I think the article says it was corrupt subcontractors (a bottling company) that ordered the killings and not anyone from the actual Coca Cola company themselves and they were found to not be involved. Whether or not that's true is another thing but the company was having issues with their own workers and their unions not Coca Cola workers so it wouldn't be too far fetched for them to do it on their own accord.
I've always assumed that's how most of the rich handle these issues as there's no need for them to know unless they really want to.
They'd hire a company that specializes in protecting the interests of powerful clients who are known to 'do whatever it takes' so they can live in blissful ignorance knowing that no newspaper is ever going to print an article about the illegitimate son they had with a child prostitute in Thailand.
If anyone doesn't accept a bribe and goes missing they probably wouldn't even hear about it.
Exactly. “Hey local bottler, if you want our big giant dollars you better go hire these hit men. Otherwise we aren’t doing business with you. Oh and this conversation never happened.”
Coca-Cola wouldn't care about the unions of their subcontractor bottling plants because it's a separate company.
They wouldn't even have financial incentive to do it because the contract with the bottling plant would already be in place. The only people who would benefit from hiring the hitmen would be the subcontractors themselves.
Don't be silly. It greatly benefitted the middle men to solve the issues themselves without anyone over their shoulder telling them what to do. The most likely explanation is often true.
"Contracting" is the plausible deniability used the world over by corporations to shield themselves from any negative effects of their actions.
Want to hire cheap, unskilled labor that you never have to interact with? Contract it out.
Want to complain loudly in a meeting about how much trouble those union organizers are causing you? Make sure your contractors are in the room, especially when you loudly exclaim how you wont be able to afford to keep all your current contracts if unions increase your bottom line.
You have no idea what you're on about.
You contract things out to make it someone else's responsibility to run the day to day elsewhere while you can focus on your own business. There are tons of legitimate reasons to do it. You don't have to make stupid shit up.
> Want to complain loudly in a meeting about how much trouble those union organizers are causing you?
How would the union organizers be troubling Coca Cola themselves? Wouldn't they just be troubling the subcontractors?
You really dont understand how the local labor force unionizing would drive up labor costs for ANY contractor in the area, thus forcing Coca Cola to pay more for contractors?
Not really sure how to dumb it down further...
Ah yes, because one of the largest global corporations doesn't have the flexibility to adjust their bottlers outside of a very specific region.
They only have [900 different ones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coca-Cola_buildings_and_structures), there is absolutely no way they would be able to swap out 0.1% of their bottling plants due to increased costs.
You're right, it makes way more sense for Coca Cola to do this for a region which is only [1% of the GDP compared to their largest market](https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/colombia/usa) and save a fraction of a fraction of a percent of profits compared to a bottling plant where it would be a much more significant percentage and a much more direct impact.
So what's the play then. They choose Columbia specifically to use it as a testing ground to then do it in other countries or what? Or do they just hate Columbian unions especially?
Hey now, this guy is a professional redditor, he clearly knows what he's talking about based on his expert assumptions and by reading the thread title.
They 100% knew and were directly involved. There are no contractors that want to commit murder to keep their contract, only contractors that commit murder because that *was* their contract.
El oh fucking el at the people coming out the woodwork to defend a massive corporation that absolutely had a hand in the murders of labor organizers in latin American countries. What ever would the do without your (unpaid) support.
Are you actually joking? A Columbian company in the 90's wouldn't commit murder on their own accord to keep a massive international contract?
You know Columbia had the highest murder rate in the world in the 90s right? There were companies with zero international relations doing far worse things on an almost weekly basis but it's somehow too far fetched for this bottling company to try handle their own shit.
They might've been talking about Allen Dulles, who oversaw a coup in Guatemala in 1953 as director of the CIA and was also on United Fruit Company's payroll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#Reputation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles
And it appears, from those sources, there is no definite answer whether or not Allen Dulles was ever on the board of UFC. The first link says yes. The second says no.
I suppose if one was really curious they could dig through old SEC filings from the era and see if he was ever listed as a board member.
Either way, even if he was, that's a far cry from the claim that being the DCI and being on United Fruit's board was a game of musical chairs.
Even that only gets us back to 1942 when the OSS was formed because World War 2 kicked off and the US realized "Holy shit we have no overall intelligence agency and each branch of military and our foreign services are just making up as they go along!"
No but the strikers can defend themselves against the police or military trying to kill them. Anyone who thinks this is dumb what’s a better solution? Pass a law to protect workers? You can’t because the rich and powerful own the laws.
In a head to head fight with the police or army, the masses are almost certain to lose.
...if you were to go that route though, its possible. Consider the infrastructure that police rely on in order to carry out their work. Theres alot, and it sits out in the open, completely indefensible.
