U.S. Trade Rep Says Murdering Union Leaders Not a Violation of U.S. "Trade" Agreements

Operators are standing by: (202) 225-3121.
Seriously. Please call.

by Gaius Publius

You can't make this stuff up; it invents itself faster than you can find and print it. Two quick points, both about TPP and Ron Wyden's Fast Track sell-out.

First, AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka testified before the Senate Finance Committee in opposition to Wyden and Hatch's Fast Track bill. (For its toxic and deceptive provisions, see here.) Like almost every progressive leader and follower you can name, he's opposed to it. Because he represents the largest labor organization in the U.S., the AFL-CIO, he's strongly opposed and for good reason. (By the way, just because someone is from the AFL-CIO doesn't mean they're "right" on labor. AFL-CIO was complicit in Reagan's destruction of the Air Traffic Controllers union. But Trumka is very "right" on labor.)

From Trumka's testimony via Huffington Post (my emphasis everywhere):

AFL-CIO's Trumka: USTR [U.S. Trade Representative] Told Us Murder Isn't A Violation Under U.S. Trade Deal

Defenders of the White House push for sweeping trade deals argue they include tough enforcement of labor standards. But a top union leader scoffed at such claims Tuesday, revealing that administration officials have said privately that they don’t consider even the killings of labor organizers to be violations of those pacts.

Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, testified to that claim at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on legislation to grant President Barack Obama so-called fast-track authority to cut at least two new enormous trade agreements with Pacific Rim nations and the European Union. It appears to be the first time anyone has revealed such a stance on the part of a U.S. government that has been touting its efforts to improve wages and working conditions among its trading partners, relying in part on trade agreements. ...

“When you say, ‘Oh these are some standards, they’re better than no standards,’ we were told by by the [United States Trade Representative] general counsel that murdering a trade unionist doesn’t violate these standards, that perpetuating violence against a trade unionist doesn’t violate these agreements,” Trumka said, directing his remarks to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who backs the deals.

The article verified Trumka's claim; click to read how.

Second, union leaders are frequently murdered in Colombia, a country with whom we have a strong "trade" agreement. Trumka again:

Trumka pointed specifically to the Colombia trade pact that was signed in 2006, but passed by Congress in 2011. Trumka said that even after the Obama administration crafted an agreement to tighten labor protections four years ago, some 105 labor organizers have been killed, and more than 1,300 have been threatened with death.

“Excuse me. Excuse me if I’m not willing to accept that standard.” Trumka said.

And Coca-Cola, the mega-wealthy global corporation, is complicit in those killings:

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Florida accuses the Coca-Cola Company, its Colombian subsidiary and business affiliates of using paramilitary death squads to murder, torture, kidnap and threaten union leaders at the multinational soft drink manufacturer’s Colombian bottling plants. The suit was filed on July 20 by the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of SINALTRAINAL, the Colombian union that represents workers at Coca-Cola’s Colombian bottling plants; the estate of a murdered union leader; and five other unionists who worked for Coca-Cola and were threatened, kidnapped or tortured by paramilitaries.  ...

Not directly, of course; that's unregulated what right-wing militias are for. What's not to love about "free trade" if you're the killer Coke company? TPP — Alan Grayson calls it the Fast Track to Hell. He's right. Click to play the video above to see why.

About Ron Wyden's Betrayal of Progressive Values

This is only "bipartisan" — Obama's characterization — because of Ron "I'm the designated Democratic Party Perp on this one" Wyden. If you'd like to explain yourself to Mr. Wyden, here's all you need to know. And here's how to contact him:

Senator Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C., 20510
Tel (202) 224-5244

Suggested messages: "Thanks to your betrayal of progressive values, I'll close my checkbook to any of your appeals for funds."

And for the very bold in Oregon: "Thanks to your betrayal of progressive values, I'll vote against Mr. Wyden, even in the general election. TPP is that bad for my state and its wood products industry."

(Hint: You can decide later how to vote. You can decide now what to say to Ron Wyden's staff.)

GP

​

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Supports TPP

The copyrighted, registered trademark
of the World Wildlife Fund

by Gaius Publius

If you support the World Wildlife Fund (internationally named the "World Wide Fund for Nature"), consider stopping. They call this "greenwashing," something WWF is familiar with (see below). Thanks are due to the White House, which made the news very public in another piece of TPP puffery (my emphasis throughout):

What They're Saying: Environmental Advocates Point to the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a Historic Opportunity to Protect Our Oceans, Forests, and Wildlife

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) offers a substantial opportunity to advance American interests and values, including a once-in-a-generation chance to protect our oceans, wildlife, and the environment.

