Strange Rumblings...

I remember when I was in university...

When you're young and in college or university and you begin to have actual ideas and actual thoughts and you begin to suspect that a lot of what you have been told in the past is bullshit and you begin to listen to the left-leaning professors and lecturers and you really start, for the first time, to flex the political muscle that rests in the reptilian part of all of our brains...

When you're young and full of hero juice and that political muscle that rests in the reptilian part of our brains begins to work and rumble and make noises that drown out the higher reasoning functions...

When you're young and invincible and full of energy and full of the conviction and self-righteousness that only comes with the absolute certainy that you are right and they are wrong...

When I was young and in university and was full of hero juice and flexing that political muscle that resides in the reptilian part of my brain and was invincible and full of energy and was listening to the old hippies who were lecturing on the exploitation of the worker and how the true value of any product is tied to the value of the labour that was used to produce it and the inherent goodness of the blue-collar and the inherent wrongness of the white-collar I was convinced and I was righteous in my beliefs...

Some of those beliefs, however, are, well, a wee-bit wrong it turns out. Ahhh, age.

The Soviet Union was an Utopian paradise, a place of bright colours and freedom and all people were equal and there was no oppression and there was no reason at all to be paranoid of them and their righteous ways. I ignored the truly obvious and glaring omissions from the Collected Works of Lenin and the Collected Works of Stalin and the Collected Works of Trotsky. I ignored the contradictions (those were due to Practical Thinking... yes, indeed). I ignored the hypocritical statements (more of that Practical Thinking...). In a society of True Equality it was okay for the Party Members to live better than everyone else. Hell, it was fine that the Politburo had its own traffic lanes to use while being driven around in the latest Mercedes. Oh, boy.
That's just a tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg... I could go on, but the mental gymnastics I was practicing in those days to keep all this straight and coherent and fine in my World View is just plain embarrassing now.
Oh, boy.

There was more... I was angry with Amnesty International for not recognizing that "Freedom Fighters" were Political Prisoners, too. Blowing up civilians was fine. Just look at what the Imperialists were doing. Being imprisoned for killing a subway full of folks was the same as being imprisoned for writing down or saying what you thought was wrong with the System, wasn't it...
I was angry about the seal hunt... The seal hunters were the problem, not the demand for seal fur. Get it? Oh, boy.

It was fine and okay and outright dandy for me to write and scream and yell about everything that was wrong and ugly about our society, but for someone in a Communist country to do this... Well, he was a traitor to the Cause, and deserved whatever came his way. Oh, boy.

I was a Marxist while I was blind to the fact that Marx himself was a Marxist for a short period and only called for the Revolution when he was young and full of hero juice. Somehow I read the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital and ignored the change in the man and his ideas. Somehow I could quote "Religion is the opiate of the masses..." while ignoring the rest of that statement (for anyone interested, Marx' statement is Not that religion is bad and wrong and horrible, it was that day to day living in the days of the Industrial Revolution was bad and wrong and horrible and at the end of the day everyone needed an opiate, be it religion and its promise of Heaven or booze or, well, opium...).

And where am I going with this, you ask... You didn't ask? Sorry.

In a time when America needs its youngest and brightest and educated to help save its soul, some American (and Canadian, we're not innocent) college and university students have set their sights on saving the campus from the evils of Coca-Cola. Really.



This generation of college and university student seems a wee bit, well, tasteless and, okay, out-right stupid in their use of imagery. Was it Coke that killed the students at Kent State? I don't remember that line from the song Ohio... Oh, boy.
We'll get to what they are angry and oh, so right about in a moment...
Let's discuss the Photoshop genius above for a moment more...

In a history of rotten moments, the killing of four students at Kent State is one America's ugliest. A tragedy. A disgrace. No-one, not even Richard Nixon, thought it was good and practical. Everyone, I mean everyone was horrified by it. The pigfuckers at the time may have given lip-service defense to the National Guard at the time, but it was not in their hearts. I may not be old enough to remember the moment, but I am old enough to remember the fallout... The helpless scream over the corpse is ingrained on my brain and in my soul, as it is for pretty well everyone over a certain age. It may be the single moment that cried out that America was insane and in trouble and needed some serious help. It may be the moment that brought about the end of the Vietnam war and the Race war and ushered in a tall drink of water for a country that was falling to pieces... To use it to push your anti-soft drink agenda, well, that is just damn stupid. Damn stupid. And wrong. If you want everyone to gather around for your cause, try to leave a previous generations iconic moments alone. Please and thank you.

Dumbasses.

So what are they upset about? What is it that has driven some young folks who are full of hero juice and are flexing that political muscle that rests in the reptilian part of the brain for the first time to a tasteless plateau?

The young'uns are angry about Coca Cola's labour practices in the third world. Okay. I can get behind that. Ever hear about Disney's policies? Or Nike's? Or any other multi-national corporation's? An end to sweat shops and child labour would be sweet and good for all of our souls.
The young'uns are really, really angry about the murder of labour leaders in Columbia. Okay. I'm angry, too. The violence in Columbia is ugly and is wrong and bad for all of our souls. The cartels and the terrorists have been using labour leaders and civic leaders and judges and civilian for target practice for way, way, way too long.
The young'uns blame Coca Cola for the murder of labour leaders in Columbia. What the fuck?

Let's repeat that, shall we... The young'uns blame Coca Cola for the murder of labour leaders in Columbia...
Shit, damn. That's fucked, that's wrong on so many levels. The shareholders of Coca Cola stock and the CEO of Coca Cola and anyone with any kind of interest in Coca Cola should be strung up by their ankles from the lamppost and it should be started yesterday. Coca Cola's killing people? Fuck Coke. Let's boycott Coke. Let's get started. The soft drink revolution will be televised...

Wait. Hold on. The labour leaders were killed by guerrillas. Not by suits? Okay. Then they ordered the hits. They paid for them and the Columbian government will come down on them like a load of bricks dropped from a very, very high place. I mean, this is the government that took out Escobar, they will investigate this and they will kick Coke's ass back to Atlanta... Wait. Hold on. Coke has been acquitted of any responsibility by two judicial inquiries...

Oh, boy.

Read this. Oh, boy.

I remember when I was in university. When I was young and full of hero juice and was flexing the political muscle that resides in the reptilian part of my brain. I had some ideas and thoughts and they were mine. And sometimes, I was Wrong.

And I wish I had spent some of that energy and hero juice on things that really and truly bother me. I hope these young'uns learn the same lesson soon. They should look in their own backyard if they want something to get really and truly and honestly angry about.

God bless America...







Oh, boy...