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Today's
Stories
April 3 / 5, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez del Solar
A Year
Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The Illegal
Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated US and
International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
March 30, 2004
William S. Lind
An Occurrence
in Pakistan: the Battle That Wasn't
Ron Jacobs
Assassinations, Hate Mail &
Justice
Mickey Z.
Tommy Boy Friedman Does "Imagine"
Neve Gordon
Strategic Motives of the Yassin Assassination
Mark Scaramella
The Founding Scam: Insider Trading is the American Way
John Chuckman
The Countessa of Empire: Condi
Rice's Idea of Democracy
Greg Moses
Live from Pasadena: Silhouettes of New Order
Rai O'Brien
What Kind of Democracy to Expect if the Opposition Takes Power
in Venezuela
Bill Christison
The
9/11 Commission: Dangerous Harbinger for the Future
Website of the Day
Ghost Town: Riding Through Chernobyl
March 29, 2004
John Maxwell
Crisis
in the Caribbean: a Miasma Foretold
J. Michael Springmann
Email
Spying & Attorney Client Privilege
Robert Fisk / Severin
Carrell
Coalition
of the Mercenaries
The Black Commentator
Haiti's Troika of Terror
Doug Giebel
Candide in the Wilderness:
How Bush Policy Was Made
David Krieger
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Bargain
Mike Whitney
Rejecting the Language of Terrorism
Richard Oxman
The Pitts: a 9/11 Burrow of an American
Family
Kim Scipes
The AFL-CIO in Venezuela: Deja Vu All Over Again
Michael Donnelly
End Game for Northwest Forests
Norman Solomon
The Media Politics of 9/11
Kathy Kelly
Last Lines Before Vanishing
Website of the Day
Swans: Can Money Buy Everything?
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Dave Lindorff
Spineless of US Journalists
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
April 3 / 5, 2004
The Magic of Coca-Cola
Colombian
Workers, Civil Rights, Advertising
By PHILLIP CRYAN
Commercials before movies are not popular. A quiet
collective sigh fills the just-darkened theater each time the
screen comes to life not with the film or even a preview but
with an ad. We shake our heads or curse mildly or shrug.
Another incursion. Another flawless conquest:
smoothly executed, apparently final, unchallenged. A ritual moment
(a movie's beginning) with genuine magic--not an un-commercial
moment before, obviously; but, also obviously, much more than
commercial--located, claimed, divided up, sold off. Another fragment
of cultural commons seized.
The unspoken, shared glee of that moment--the
lights-out partial release from our selves' strictures; the preparations
for transport, enthrallment--makes it precious. Profitable. Such
magic is prime real estate.
An even more precious slice of psychic
terrain is collective inspiration--hopefulness and courage and
action, a sense of community, a sense of that community's strength.
Memories and representations of the civil rights movement seem
to hold that force more powerfully than anything else in our
national culture.
*****************
The violation, then, was at least double
when I took my seat in a darkening theater last Friday night.
The image: a black woman, smiling and
joyous, walks down a city street, singing. Her voice is gorgeous.
"I wish I knew how it would feel to be free," she sings--and
her obvious joy, her booming voice, her proud walk convey that
she does know. She must know, or how could she be so happy? She
knows how it feels to be free.
Her song was a civil rights movement
anthem. Jazz titan Dr. Billy Taylor wrote it in 1954 and Nina
Simone popularized it on a 1967 recording. It became a protest
song, a hymn for marching.
In the commercial that played before
last Friday's film, the woman strutting and belting this song
exchanges smiles with passersby. They all look exuberant, enchanted.
As she walks, she hands each of them a bottle of Coca-Cola.
*******************
To be fair, I should admit that I've
only described the first fifteen seconds or so of the ad. She
keeps signing that beautiful song throughout it, but I can't
say I know what happens, visually, toward the end. I was buckled
over in my chair, sobbing, rocking back and forth to keep from
screaming in rage.
********************
Last Friday, the day I went to see the
movie, 30 workers at Coke bottling facilities were on hunger
strike in eight Colombian cities. It was day twelve.
Two days before, on March 24, day ten,
SINALTRAINAL (National Food Industry Workers Union: the union
representing Coke workers) reported that many of the hunger strikers--who
continued to work their normal shifts, collapsing at the union's
tents outside the bottling facilities after work--were experiencing
dizziness, depression, headaches, sleeplessness and chest pain.