The Asia-Pacific Region and TPP parties encompass some of the world’s most ecologically significant regions, are home to major markets for wildlife and wildlife products, and include eight of the top 20 fishing nations, together accounting for a quarter of global marine catch and seafood exports. Taking action in the region is of critical importance given that five of the TPP parties are among the world’s 17 “mega-diverse” countries, a group covering less than 10 percent of the earth’s area, but supporting more than 70 percent of the earth’s species plant and animal species. ...

They forgot to add, "TPP, this time with jobs." How do we know the above is just puffery, just the sell? Because the day the jobs show up, enforceable environmental protections will show up too. Meaning never.

That doesn't mean the race has ceased, however, to snooker the public — and many Congress members — into thinking that somehow TPP is a "progressive" answer to the world's ills. That race has just begun. From the same White House puff piece come quotes from "respected" (meaning big-name) presumed-left organizations. We can ignore CAP, for example; they're known–neo-liberal, known–"free" market. But there are some interesting names in the "Yes to TPP" list, starting with the World Wildlife Fund.

The World Wildlife Fund Is Selling TPP

The World Wildlife Fund, the "Panda" organization, is selling TPP? Apparently so:

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is one of those potentially game-changing solutions. The TPP is a trade agreement designed to promote economic growth by enhancing trade and investment among twelve TPP partner countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including the United States… It's not often that large-scale opportunities arise to help protect our planet. And surprisingly enough, the TPP, if it is done right, can offer a valuable way forward.

-- Carter Roberts, World Wildlife Fund, in Conserving Nature Is Good Trade Policy February 28, 2014

I wonder what they got in exchange.

Let's look at this more closely. You probably think the people at WWF are the good guys, right? They're the good guys only in the sense that methane is climate-friendly — they're "good" by branding (the panda is well chosen) plus a modicum of good deeds. In methane's case, the branding is the word "clean" in "clean energy" and the modicum is, "We're deadly to the climate, but less so than coal."

In WWF's case, the modicum is, "We take lots of corporate cash and make them look great for giving it. Then we do some good." Do they do other favors as well? Skip back to the top and read that TPP endorsement again:

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is one of those potentially game-changing solutions...."

I wonder if he was handed those words. TPP is a "solution," but only if the problem is not enough corporate profit or control. According to the White House, other "humane" organizations backing TPP include The Humane Society and Nature Conservancy. Good to know — include them on your don't-donate list as well.

Is WWF Too Corporate to Be Trusted?

There's a lot to expose in the world of big-money "Big Green" organizations. But let's stick with WWF. Here are just a few tastes of what people who've dug into these issues have to say. Click the links for more. Let's start with Wikipedia (footnotes in the source):

WWF has been accused by the campaigner Corporate Watch of being too close to businesses to campaign objectively. WWF claims partnering with corporations such as Coca-Cola, Lafarge, Carlos Slim's and IKEA will reduce their impact on the environment. WWF received €56 million (US$80 million) from corporations in 2010 (an 8% increase in support from corporations compared to 2009), accounting for 11% of total revenue for the year.

Keep Coca-Cola in mind. More from Wikipedia:

The German public television ARD aired a documentary on 22 June 2011 that claimed to show how the WWF cooperates with corporations such as Monsanto, providing sustainability certification in exchange for donations – i.e. greenwashing. WWF has denied the allegations. By encouraging high-impact eco-tourism, the program alleges that WWF contributes to the destruction of habitat and species it claims to protect. WWF-India is not active at the tiger reserve given as the example, but it is active elsewhere seeking to limit adverse tourism impacts and better sharing of tourism benefits to local communities. The program also alleges WWF certified a palm oil plantation operated by Wilmar International, a Singaporean company, on the Indonesian island of Borneo, even though the establishment of the plantation led to the destruction of over 14,000 hectares of rainforest. Only 80 hectares were ultimately conserved, the ARD documentary claims. ...

See what I mean about a modicum of good? WWF is likely touting the 80 hectares they saved, not the 14,000 they didn't — 'cause you "can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." (The "good" in this case includes the next corporate donation.)

