vision2020
Fw: [corp-focus] The Real Thing: Democracy as a Contact Sport
Visionairies,
A timely story of corporate/political honeymoon.
Sharon Sullivan
e-mail: herbals@moscow.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Weissman <rob@milan.essential.org>
To: <corp-focus@venice.essential.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 10:19 AM
Subject: [corp-focus] The Real Thing: Democracy as a Contact Sport
> The Real Thing: Democracy as a Contact Sport
> By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
>
> A couple weeks ago, we received an invitation to attend an event at the
> Library of Congress.
>
> Coca-Cola was about to make an "historic contribution" to the Library of
> Congress, and the Library, and Coca-Cola, were inviting reporters to cover
> the event. We accepted the invitation.
>
> We learned from the morning papers that the "historic contribution" was a
> complete set of 20,000 television commercials pushing Coca-Cola into the
> American digestive system.
>
> Remember the one where the kid hands Pittsburgh Steeler Mean Joe Greene
> his bottle of Coke, and in return, Mean Joe tosses the kid his football
> jersey? Or what about on a hilltop in Italy where the folks start sing
> "I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company"?
>
> The event was at the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building -- named
> after the Thomas Jefferson who, in 1816, wrote: "I hope we shall crush in
> its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to
> challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the
> laws our country."
>
> Anyway, we pull up at the appointed hour (7:15 p.m. on November 29, 2000)
> at the Thomas Jefferson building, and there's a traffic jam created by
> stretch limousines blocking the entrance.
>
> In addition to lowly reporters, the 400 or so guests included ambassadors,
> members of Congress, corporate chieftains and other dignitaries. Good
> thing we dressed up.
>
> The Main Hall is this absolutely stunning room, with marble staircases. A
> string quartet is playing. Waiters are serving Coke in classic bottles.
> The food is fabulous -- lamb chops, trout, Peking duck. We rub shoulders
> with the Ambassador from Burma.
>
> The "aristocracy of our monied corporations," as Jefferson put it, had
> taken over the place, and Coca-Cola wanted to make sure that everybody
> knew it.
>
> After all, Coke could have just donated the ads to the Library and left it
> at that. But this wasn't about Coke's largesse. It was about public
> relations -- whether the public would view the company as a racist company
> (Coke had just agreed to pay $192.5 million to settle allegations that it
> routinely discriminated against black employees in pay, promotions and
> performance evaluations) or a junk food pusher (consuming large quantities
> of sugared Coca-Cola has led to ours being one of the most overweight
> generations in history) -- or instead, a generous contributor to the
> Library of Congress.
>
> James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, was called on to deliver good
> things to Coke, and he did. He turned over the keys of the Main Hall to
> Coke, and Coke decked the place out with its logo, stitched in red beside
> the logo of the Library of Congress. Television sets were placed
> throughout the hall, the better for the Ambassadors and members of the
> Democratic Leadership Council to check out the commercials.
>
> Billington was selling the soul of the library to one of the world's most
> powerful corporations. In addition to the ads, Coke was establishing a
> fellowship at the Library for the study of "culture and communication" --
> one fellow will receive $20,000 a year for the next five years.
>
> Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert, was outside the event,
> protesting. "It is not the proper role of the taxpayer-financed Library of
> Congress to help promote junk food like Coca-Cola to a nation that is
> suffering skyrocketing levels of obesity," Ruskin said. "It is crass
> commercialism for James Billington to degrade Jefferson's library and
> founding ideals into a huckster's backdrop."
>
> But without shame, Billington introduced Doug Daft, the president of
> Coca-Cola, who said that "Coca-Cola has become an integral part of
> people's lives by helping to tell these stories." Nothing about profits.
> Nothing about overweight kids. Nothing about racism.
>
> After Daft spoke, the room went dark, and the ads ran on the television
> screens. Nostalgia swept the room. When the ads were finished, the lights
> went back on and the crowd cheered.
>
> About 80 high school students, dressed in Coca-Cola red sweaters, filled
> the marble staircases and sang -- "I want to buy the world a Coke." Again,
> the crowd cheered. Doug Daft, standing downstairs, came back to the
> microphone to continue his statement. We were upstairs at this point, and
> we looked down at him and asked, in a loud voice -- "Why are you using a
> public library to promote a junk food product?"
>
> The room went quiet. Library of Congress police charged up the marble
> staircase. Doug Daft put his hand to his ear and shouted back to us: "What
> did you say?"
>
> In a louder voice, we shouted back: "Why are you using a public
> institution to promote a junk food product?"
>
> The next thing we know, we are on the ground. The Library of Congress
> police had tackled us. Again, the crowd cheered -- not for our question,
> but for the tackle.
>
> We were dragged downstairs, past the Ambassador from Burma, and hauled
> outside, where police officers from the District of Columbia were waiting
> for us.
>
> Out of the Thomas Jefferson building came running a man from Coke. "This
> is a private event," the man from Coke told the police. "I'm from
> Coca-Cola."
>
> At first, the police wanted nothing to do with the man from Coke. But the
> man from Coke insisted. They huddled.
>
> Apparently, the man from Coke didn't want us arrested for asking an
> obvious question. Apparently, the man from Coke didn't want a public
> trial. The man from Coke was standing up for our First Amendment rights to
> ask his boss a question.
>
> The police said we were to leave the grounds. And we weren't to come back.
> Ever.
>
>
> Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
> Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
> Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
> Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common
> Courage Press, 1999).
>
> (c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber
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