Fun_People Archive
17 Dec
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Part II

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Subject: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Part II

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=======================

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.

	The Real Thing: Democracy as a Contact Sport
	13 Dec 2000
	By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

A couple 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 singing
"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).

© 2000 Peter Langston