WWF and Coca-Cola

Now about Coca-Cola. Here's what kind of branding that corporate "investment" purchases, from the WWF website:

WWF and the Coca-Cola Company Team Up to Protect Polar Bears

[The cold Arctic] landscape – which spans eight countries, including the United States – is also one of the most important areas for keeping the Earth’s climate system stable and a key indicator of the state of global well-being. Major ecological changes are taking place here at a faster and more dramatic rate than anywhere else in the world. Warmer temperatures are rapidly melting summer sea ice, which will likely all but disappear within a generation. The survival of ice-dependent species like the polar bear hinges on our ability to protect their last viable habitats.

... In addition to our freshwater conservation efforts, WWF and The Coca-Cola Company joined forces to help protect the polar bear and its habitat. Building upon Coca-Cola’s support since 2007 of WWF’s polar bear conservation efforts, we launched the Arctic Home Campaign in North America during the 2011 holiday season to raise widespread awareness and funds for these efforts. Due to the success and inspiration generated by Arctic Home in North America in its initial year, the program was expanded to 17 countries in Europe in winter 2012/2013.

Through Arctic Home, WWF has been able to engage in research in the high Arctic above Canada and Greenland, where it is believed that summer sea ice will persist the longest. WWF also is collecting important information on the Arctic ecosystem and working with Arctic residents and governments to develop a conservation plan in this “Last Ice Area.” ...

What's WWF doing with the gift that Coke gives them? They're giving the world the gift of "raised awareness," plus research into helping polar bears find the last summer ice (before there is none). Can you think of a better climate use of a half billion dollars, WWF's 2010 revenue? I think I can — starting with portfolio divestment.

What does Coke get in return? A great new ad campaign, this time with bears:

Somewhere in there is a panda and a polar bear

Of course, the real Coca-Cola company is these guys, the "death squads for union leaders" people (do click; it's a shocker). Maybe WWF could raise Coke's awareness about murder to protect profit.

What Does "Greenwashing" Mean?

Greenwashing is when non-profit environment-friendly organizations like NRDC or WWF give "green" ground cover — essentially a paint job, as the name suggests — to corporate malefactors in exchange for corporate money. The corporations get unalloyed credibility in the eyes of the public and diminished pressure to stop doing wrong. (Click the Coke link above to see the start of what they do wrong.)

For the "green" organizations, however, the money ties their hands. Ultimately most become enablers in the destruction they think they're preventing. Groups like NRDC, for example, are enablers for the fracking and methane industry. More examples:

The crimes of Shell were elucidated to the world by the resistance of people, mainly indigenous, doing the day to day dying in the Niger Delta; the people giving them awards were the WWF. The crimes of fracking operators in the United States northeast were highlighted by farmers and ranchers who needed the water and noticed it was catching on fire and their skin was burning right off of their bones, the people telling us we need natural gas from fracking have been the NRDC. The destruction of the tar sands in Canada is most well known because of indigenous refusal to disappear from history to cancer and the destruction of their traditional forests; those who want us to work with Shell and Suncor run the David Suzuki Foundation.

For the corporations, this is gold, like using the Olympics to make themselves look like a force for good, except this time they're using sympathetic polar bears instead. If you want to read more about "greenwashing" and corporate and foundation capture in the post-Reagan environmentalist era, start here. It's a sad story, but worth knowing about. It's one reason individual contributors don't get much bang for their Big Green donation buck.

What Else Does Corporate Funding Buy?

Which brings us back to the question at the start: What do WWF, The Humane Society and Nature Conservancy get in return for their clearly well-orchestrated "greenwashing" of TPP? Hard to say exactly, since we don't get a seat in meetings where quid and quo match up. But it's almost illegal for a corporation to spend stockholder money and not get a monetizable reward. And when it comes to TPP, the White House and most major CEOs are all over it. So we're left to guess, or maybe just watch as the non-profits' annual statements roll out. But the TPP endorsement statement is so obviously false, I'd bet they got something in exchange for it.

But however it happened, that nice corporate-connected panda at the top of this piece is all for TPP, meaning she's all for jobs in China. Ironic, that.



But profit-supplied do-gooder money has to come from somewhere. What better symbol of TPP than the Panda and the place our traded-out jobs will be sent to?

