Yes, Coke is Evil. A whole “fair” and “balanced” website is devoted to that topic.
So what are the problems with America’s favorite drink?
“Coke kills workers in South America!”
According to the site “killercoke.org”, Coke hires mercenary thugs in South America to kill off, torture, and rough up union leaders, approximately 13 by the site’s count. Although that sounds bad, let me put it this way; various state governments killed about 30 in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Nine people died in the Homestead Strike of 1892. The Government killed 13 and wounded 57 in the Pullman strike of 1894. Chicago police killed 10 unarmed demonstrators in May 1937. The eviction of the Bonus Army in 1932 killed 4 and wounded 1017.
This is not a new thing that has just started to happen. Labor and Management have always conflicted. Why do you think the cabinet position of Commerce and Labor only lasted a few years? Yes, Coca Cola should do something about it as it is their company, but they are not in direct control down there. It’s the managers of these plants authorizing these attacks, not the CEOs in Atlanta. And really, are you surprised about Death Squads in South America? It wouldn’t be South America without it! That’s how most business mergers take place!
“Coke Pollutes rivers in 3rd World Nations!”
This is true. Coke has been dumping its waste into the Ganges River, the most sacred river in Hinduism, making it polluted. Also, they have been depleting the ground water to make their soda. Coke is evil for desecrating the sacred rivers of India! We should stop drinking their soda and drink Pepsi, the ethical company…oh wait, THEY ARE POLLUTING THE SAME RIVERS AS COCA-COLA! That’s right, Pepsi is guilty of the same thing as Coca-Cola! So why is Coke bad but Pepsi isn’t? Because Pepsi isn’t Coca Cola! Duh! This is a problem with India’s regulations. They can make laws and enforce them to stop Coke and Pepsi. We once had a problem with polluted rivers, some caught fire so many times that pictures of the event were basically stock photos used in the newspapers for the next fire.
But we passed laws to protect our environment. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio has recovered nicely.
“Coke worked for the Nazi’s!”
Fanta was made for Nazis, so drinking it makes you a Nazi!
Oh boy, where do I begin? Well, seeing how the clip is from Michael Moore, red flags should be going up.
First, how does producing Fanta cause people to die? Pulling out wouldn’t have saved anyone’s life! After the war broke out, the people in Atlanta had no communication with the German bottling plants and couldn’t do anything. They didn’t see a dime from those plants until after the war ended. Like in South America, distance hinders communication and sometimes they are not in full control.
Second, shouldn’t we be happy that Coca-Cola decided to take war materials and turn them into drinks instead of making bombs? Didn’t the factories keep men off of the battlefield and stop them from A) killing us and B) dying on the field?
"This watch...it could have produced a thousand more bottles of Fanta!"
Third, The manager of the German branch of Coca-Cola, Max Keith, resisted the Nazis every chance he could get and endured hardships because of it. He worked hard to keep the Nazi government out of the company and often got in trouble.
Finally, working with Nazi Germany doesn’t make your company evil! In the 1930s, working with a prosperous industrial nation like Germany was not an issue, until 1939. It was a country like any other. If you don’t want to support a company that did business with the Nazi’s, stay away from Bayer, IBM, and Volkswagen. PS, don’t use the Interstate system; it was designed after the Autobahn, the highway Hitler and the Nazi’s built… And Mitsubishi made the planes that bombed Pearl Harbor! Oh and Henry Ford was a big Nazi supporter. George Eastman has a signed photo and letter from Mussolini.
The problem is that these people aren’t thinking. I had a friend tell me that for every 20 oz bottle or can of soda made 12 people died to make it. Another friend immediately called bullshit and explained that A LOT of people would have died to make all the Coke in the world. Friend A immediately withdrew his statistic and claimed that it might be lower. If his fact were true, 1.8 Billion people would have died to supply half the US population (~150 Million) with one can each. If half the US population bought a twelve pack; 21.6 Billion people would have died, or about THREE TIMES THE ENTIRE WORLD POPULATION RIGHT NOW!
Activists never seem to think, they just want to hate the big guy because they are big. That is why no one cares about Pepsi or why everyone blames McDonalds for making us fat but not Burger King. It is because Coke is Goliath and we want to be the David to take him down. If you have a problem with corporate practices, complain about corporate practices! Don’t single out one bully in a schoolyard full of bullies as the cause of all you problems.
You forgot that after WWII, the US hired tons of German researchers to work on just about every project under the sun, but specifically ones relating to atomic energy and other technological whooey. People fail to realize that Nazi Germany was a productive machine that provided us with a lot of the technology we used today...oh, and Fanta. If they are not drinking wasser mit gas, it's all about the Fanta. Might I add that their Coke is tastier because they use cane sugar and not corn syrup? OH, but no one says BOO about the corn industry! And the Ganges was polluted looooong before Coke/Pepsi got there...
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