I say again that it is time to find a permanent home for the games. Perhaps it's time to return them to Olympia where they began as a sacrificial offering to Zeus by all the Greek cities (which is why the Roman Emperor Theodosius closed them down after he made Christianity the state cult of the Empire).
Unfortunately, my alma mater is heavily connected to CocaCola (it became what it is principally because of the efforts and money put into it by the Candler (who invented the drink and founded the company) and Woodruff (who bought it from them and were the major shareholders for most of the last century) families. So I have a vested interest in the prosperity of Coca Cola.
(And lest you think the school is neglecting Tibetan matters: see the entries under 1998 and 2007 on this page: http://emoryhistory.emory.edu/timeline/1988.html )
However, I don't drink any kind of soda. So it's pretty easy for me to personally boycott Coke products.
Is there any way of finding a copy of this ad so we can make proper use of it to offend official Chinese sensibilities?
I tried really hard to find it, kishnevi, but to no avail.
If I drank Coke, I'd surely boycott it. If I wore Addidas, I'd boycott them, too. Does that count?
No
You're going to have to be brave and have, at least, a sip of Coke - then you can boycott it.
You ask a really hard thing! Monterrey is the Coke drinking capitol of the world. More CocaCola is consumed here per capita.
For 20 pesos, folks on their way to work have breakfast on the street, 5 tacos and a Coke. With a bottle to trade, a 350 ml Coke is 3.5 pesos and 600 ml is 4 pesos.
And Mexican CocoCola tastes better than USA CocaCola. Coke in the USA is made with corn syrup. Here it is made with cane sugar. Which is why all the Mexican tiendas in Southern California import their CocaCola from Tijuana.
On a self-imposed month of post holiday abstinence, a combination of espressos (and of course the office nespresso machine should also be boycotted) and coke zero is all thats keeping me sane. Is Irn Bru acceptable (if undrinkable)?
Yes
Irn Bru is acceptable
and it will put lead in your pencil
I heard on the radio today that China sends a paramilitary force to guard the torch in every country it visits. The rudeness and brutality of these troops is widely blamed for exacerbating the turmoil around the torch. I wonder if our fearless leaders in Washington care that a foreign paramilitary is in our territory today? Probably not. They're listening to all that Chinese money, and money trumps patriotism.
I think that the Chinese are even more tone-deaf to world opinion than us Yanks.
Funny you'd bring up money.
The unfortunate thing is, the Chinese media is attempting to cover up for the government, which is obviously seen and easy to blame. On the other hand, biased news articles from the west are less easy to find fault in: the media is driven by money. Everybody hates controlling governments but everybody loves money. Nobody minds being controlled by money. Fundamentally money is the ruling factor in capitalism. It is merely in the west's best interest if China broke up into several little pieces (Taiwan, Tibet, maybe Hong Kong, etc...) because that means less competition for oil and other resources. Just like Iraq, the US would not meddle in another state's affairs unless its economical interests are threatened. More people die in massacres in Africa everyday than have supposedly died in Tibet during the entire demonstration. Yet, the media spotlight is never on Africa: There is no money, hence the press would not benefit from putting it on the front page of newspapers, and the government would be seen negatively when they do not do anything, endangering their votes during the next election. Tibet, on the other hand, would serve as an excellent economical and strategic point for the US to influence China with. As well, shouting such words as "freedom" and "democracy" would generate masses of politically illiterate followers, who despite the fact that they ring up voter turnouts of less than 50% at their own elections do find the urge to run out onto the streets carrying Tibetan flags and becoming poignant over an issue they know next to nothing about. Hence, I find the general reaction of the west toward China to be quite ridiculous. Try alleviating some real issues in the world like pollution and genocides instead of complaining about the Chinese government beating up a few rowdies, and no, I do not suggest the US to attack a second Iraq for the illusive weapons of mass destruction.
It gets a bit more tricky when you look at the other sponsors. Visa for example. Mind you, its the ideal excuse for chopping up your credit card. And if you drive your Volkswagen to MacDonalds and take a pic of your Budweiser with your Kodak, well, we may as well call you Chairman Mao and be done with it.
Full list of sponsors at http://en.beijing2008.cn/90/53/column211995390.shtml
Post a Comment