Why are you opposed to Coca-Cola?

[patrickbeverley]

I'm not suggesting leftists shouldn't be anti-Coke, I just don't know the reasons why. Could someone explain it to me?

[Jimmie Higgins]

they got rid of the cocaine in their formula. Just kidding. What makes coke stand out is that in Colombia, Coca-cola used armed thugs against union organizers; a union organizer was actually assasinated on the shop floor of one of their plants.

That would be one of the reasons that comes to my mind anyway. I don't think not drinking the stuff will really acomplish anything though... I mean, didn't Pepsi support apartheid or something?

So if a lefty is giving you sh** for drinking coke, just tell them from me that consumerist boycotts are a "feel-good" substitute for activism and fighting against the root cause of whatever ill is being done by one particular corporation at one particular time.

[patrickbeverley]

What makes coke stand out is that in Colombia, Coca-cola used armed thugs against union organizers; a union organizer was actually assasinated on the shop floor of one of their plants.

That is pretty bad.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It's pretty NAZI of them, but what major company dosn't have a skeleton like that hidden away in their closet? So my advice is, drink coke or pepsi and fight capitalism; after the revolution we will get the formulas for both (which are probably identical anyway) and people can drink it for free and not have to worry that other people were exploited so they could have a little sugar and caffine.

[Master Che]

It's unhealthy , they addicted their costumers by adding cocain and what gravedigger said on his first post.

[Red Flag]

Here's the real reason leftists (and alot of others) oppose these scum bags:

Murder, It's the real thing: Coke can't hide it's crimes in Colombia (http://www.freepeoplesmovement.org/fp11b.html)

They murdered ALOT more than 1 worker.

[Organic Revolution]

the coca-cola company murders their workers when they go on strike.. they make people addicted to there product, and they control and hold up the market with there shit

[Urban Guerrilla]

Weren't they buying/stealing clean water while leaving the public with unfit water? :che:

[novemba]

this shit is silly, i mean im with you on the workers in colombia, but when i need a coke i need a coke.

[I Watch The Watchers]

While an all-out boycott by an individual can get silly, it's also true that Coke only has money that we give to them. A total boycott of Coke would do more than a hundred protests, as long as Coke new the boycott would end when their bad labor practices did.

[OleMarxco]

Ehem, allow me to disturb ;)
I am not opposed to Coca Cola - cue the fuckin' audience. WHEEZ! GASP!
BOO! SHOCK! OUTRAGE! Yeah, and I'm also a -friggin'- LEFTIST! Don't
seperate those thing's - what, do I hafta be friggin' right-wing extremist to like a soda brand? Bring out politic's of this SHIT! What's next, All those people who do beer is Charles Manson, and weed is Satan? This is Almost puritanic, as if that "union man death" could be reversed or opposed with not buying coke? How about sabotaging their production directly or pouring Cocain into their soda again, per change? :P

'Course in case of a 'revvy', I'd friggin' kick Coca Cola's ass and end their sweatshoppin' facturated taste control. Sure, we'd still be havin' their SODA's, we'd rather be jumpin' their CEO's than boycottin' a drink, when it won't matter as -SOMEONE- will find it's taste too god to resist one day! But I do drink their other drink's like Dr. Pepper or Mountain Dew, 'tho, NOTHIN' BEATS WATER. Blah :D

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plus, 'tho, you could always STEAL coke. That'd piss them off MORE than boycottin' it. Absolutely, more visible as a "loss of profit". That serve's 'ose bastard's right - And when will we get the secret recipe of 'eir's? :redstar2000:

[drain.you]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 10:23 PM

what, do I hafta be friggin' right-wing extremist to like a soda brand? Bring out politic's of this SHIT!

Haha, well said, comrade *claps*

the edit was me messing up the quote-age-ness lol

[Karl Marx's Camel]

after the revolution

How and why are you so certain there is going to be a "revolution", and where is this revolution going to happen?

[drain.you]

I believe in the revolution :mellow: A global revolution like capitalism. Why? Because as Marx clearly explained, each epoch of time ends in revolution and it has done time and time again, so why not this time?