GP

Brands Are Diametrically Opposed To Our Interests As Humans

An old friend who works as a senior manager at an advertising company specializing in social media marketing has been talking with me about how ad agencies are not eager for their clients to find out that only a tiny fraction of people who "like" a brand or follow it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. ever actually interact with the brand. Social media has opened up a whole world of potential ad revenues, but a lot of the tactics are not supported by data. He sent me this fascinating Gawker piece Sam Biddle did a couple weeks ago, Brands Are Not Your Friends. It's part of the world we live in and very much part of the way we can expect to see our political leaders packaged and marketed to us in time for the 2016 campaigns. After all, as the National Memo pointed out this morning, Jeb Bush was literally raised to thrill "centrist" pundits like the National Journal‘s Ron Fournier with a passion for shrinking the promises we’ve made to our seniors. That can be a tough message to sell, especially seniors.

On Facebook, the button to "like" a brand (like a brand!) is functionally identical to "liking" another person. The vast, awful landscape of Brand Twitter has become a playground for social media managers to act like virtual tweens. The prevailing online marketing strategy for brands in 2015 is to blend in with the children, become just another bae to fave and retweet.

It shouldn't have to be said out loud to sentient human beings that this is bad. But it is. It is sinister and bad and says a lot about how we have collectively lost our minds as a species. I'm afraid and sad for everyone.

Last week, a disconcerting group of actual flesh-and-blood humans felt bad for a corporation, in public. Real people poured the kind of empathy and anguish that's historically been reserved for other real people upon a multinational conglomerate worth billions of dollars that sells liquid fructose poison and has a history of literally enslaving impoverished workers.

It all began, appropriately, during the Super Bowl. The Coca-Cola Company spent a ridiculous sum of money during America's No. 1 National Pastime on the evening's most cynical advertising blitz: the "MakeItHappy" campaign. The premise was simple and also dumb: the internet is a mean place, and Coca-Cola was going to try make the internet a nice place. It was attempting to be the "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" for our modern digital idiot age: The company created a Twitter bot to take "mean" tweets and reformat their words into a cartoon rabbit playing the drums, or a cat. With this, the toxic web would be steam-cleaned, or something. It was an act of philanthropy, no?

Well, of course not-- like all forms of advertising in the history of the advertising business, Coke's happiness campaign was designed to strengthen the goodwill associated with its trademark and presumably trick you into buying more Coke. It's possible that a handful of people at the Coca-Cola Corporation decided to create this advertising campaign because they genuinely want to "reduce meanness" or "increase positivity" (the advertising industry rewards the stupid and earnest). But, ultimately, they have one job, and it's to sell Coke. They are not social workers. They are not high school counselors. They are salespeople. They might incidentally think meanness is a bad thing, in the same way we're all incidentally opposed to murder.

So, in the hopes of making a minor point about the automated vacuum at the heart of Coke's cynical anti-meanness push, we built a bot to tweet Mein Kampf through Coke's automated positivity generator. (Fun behind-the-scenes fact: We pulled the text from Rap Genius.) We assumed that the response to our little stunt would be largely apathetic-- not only was our point obvious and slight, but in tweeting hateful sentiment at @CocaCola, we were doing exactly what the marketing campaign had asked us to do.

And then Coca-Cola, slow-witted and cowardly like all global megabrands, killed its bot, and suddenly countless people across the internet were aghast. We hadn't thrown a tiny wrench into the slickly oiled workings of a $3 billion marketing operation, we'd embarrassed someone's pal. Someone's pal who was just trying to do some good online! We'd brought negativity into the positive sphere of Coke-swilling. For something totally devoid of humanity, Coca-Cola-- a brutish company that condones slave labor and anti-union kidnapping and murder and whose CEO netted $30 million in 2012—was able to muster levels of smarmy cybertears not seen since Kony's reign of terror with its Twitter stunt.

Human beings-- including journalists-- flocked to Coke's side. The Verge sobbed that we'd "ruined" Coke's "courage and optimism," AdWeek called our work a "debacle," and Coke itself feigned dismay: "It's unfortunate Gawker made it a mission to break the system, and the content they used to do it is appalling." "Have a Coke and a-- frown," bleated some dunce at USA Today. Coca Cola's rough approximation of humanity had made an enormous impression, and its drinkers and friends took a stand. No more, they tweet-chanted in unison, no more unkind words for this maker of sweet liquid toxins.