One hunger striker, Marco Tulio Rey, suffered a minor heart attack
on the fourth day. Another, Ruben Dario Munoz Joya, was checked
into a hospital for severe dehydration. Union leaders reported
receiving multiple death threats since the strike began.
But they've seen worse.
Paramilitary death squads have murdered
nine members of SINALTRAINAL over the last few years. Isidro
Segundo Gil was killed inside the Carepa bottling facility where
he worked. Paramilitaries have issued death threats to at least
65 SINALTRAINAL members.
Colombia is the most dangerous place
in the world to be a trade unionist. No one knows the exact number,
but around 1,500 Colombian unionists have been killed in just
the last ten years. And impunity is practically law. According
to a U.S. State Department report, no one has been convicted
for any of the nearly 400 murders of Colombian trade unionists
in 2001 and 2002.
SINALTRAINAL unionists have been kidnapped
and tortured as well. Others have been jailed on false charges.
Last September masked paramilitaries kidnapped the 15-year-old
son of a SINALTRAINAL leader, demanding he tell them where to
find his father. Union leaders say their employer--Panamerican
Beverages, a bottling company recently bought out by FEMSA, a
Mexico-based firm whose major shareholder is Coca-Cola--ordered
many of the attacks, some of which took place inside the bottling
facilities.
When New York City City Council Member
Hiram Monserrate led a fact-finding delegation to Colombia in
January, Coca-Cola representatives told the group that its employees
may in fact have collaborated with paramilitaries in the murders
and torture, according to a February In These Times article.
Monserrate reported: "With respect to Coca-Cola, not one
person has been prosecuted or convicted for any of these murders.
Not one person has been prosecuted or convicted for any of the
countless kidnappings that have occurred. Not one person has
been prosecuted or convicted for any of the beatings that have
occurred on-site [at bottling plants] or at people's homes, which
are directly connected to their employment at Coca-Cola."
On March 2, a few days before SINALTRAINAL
started the hunger strike, four heavily armed men raided the
union's office in Baranquilla, a city on Colombia's Atlantic
coast. Along with money and equipment, the men took the security
camera's video cassette. The raid came just a few weeks after
the New York delegation of unionists and students visited the
Baranquilla office, and just one day after the company and union
began a new collective bargaining process in the capital, Bogota.
A Baranquilla office leader, Adolfo de Jesus Munera Lopez, was
assassinated by paramilitaries on August 31, 2002.
Constant and brutal persecution has not
succeeded, however: the union has not been silenced. In July
2003, SINALTRAINAL called for an international boycott of all
Coke products. Organizations around the world--trade unions,
churches, student groups, human rights organizations, politicians--have
supported them by writing letters to Coca-Cola and the Colombian
government, holding educational events to promote the boycott,
protesting outside Coca-Cola facilities, and--most importantly,
in terms of pressuring the company--convincing universities and
other institutions to refrain from signing contracts with Coke.
In addition, the United Steelworkers of America and International
Labor Rights Fund have provided SINALTRAINAL invaluable support,
filing a joint suit against Panamerican Beverages and Coca-Cola
in a Miami U.S. District Court in 2001 for allegedly hiring paramilitaries
to kill unionists.
And now a thirty-person hunger strike,
in eight cities.
**********************
What I didn't know, sitting in the theater
last Friday, wrestling with a terrible dissonance, was that all
the solidarity efforts had paid off. Supporters abroad and in
Colombia had flooded Coca-Cola and FEMSA with letters and phone
calls since the hunger strike began on March 15, demanding that
FEMSA negotiate to transfer unionists who lost their jobs when
the company closed 11 bottling facilities last year. The union
says FEMSA pressured 500 workers to resign in exchange for a
severance payment, even though the workers were entitled by both
Colombian law and a clause in their contract to transfer in the
event of plant closure. Juan Carlos Galvis, a SINALTRAINAL leader
in the oil refining city of Barrancabermeja, explained the reason
for their fierce defense of the right to a transfer: "If
we lose this fight against Coca-Cola, first we will lose our
union, then our jobs, and then our lives."