[rioters bloc]

i boycott coca-cola because two of my friends were kidnapped by them and tortured by them, one for 9 days, one for 26 days.

if they were the only ones, maybe i would see it as 'silly' too. but the truth is, in the past decade, at least 30 000 people have been detained and tortured like that. and those are the most conservative figures.

if other people don't wanna boycott, that's fine, but i do see it as a form of direct action myself.

edit: they're columbians in case that wasn't clear :P

[drain.you]

I didn't realise this detaining and torturing by coca cola was such large scale. Obviously little in the media about it.
Its still a soft drink though. Maybe we should just aim on taking over coca cola and getting rid of why ever this torture is occuring.
(sorry I not too clear on the reasons this is happening)

[somebodywhowantedtoleaveandnotcomeback]

Originally posted by Urban [email protected] 15 2005, 07:36 PM
Weren't they buying/stealing clean water while leaving the public with unfit water? :che:
Yep, that was somewhere in Africa
And I don't drink Coca-Cola, Pepsi or eat at McDonalds because i hate the idea of supporting, no matter in what ridiculously small proportions, a company that will kill for money. I don't use it as a substitute (as Gravedigger mentioned) , I'm also very active as a communist. Of course novemba and OleMarxco are also right, i DO enjoy the taste of a cola, so the minute there's a communist alternative for Coca-Cola or McDonalds, I'll be jacking in on soda and fastfood like there's no tomorrow :P

[rioters bloc]

ditto on the not a substitute part.

i drink cheaper cola brands. it saves me money, too.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Originally posted by RedFaction+Oct 16 2005, 12:10 AM--> (RedFaction @ Oct 16 2005, 12:10 AM)
Urban [email protected] 15 2005, 07:36 PM
Weren't they buying/stealing clean water while leaving the public with unfit water? :che:
Yep, that was somewhere in Africa
And I don't drink Coca-Cola, Pepsi or eat at McDonalds because i hate the idea of supporting, no matter in what ridiculously small proportions, a company that will kill for money. I don't use it as a substitute (as Gravedigger mentioned) , I'm also very active as a communist. Of course novemba and OleMarxco are also right, i DO enjoy the taste of a cola, so the minute there's a communist alternative for Coca-Cola or McDonalds, I'll be jacking in on soda and fastfood like there's no tomorrow :P [/b]
After the revolution we can rename them (Coke and Pepsi) Communist-cola and Peoples'-Cola.

I think if someone dosn't want to drink coke on moral grounds that's fine, but I don't think an all-out boycott could be sucessful or productive. Most of the time we don't even get a choice when we go to a resturant: it's eather coke products or pepsi products when working people go to fast-food places or even diners.

Even if we could convince every consumer not to drink coke, we'd then have to convince McDonalds or Burger King to offer people something other than coke. Additionally, well-meaning people might end up drinking some other product but that drink is also owned by the coke-corporation.

It would be far better and sharper to try and convince coke workers in unions to pressure their unions to have solidarity with colombian workers and connect coke's crimes in other countries with their abuses of workers in the US or Ireland. It would also radicalize coke workers because it's like do you really trust barganing with a company who would shoot you if you happened to work for them across a border?

[rioters bloc]

i admit it is very very difficult to completely boycott a brand. coca-cola also owns fanta, sprite , and other soft drinks, even non-soft drink products. pepsi owns sunkist, mountain dew, 7up...

ive been trying to drink water and juice now instead of soft drinks but i do love them so :(

edit: here's something else i just found out from the book i'm reading:

"All of us in the Coca-Cola family wake up each morning knowing that every single one of the world's 5.6 billion people will get thirsty that day... If we make it impossible for these 5.6 billion people to escape Coca-Cola... then we assure our future successes for many years to come. DOing anything else is not an option."

- [i]Coca-Cola annual report, 1993

Creepy, hey?

[barret]

Its not boycotting a certain product, but rather passing regulations on those companies. Almost every company has a history of abuses to it, from Outsourcing, to inflation, to downright killing people, but even if we do hear about these events it doesn't stop the majority of people from buying there products, hell I'm smoking a pack of Camel's right now, and under their pratices, they wiped out tons of original American brand cigarettes.

Boycotting is never usually the best political statement to make to a company, instead places like http://www.corpwatch.org/ are our best friends in our fight for againts the abuses from the corporations. You can even look back in history, when the Catholic Church sold induglences, no one simply boycotted them ( even though most believed in them, but their were people who did not accept them), instead it took the the efforts of people like John Huss and Martin Luther to bring the system down, through a reformation.