What's been lost in the friendification of corporate brands is that by their very nature of brand-ness, brands are diametrically opposed to our interests as humans. They exist solely to distract, deceive, and manipulate us out of our money-- and in the case of Coca Cola, freely dispense diabetes and obesity. There is nothing relatable in a brand. It's an entity designed for the single purpose of extracting money from you by any legal means, no matter if you don't need or even want what's being sold. Even if the thing being sold is very, very bad for you-- the brand will persuade you it's silken and lovely. A brand will systematically and perpetually convince you that your best interests are incorrect—this is the behavior of an abusive partner, not a friend. Not even a stranger! Brands hate you.

And still, people love slobbering all over branded membranes. It's easy to do so, and there's always the rare chance you'll get something free. PepsiCo has over 34 million fans on Facebook-- that's more than 34 million people who have voluntarily placed advertising messages from PepsiCo in their newsfeeds, alongside mom and bae and Brian from hockey practice. More than a million people have made a similar life decision with Mr. Clean, more than 300,000 people are Facebook friends with Jimmy Dean Sausages and Kleenex, and when world historical nadir Denny's Diner (185,000 Twitter followers) snowballs youth culture into its adherents' greasy mouths, it racks up hundreds or thousands of favorites and retweets. Brands aren't forcing themselves on us-- we're standing around with our pants undone and our tongues wagging out. We make it easy for brands to succeed. This is corporate America today. We are their willing, unpaid flacks.

But social media will always be an incongruous and gross place for brands to mingle, because all brands are inherently psychopathic. A company does not have feelings. It will never love you. It does not love its workers. It likely screws them over. Think about that the next time you tweet at a brand, or defend one online. Treating brands like buddies isn't just embarrassing for all parties-- sympathy for a brand is antipathy for all humans. The great friending of the brand undermines the vital skepticism of corporate America and capitalism altogether. It's horrid enough that our laws treat corporations as people-- to treat them as personal friends is just rotten.

Will The Reality And Dangers Of Climate Change Sour Big Business On GOP Extremists? Not So Far

Conservatives were wily enough to realize-- long ago-- that democracies are tough ground for them. Campaigning on a platform of basically keeping the social order as it is-- the rich stay rich and powerful and the poor stay poor and powerless-- only works when rich people are the only ones allowed to vote. After working diligently to disenfranchise as many people as they could-- minorities, renters, women, young people, non-white people, ex-felons… anyone who isn't white, wealthy, male and old-- conservatives realized they would have to make common ground with riffraff. Nationalism worked well but that tended to eventually give way to xenophobia, which, quite naturally, led to anti-Semitism and racism. Voilà-- the modern Republican Party. The wealthy vested interests using poorly educated-- and just plain stupid-- paranoids, racists and bigots of every stripe have put together an ad hoc party based on Greed, Selfishness on one hand and Hatred and Fear on the other.

Unfortunately one of the things the unwashed Republican idiots have been taught to hate and fear is anything resembling an effort at ameliorating climate change. The Koch Brothers black bag operation made sure of that. So now respectable businesspeople are scratching their heads and wondering what they're doing on the same side of the aisle as a the flat earth sociopaths.

Yesterday, writing for ThinkProgress' Climate section, Emily Atkin looked at major food conglomerates worrying that Climate Change is threatening their bottom lines. "While politicians continue to bicker over whether or not climate change exists," she wrote, "companies now have no choice in the matter-- they must acknowledge the science and the risk and disclose the reality of that risk to their investors’ pocketbooks. Whether that risk actually manifests itself is another matter, but the fact that companies are increasingly putting climate change on their threat lists speaks volumes to the severity of the problem."

She mentions 8 food companies in all: Chipotle, Keurig Green Mountain, Michael Foods Group, Heinz, Big Heart Pet Brands, Omega Protein, Marine Harvest ASA (formerly Pan Fish), and Coca-Cola. Here's the Coke story:

Coca-Cola’s risk statement about climate change is pretty basic, but it’s simple enough to encapsulate the basic big picture: that the affects of climate change as scientists see them could be bad for profits.

“The growing political and scientific sentiment is that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are influencing global weather patterns,” a company 10-K filing says. “Changing weather patterns, along with the increased frequency or duration of extreme weather conditions, could impact the availability or increase the cost of key raw materials that the Company uses to produce its products. In addition, the sale of these products can be impacted by weather conditions.”

In addition, the company also acknowledges that regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could also negatively impact business. Current regulations have had a “minor” affect on business now, but the filing said that future regulations could “directly or indirectly affect the Company’s production, distribution, packaging, cost of raw materials, fuel, ingredients and water.”

