I’ve realised that I keep getting annoyed with people for doing things like drinking coke and eating at Mac Donalds when I think they should know better, but these multinational companies’ crimes aren’t such common knowledge, so here is my attempt to re-educate (mwahaha sounds vaguely dictatorship-style) at least a small portion of the world.
This week: Coke
This wonderfully healthy little soft drink (which incidentally has the equivalent of 12 sugar lumps per bottle) is not the sweet and innocent thing that it may appear to be. I can’t explain the exact story all that easily so I’ll give you the words of the great David (“Dave”) Rovics:

Coke came to Collumbia
Seeking lower wages
They got just what they came for
But as we turn the pages
We learn the workers do not like the sound
of their children’s hungry cries
So they said ‘we’ll join the unions’
The began to organise
So coke called up a terrorist group
Called the AUC
Said ‘we’ve got some problems
at the factory’ the AUC went to the plant
killed two union men
told the rest ‘you leave the unions’
‘or we’ll be back again’
Well coke did not complain
About this dirty deed
Why give workers higher wages
When coke is all they really need?
They phoned the AUC said
‘thanks, without you we’d go broke
and to show our appreciation,
here’s one hundred cases of coke’
Tha baby drinks it in his bottle
When the water aint no good
The dog drkinks it
but he don’t know if he should
some folks say it’s the nectar of the gods
but coke is the drink of the death squads.

That is, coke hired people to kill their workers for asking for enough money to live on. I really ought to put some sources here to prove it, but don’t know where to start: no one seems that bothered by it. It’s only people’s lives after all.
Some more coke facts:
It takes twice the volume of water actually included in coke to make it
Every bottle of coke has the equivalent of 12 sugar lumps in it (said that have I? well don't forget it. 12!)
Doesn’t it sound healthy? And if you’ve ever put an old copper coin in some coke for a while and seen what it can do… then imagine what it does to your insides. So it’s popular – not only does the company that makes it kill people so that the directors can make just a bit more profit and perhaps buy that bit more for their home or have their personalised number plates on their … expensive cars (note amazing knowledge in field of car prices), but the drink rots your teeth, makes you fat and plays hell with your insides.
What’s the point in drinking it? Fruit juice or even water is soo much better for you and doesn’t tend to involve deaths.
Here’s a link, because that shows I haven’t made all of this up:
http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/cocacolacampaign.html
http://www.cokewatch.org/
http://www.killercoke.org/
also the comedian Mark Thomas seems quite in with the whole coke thing. He’s pretty damn good about it too. I wish I could give the argument in the way he did, or even just remember the stuff he said – after seeing his ‘piece’ on coke it made me want to go round sabotaging coke machines. They pay schools to put coke machines in, meaning they sponsor education and are directly targeting ‘youths’… there was more point to it than that but can’t remember the argument.
The bit that got to me the most was, some of the union leaders had to get bodyguards because they were so in danger, and one bodyguard and his wife were shot in front of their children while in their car at a drive through.
This is just for money!! I just can’t understand it. These are people’s lives – lives no less important than ours. Yours.
And what can we do? Some people go over to collumbia and other places in the same situation and help. Home of them get shot. We don’t need to put out lives in danger – we can ever be healthier by helping and not buying coke or other products of the coca cola company, such as:fanta, sprite… erm… I forget the others (I don’t buy them)
I wish I had the time and energy to really do this properly and actually get through to people. I can’t imagine the vaguely impassioned rants of one eighteen year old is going to make all that much difference, even in my corner of the earth, but I feel I must do something rather than keep putting it off. It’s so easy for us to forget how good life is here and just to buy one can may seem harmless but it can make a difference. These are people’s lives and a little ‘inconvenience’ for us can do something. By not consuming as much sugar you are also doing good for the whole planet.
I wish I could make people care, and didn’t feel bad about trying to induce guilt… but really think if it was you, your life threatened because of wages, wouldn’t you be grateful of anything done to help?