Fwd: ZNet Commentary / Mokhiber and Weissman / The Real Thing / Jan 1

[Doug Millison]

If you need a Pynchon hook, there's the Coca-Cola reference in GR.

>
>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).


Perhaps rj can resist making a stupid comment about Doug Daft. I 
think it's a pretty funny name, too.