But do the fears of GOP antipathy towards climate science change anything about these companies' political giving? Heinz has a political action committee that contributes hundreds of thousands of donors to politicians. 2012 was their biggest single year so far, contributing $179,322-- 59% to Republicans and 41% to (mostly conservative) Democrats. So far this year Heinz has only spent $59,083, 50% to Democrats and 50% to Republicans. In the House the biggest portion of their contributions are going to virulent and fanatic climate change deniers like Jim Jordan (R-OH), Joe Pitts (R-PA), Dave Camp (R-MI), Tim Murphy (R-PA), and Cory Gardner (R-CO).

2012 was also Coca-Cola Company's biggest contribution year ever. The company PAC handed out $827,076, 59% to Republicans and 41% to (mostly conservative) Democrats. Again, the lion's share of the loot went to climate fanatic change deniers like John Boehner (R-OH), Tom Price (R-GA), Fred Upton (R-MI), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), John Kline (R-MN), John Fleming (R-LA), Paul Broun (R-GA), Allen West (R-FL), Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Scott Desjarlais (R-TN), Rob Woodall (R-GA), Frank Guinta (R-NH), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), etc. So far this year Coke has handed out $736,249, 53% to Republicans and 47% to Democrats. They are clearly not letting their worries about Climate Change get in the way of their affinity to Republican Party extremists.

Big Heart Pet Brands is a more modest operation than Coca-Cola or Heinz. In 2012 they handed out $14,000-- 57% to conservative Democrats and 43% to Republicans, all climate change deniers) and so far this year they gave away $10,500, 54% to Republicans and 46% to Democrats.

So… no correlations whatsoever between worries about climate change/worries about GOP extremists and political campaign contributions. German industrialists in the 1920s and '30s, miscalculated disastrously by propping up Adolf Hitler and the far right Nazi Party. Without the immense sums Hitler receiver from the German equivalents of the Koch brothers-- say Ruhr industrialist Fritz Thyssen-- he would have died on the vine long before coming to power. German plutocrats at I. G. Farben, Flick, Krupp, Siemens, etc now rewrite history-- they have the money to hire the hacks to do so-- to show that they were only paying "protection money" to the Nazis, utter bullshit and no different whatsoever from the American plutocrats today shelling out millions for Republicans Imagine a history book one day claiming that David and Charles Koch and Sheldon Adelson gave so much to the Tea Party and the GOP because they were afraid!

The German plutocrats thought they could control Hitler; the underestimated him and he eventually made them his slaves and wrecked their world. Will the Tea Party and GOP Frankenstein monster devour the Kochs and Adelsons and the rest of the plutocrats one day? Or drown them in rising oceans?

Drinking Coke Causes Cancer, Obesity, Diabetes And Putrification

Not being one of Palin's "real Americans," I watch almost no TV. But it seems that every time I've put it on in the last month I saw the ad above on my screen. It's so full of blatant Madison Avenue manipulative techniques that it made my blood boil. And the first question, of course, has to be "Who the hell are these people?" Because, let's face it, they're certainly not "just plain folks" sick of the government taxing disease-causing products.

Their website gave me a good hint that these Americans Against Food Taxes are corporations selling cancer- and obesity-causing beverages. And the main financier is a Turk named Muhtar who's made $19,628,585 from his job at Coke, so the oh-so-prominent prominent "American" thing, well... it's possible, but which Americans do they represent? SourceWatch describes AAFT as "a front group funded by the beverage industry which consists of major restaurant chains, food and soft drink manufacturers and their associated lobbying groups," pointing back to a column that NY Times ethicist Randy Cohen wrote in September 2009, called "An Anti-Tax Argument That's Hard To Swallow."

The Issue

Proposals to tax sugary drinks as a way to fight obesity and finance health care reform have found support from medical experts and some interest from President Obama while meeting resistance from the beverage industry in general and the Coca-Cola C.E.O. Muhtar Kent in particular. “I have never seen it work where a government tells people what to eat and what to drink,” he told the Rotary Club of Atlanta last month. “If it worked, the Soviet Union would still be around.” Is this sort of argument so dubious, and does it come from the maker of products so damaging, that Muhtar Kent should be dragged off in handcuffs-- or worse?

The Argument

I am an expert on neither tax policy nor nutrition, but it is worth examining a few of the arguments against taxing sugary drinks as examples of the reasoning all of us can encounter when making moral choices or weighing the issues of the day or confronting a bumptious uncle at Thanksgiving.