That same day, March 26, SINALTRAINAL
reached an unprecedented agreement with Juan Carlos Jaramillo,
Coca-Cola's representative in Colombia. The company agreed to
transfer 91 union members slated for layoff, lift all penalties
that had been imposed on participants in the hunger strike, provide
hunger strikers with two weeks of paid vacation to recuperate,
and publish an advertisement in a national newspaper discouraging
paramilitary reprisals against the union.
In a statement announcing the agreement
and the hunger strike's end, SINALTRAINAL leaders wrote, "Twelve
days of hunger strike had to pass, and the participants had to
experience all the physical and mental rigors of fasting, for
the company to finally agree to start a dialogue and listen to
its workers. It took twelve days of sacrifice and paramilitary
threats for the workers to be heard." They went on to note
that it also took a tremendous amount of international pressure
on Coca-Cola--and that "the problems that led to this protest
have not been resolved. All that has happened is the start of
a dialogue, a process that could lead to their resolution. Today,
more than ever, we must be strong and united; and all those who
have accompanied us in dignity, firmness, and love of our cause
must continue doing so, to ensure the workers a just and swift
resolution."
************************
A pair of paramilitary gunmen put ten
bullets in Isidro Segundo Gil on December 5, 1996, after driving
into the Carepa plant on a motorcycle. That night, the building
housing the union's office went up in flames. Paramilitaries
returned a few days later to demand workers resign from the union.
Naturally, everyone complied. Some fled; those who remained were
fired two months later.
Paramilitaries murdered Gil's wife Alcira
in 2000, after she protested Coca-Cola's role in her husband's
death.
************************
I wish I knew how it would feel to be
free
I wish I could break all the chains holding
me
I wish I could say all the things that
I should say
Say 'em loud, say 'em clear
For the whole round world to hear
That's what she sings, strutting, handing
out bottles of Coke. You know, it's funny: in November 2000,
Coca-Cola paid $192.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit
brought by 2,000 of its African-American employees for discrimination
in pay and promotions. Other, similar lawsuits are pending. Coca-Cola
delivery drivers in Dallas told National Public Radio in June
2002 that the company regularly stocks stores in black and Latino
neighborhoods with post-expiration date (flat) soft drinks.
Coke's 401(k)-holding employees lost
over $71 million in 2002. The previous year, the company paid
CEO Douglas Daft $105,186,544, including stock options.
I'm sure the bad press from these events
doesn't have anything to do with the current advertising strategy.
**************************
When SINALTRAINAL President Luis Javier
Correa Suarez traveled to Mumbai, India for the January 2004
World Social Forum, he learned that three Indian towns lack drinking
water and have had their fields turned into deserts due to Coca-Cola's
exploitation of groundwater and pollution of what little water
remains. A protest movement in India has opposed Coke's actions.
In response, Coca-Cola India hired Perfect
Relations, a p.r. firm, to improve its image. Now the company
trucks drinking water into the communities that lost drinking
water sources or had them polluted by Coke's activities--providing
no cleanup of the damages or compensation for the loss. In keeping
with the worst excesses documented by PR Watch, Coke is even
telling farmers that live near its Kerala plant "Toxic Sludge
is Good For You!"--giving the stuff away as fertilizer.
A BBC-commissioned study found high levels of lead and cadmium
in the sludge.
****************************
Well I wish I could be like a bird in
the sky
How sweet it would be if I found I could
fly
Oh I'd soar to the sun and look down
at the sea
And I'd sing 'cause I'd know -
I'd know how it feels to be free
****************************
Some memories, some histories--like the
recollection of millions marching, singing, courageous, aware
of their own power; millions defying racism and injustice--are,
quite simply, sacred.
Their power is why marketers covet them,
naturally. And even if we first responded with outrage, I think
most of us have grown accustomed to such ads--ads that not only
exploit the power of an event or symbol or memory for profit,
but in the process actually deplete that power. They take the
event's (or symbol's or memory's) felt meaning away from us,
bit by bit; they confuse it. They confuse us.
We get branded.
But it's important that we remember what
else gets lost in this exploitation of what we hold dear, in
this invigoration of a fetish: awareness of conditions of production.
What's behind the Wizard's curtain?
In some cases, including that of Colombia's
food and beverage workers, "the real thing" turns out
to be not just poverty or injustice but outright murder.
Phillip Cryan
is a freelance writer. His biweekly Colombia
Week column focuses on media coverage of the country's conflict.
He lives in Ames, Iowa, and can be reached at phillipcryan000@yahoo.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
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