No, not that kind of Coke. “Rutgers University is dropping Coca-Cola” for “its lucrative soft drink contract. … [S]tudents at more than 90 universities, colleges and high schools around the world,” reports the NewStandardNews, “are actively protesting against the soft-drink giant’s vendor contracts.”
They claim that Coke has taken water from poor communities while leaving toxic wastes behind, that it backed Colombian paramilitaries that murdered a labor leader in 1996, and supported attempts to thwart efforts by Guatemalan Coke employees to organize during the 1980s.
These young people. Princeton students are filibustering around the clock, Yalies are rallying for workers. What’s next?
Rutgers selected Pepsi, it says, because the contract is more lucrative. Wait ’til the students find out that Pepsi sponsors bullfighting.
Are you supporting or mocking these protests? I can’t quite draw out your tone…
Having fun but also respecting what they’re doing. “Stop Killer Coke” is a slogan used by the students:
Yeah, if I remember right, Yale students had a “die-in” when a Coke exec. came to speak here a few years back. It was absurd.
And I find what they’re doing fascinating because, in part, my student activism days are such a vivid part of my life memory — and i’m living it again, a bit, through them.
Today’s students may not be as flashy as my generation’s — they’re not seizing the building with the university’s computer system (it was one huge computer in one building back then) or burning down ROTC buildings (not good, for any generation to do) — but they’re surely affecting, to some extent, corporate behavior and the political climate.
Tastes better, too!
KEWL! I’ll send this to my daughter … she loves “indy” beverages.
Coca Cola has been doing this kind of thing for decades; it’s about time the American public stood up to them. Considering that their blue sky is their most valuable commodity, the tarnishing of such could have a profound effect on their shareholder value.