Muhtar Kent’s assertion is fishy because it confuses a positive and a negative. The various plans under consideration do not tell us what we should drink; they are concerned with what we should not drink-- sugary beverages, what critics call “liquid candy.” Urging people not to drive short distances is different from saying they should reach the corner store by hopping. Urging people not to drink cola is different from pressuring them to drink cat pee.

And of course our government does tell people what to eat and has for years. Perhaps “tell” is too coercive a term-- no federal food police pound on your door at dinnertime demanding to see your broccoli. But “strongly recommend” is apt. Kent should check out the Department of Agriculture’s food pyramid at the delightfully titled MyPyramid.gov or visit nutrition.gov where jackbooted thugs engage in tyrannical meal planning-- O.K., there are no jackboots and no thuggery, but there are some tasty menus. (The recipe for cranberry-nut muffins looks delish.)

Our government, as many a nation does, also tells people what to eat in other ways, both directly, by creating menus for public-school cafeterias and military mess halls, and indirectly, influencing our diets through farm policies, tariffs, trade agreements and food regulation.

(Kent’s further assertion, his evocation of the Soviets, is entirely meretricious, deploying the familiar debater’s tactic of deprecating something by linking it to what is widely reviled. The Beatles are bad because Pol Pot liked “Hey, Jude.” Bowling is evil because Satan plays-- he’s on a team with John and George.)

It is commonplace for a democracy to concern itself with the nutrition of its citizens. What is rightly and vigorously debated-- by, for example, the writer Michael Pollan, the documentary film “Food, Inc.,” the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association or the American Academy Of Pediatrics-- is not if government should involve itself in such things, but how. That’s politics in the best sense.

...Such errors of reasoning might be seen as intellectual, not moral, failings, but it is difficult to extend that benefit of the doubt to Americans Against Food Taxes, which describes itself as “a coalition of concerned citizens-- responsible individuals, financially strapped families, small and large businesses in communities across the country.” As was reported in The Times, A.A.F.T. looks like a veiled industry organization; calls to a media contact listed on the group’s Web site go to the American Beverage Association. This smells like Astroturf, or corporate lobbyists posing as a grass-roots organization. It is entirely suitable for interested parties to participate in public debate; it is not suitable to conceal who’s doing the debating.

SourceWatch notes that AAFT "was organized by the American Beverage Association to fight a proposed three to ten cent tax on soda, sugary drinks and energy drinks to help fund health care reform in the United States."

Its domain name, www.nofoodtaxes.com, is registered to Goddard Claussen public relations, based in Washington, D.C. Goddard Claussen's Web site boasts, "Fortune magazine branded us the 'Go-to guys in issue advocacy' because of our groundbreaking public affairs and branding campaigns, our industry-leading 9 out of 10 win record on ballot measure campaigns, and our history-making issue advocacy campaigns."

UPDATE: Tomorrow Is John Boehner Day

Boehner is all about poisoning America with sugar and empty calories and then leaving them sick and without healthcare. The National Enquirer will be running a major exposé on him tomorrow-- regarding a different kind of sugar... but the same kind of corruption:



Yes, tomorrow, Thursday-- and it's the Valentine's Day issue:

SOLVED: One Of The Great Mysteries Of My Life!

I feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted off my shoulders. By May of 1970 I had been living outside the country for nearly a year. There was no internet and there were no cell phones back then. By that time I was living in Afghanistan. I depended on issues of somewhat dated issues of Time and the International Herald-Tribune for the "latest" news back "in the world." But these weren't really trustworthy sources, so when it came to the really big political news, it was week or two old letters that came from my friends to Poste Restante in Kabul-- when I was in Kabul. When I was way up north in the Hindu Kush, there was no news. Period. None. But when the Kent State massacre took place in early May of 1970 I was in Kabul. My friend Helen wrote me a letter that came about 10 days later. I don't have the letter any longer-- if I did there would have been no mystery all this time-- but below I'm going to spread out a few quotes from Rick Perlstein's Nixonland regarding the aftermath of the brutal massacre of American students, passersby, on their Ohio campus. First the one that goes directly to my own personal little solved mystery:

A National Economic Boycott Committee decided to boycott Coca-Cola and Philip Morris for "their dependency on the youth market for a large part of their sales."

