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Subject: [Cuba SI] Znet: Russ/Rob- The Real Thing
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subject: Znet: Russ/Rob: The Real Thing
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Subject: ZNetCommentary/ Mokhiberand Weissman/ The Real Thing / Jan 1
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Happy New Year!
Okay, I added one last commentary for the Free Updates List. From
tomorrow on, however, commentaries revert to going only to
sustainers, again. Free Update recipents go back to getting two or
three news updates a month, about change in ZNet.
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====
The Real Thing: Democracy as a Contact Sport By Russell Mokhiber and
Robert Weissman
A few 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). " JC
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