[poster_child]

Weren't they buying/stealing clean water while leaving the public with unfit water?

I read in the latest adbusters magazine that this was happening in India. Their population is expanding rapidly, and they are short water as it is... and coke is using up all their water to make- you guessed it- COKE! There has been protest and resistance, but really, there is nothing that anyone can do about it. People go thirsty because they have to make coke. It's bull shit. I don't drink coke- I don't like it.

[novemba]

i mean, meh. its just so meh.

i guess youre right, i could try and avoid the coke.

[Red Flag]

Boycotts are usually worthless, but personally I can't buy a coke without thinking about the workers and families that have been murdered, kidnapped, and tortured.

For those that can't give up Coke, how can you ever say you're down for changing the world if you can't even give up a brand of soda?

[Red Flag]

Patrick Beverly, why are you using the name of a highschool basketball player, and who's that in your avatar?

[patrickbeverley]

Patrick Beverly, why are you using the name of a highschool basketball player, and who's that in your avatar?

The name is my name.

The picture is of me.

Edit: the picture is now not of me.

[RaiseYourVoice]

Well i think boycott is maybe not THE solution but its one way to fight. We gotta fight on all levels:
-Boycott
-Informing the public
-Political mean (communist party etc.)
-unions (one of the biggest german unions "verdi" called for a boycott of coca cola cause of what happens in columbia)
-direkt action (to whatever degree)

Capitalism controlls this system on every level so we have to fight it on every level to get rid of it imo.

[Marxistinn]

Eh, now it looks like drinking Coke is a sin or something.

I drink Coke, because I like the taste.

I don't drink pepsi because I don't like taste and I don't eat McDonalds because I could go out, buy me a butter, low quality meat and eat it and get the same outcome, that is, me getting fat.

[Sabocat]

Drinking Coke may not be a "sin" and a boycott may not really stop them or slow them down or appreciably affect their bottom line.

However....

If you consider yourself a communist, I would think in solidarity to your brothers and sisters being killed, intimidated, beaten etc. for forming labor unions by Coke's paramilitary "security forces" you would opt not to drink it.

If you can't even rally yourselves together to support other workers, what chance does any other action of solidarity stand?

It's appalling to see self proclaimed communists show so much disregard for fellow workers.

[bolshevik butcher]

I boycott it myself. As has already been said we should fight them on all levels, and a boycott is easy enough to do.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I agree with Dis.


ditto on the not a substitute part.

i drink cheaper cola brands. it saves me money, too.

Do you realize that most, if not all, generic sodas are bottled by the same people as Coke and Pepsi?

[Colombia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2005, 02:13 PM
Drinking Coke may not be a "sin" and a boycott may not really stop them or slow them down or appreciably affect their bottom line.

However....

If you consider yourself a communist, I would think in solidarity to your brothers and sisters being killed, intimidated, beaten etc. for forming labor unions by Coke's paramilitary "security forces" you would opt not to drink it.

If you can't even rally yourselves together to support other workers, what chance does any other action of solidarity stand?

It's appalling to see self proclaimed communists show so much disregard for fellow workers.
Seeing that most businesses do such things as oppress their workers in 3rd world nations, is it hypocritcal coca-kola and still use other products?

[Marxistinn]

In Iceland, all you get is "American" clothes and American third world country-made things. So If I'd really boycott, I'd be walking around naked on a daily basis.

[Qwerty Dvorak]

well really i thinkthe whole boycott thing is more about sending a message, that if corporations get out of hand we wil oppose them... drinking pepsi isnt going to bring capitalism to its knees...

[Amusing Scrotum]

if they were the only ones, maybe i would see it as 'silly' too. but the truth is, in the past decade, at least 30 000 people have been detained and tortured like that. and those are the most conservative figures.


If you don't mind could you provide me with a source for this. It would be useful to be able to use figures like this when talking to people and then be able to provide a source.

Also on the subject of boycotting Coke. I agree with the sentiments that if you are unable to boycott one product, you'll never have the ability to be a revolutionary. However as my preferred drink is Jack and Coke, I would struggle to do this. Maybe its just my Western decadence shining through. :lol:

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Sounds like it.

As others have said, I'm not sure how you can drink it without feeling horrible about your fellow workers that have been slaughtered over it.

[Marxistinn]

I'm just gonna Boycott Pepsi and McDonalds!