That's the solution to a mystery? Oh, was it ever. I never smoked a cigarette in my life so forget Philip Morris but Coca-Cola? It's all I drank. Especially in places like Afghanistan, where the water was too polluted to drink. (The U.S. Embassy handed out a xerox sheet instructing travelers to bring water to a rapid boil. Shut it down and then bring it to a rapid boil again before drinking it. Everyone had the Kabul Runs all the time anyway.) All I drank was Coke. But I never took another sip of Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up or anything like that again since opening Helen's letter. I was off that stuff, cold turkey.

And thank God. Coke kills. Although I hadn't had any since May 15, 1970, my doctor pointed to it as a probably cause of cancer (along with recreational drugs, something else I had given up, although for different reasons, around the same time). If you ask ehow.com what makes Coca-Cola unhealthy you get, in part, this:

Coca-Cola has been deemed unhealthy for a number of reasons. One can of Coke can contain about 10 percent sugar. Large amounts of sugar in a person's diet are related to high stress levels, and while it doesn't directly cause diabetes, it can worsen a diabetic's situation. Sugar also contributes to weakening immune systems because yeast and bacteria in the body feed on sugar. It can even speed the aging process when it becomes attached to proteins, which causes a loss in elasticity. In diet drinks, the sugar is substituted with saccharin (or aspartame) to provide a sweetener, and has been researched as a possible cause of bladder cancer. There are also a small percentage of people who cannot physically metabolize the amino acid in aspartame, causing it to build up in the bloodstream. High-fructose corn syrup is metabolized differently in the human body than natural sugars because the corn syrup is a product of genetically altered plants. Nutritionists have scrutinized connections between obesity, diabetes and high-fructose corn syrup. The potassium benzoate used in Coke products harms DNA in mitochondria of cells in the body, inactivating their ability to produce energy. Another health issue is that the recurrent exposure of the acid added to Coca-Cola contributes to the probability of tooth decay because of its reaction with calcium in teeth. The phosphoric acid is dangerous for those with a pre-existing stomach ulcer. Coca-Cola is also known to be a highly caffeinated beverage, and substantial caffeine intake acts as a diuretic and has negative effects, including hyperactivity.

Glad to have it out of my life. Only Helen says she never heard of any boycott, let alone wrote to me about one. And everyone else I've asked from that period says they never did either. But there it was in Perlstein's book. Case closed. In the immortal words of Suicidal Tendencies, I'm not crazy.

So what did the students back then do after the Ken State massacre when they demanded the U.S. end the wars in Southeast Asia? OK, here's more Perlstein:

"The splintered left on the campuses has suddenly reunited," the Wall Street Journal concluded, quoting an electrician who worked at Case Western Reserve: "They figure they might just as well die here for something they believe in as to die in Vietnam." Case was one of the schools where students burned down the ROTC building. So were Kentucky, the University of Cincinnati, Ohio State, Ohio University, Miami of Ohio, Tulane, Washington University in St. Louis (their second) and St. Louis University. At Colorado State they torched Old Main, the original campus structure, erected in 1878. In farm-belt Carbondale, home of Southern Illinois, a center of military research, martial law was declared. At Syracuse nearly every window was smashed; UCLA students forced the entire Los Angeles police force onto tactical alert, and Governor Reagan subsequently shut down all twenty-seven state university campuses. Austin students were teargassed after charging the state capitol. They followed with the biggest march in Texas history (they chanted, "More pay for police!" to keep the cops at bay). At Malacaster College in St. Paul, students barricaded the offices of a new political science professor and demanded his resignation. But the professor, Hubert Humphrey, was away in Israel.

...A report from Madison, Wisconsin, noon, May 5: "Wide-scale rioting, burning, trashing, tear gas everywhere."

The next day: "One hundred arrested, school shut, National Guard, fires in street every night, fifty or sixty hurt, tear gas, 'open warfare.'" ... Within the week, in front of the burbling fountain on Revelle Plaza at UC-San Diego, George Winnie Jr., twenty-three, held up a cardboard sign reading, IN GOD'S NAME, END THIS WAR, struck a match, and went up in a burst of flame. That didn't make the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, or Chicago Tribune; a nationwide student tsunami had broken, too much drama to keep track of it all. By that time guardsmen were posted on 21 campuses in sixteen states, 488 universities and colleges were closed (three-quarters of the schools in Nevada, Massachusetts and Maryland), the entire public high school system in New York City was shut by order of the board of education, and Boston University informed Ted Kennedy not to show up to give the commencement speech because, in honor of the slain students, there wouldn't be any commencement... The National Republican Governors' Conference was canceled.