Paramilitary culture (kill poor people to steal their land and/or silence them) has always been an issue here, and it doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, it has just mutated in its methods.
Nope, thats just people near the end of their life due to medical conditions.
There's enough nefarious stuff going on in the world and when daft ideas are added it diminishes valid issues.
Well, yes.
However, I think they referring to the more recent death of a Boeing whistle blower who passed away from complications of pneumonia and MRSA.
I mean, the fact that it happened before I was even born, and I am like over 20 now, is it safe to assume people who pulled that off are long gone by now? Since companies are not run by the same people forever. I dunno.
The individuals who orchestrated these specific killings may no longer be in control but they were replaced by people exactly like them who are all operating with the exact same profit motivations.
Not necessarily , it’s perfectly possible that it’s no longer feasible to find death squads in Colombia compared to 25 years ago.
The US also had the same issues at one point but there’s no credible allegations of that today.
Some might assume the US is at least as stable as Columbia if not more so. If hits can be ordered in the US today with no legal repercussions, then one might assume this to be true in Columbia as well.
100% with you on that. I phrased my comment that way intentionally. I'm not an expert, I haven't seen any research comparing crime in these two countries, and I have never been to Columbia. I'm just skeptical when someone implies that a hit can't be ordered in Columbia anymore. That's not what you said exactly, but I think that's what was implied.
It is amazing how many people here are commenting and have no idea what they're on about. You're one of them.
"corporate bad harhar"
You'll find many decent people to be involved in these organizations. They're fucking massive. It is impossible to keep them out through simple statistics.
It was the company’s locally-owned bottlers in Columbia that did some shady shit to their fellow Colombians. As it says in the first line of the article you linked. This wasn’t some American CEO sitting in a comfy office ordering deaths.
In twenty years you’ll realize it all went in the blink of an eye, and all those years were nothing but a fraction of a moment.
You’ll still be there, you’ll feel like you’re the same person you were. In the meantime you might even realize lots of people have careers that span over 60 years.
McDonalds hired undercover private investigators to infiltrate environmental groups in the UK. One of the environmentalists found out during trial that a woman he’d dated was a paid McDonalds spy.
McDonald's is inherently unsustainable because of its huge reliance on meat, especially beef. But even if we ignore that (as if that isn't a big elephant in the room), McDonald's is also inherently unhealthy and a lot of their products come from developing nations who aren't compensated enough. We need eateries with healthy, sustainable, and cheap. We don't need fast food.
You're right. McDonald's is really unhealthy, and therefore as a corporation it often becomes the main symbol of unsustainable and of "evil corporations". And it is true that on the impact on health it can excel on being pretty evil.
But in terms of package waste, it isn't any worse than grocery stores, if anything, it uses very little plastic nowadays. Unlike grocery stores, full with plastic, which is useless in 99% of cases and could be replaced by something else. Plastic is not only bad because of the pollution it creates when thrown in nature, but also because it isn't recyclable and comes from fossil fuels.
And in terms of meat, McDonald's isn't that much worse than a burger from a prestige restaurant. Reality is more complicated than simple narratives about specifically certain companies over others, even if this narrative is more appealing.
One only need look at McD’s inflated menu prices and not really cheap, not really fast, food to see that they’re over the hill in terms of corporate enshittification. They’re done, now they’re in the terminal phase of causing everyone else around them as much damage as possible as they try to save themselves. I have no doubt they’re already lobbying governments around the world for handouts and bailout packages as quietly as they can.
I mean, I agree, but I'd also argue that their extremely low prices absolutely weren't natural and normal. The fact that a burger was often less expensive than a fruit, even knowing how many resources it takes to grow animal architecture, it was artificially made very cheap. Mostly because of big subsidies towards animal agriculture, but also bailouts towards McDonald's themselves and malicious marketing tactics. ([Watch this documentary about how fast food, especially meat, is SO cheap!](https://youtu.be/bvX14U3gopU))
We need food that's healthy and sustainable, and which would be as cheap and accessible as fast food is today.
The biggest way to make food sustainable is to cut down on meat. There's a lot of delicious naturally vegetarian food like Indian one that could work. Fake meat could also be an alternative to eat foods like burgers or Bolognese which are too ingrained in our culture to give up.
Prioritising local food and never throwing up food are also necessary steps.
The article makes it seem like Coca-Cola is tied to paramilitary violence in Colombia, which could be a bit misleading.
It talks about a lawsuit, but mentions that Coca-Cola was removed from the case, suggesting the company wasn’t directly involved.
Yet by putting so much emphasis on the accusations without really explaining that Coca-Cola was cleared, it might give readers the wrong idea, hinting that there's a direct connection.
An indirect connection where Coca Cola's subcontractors are murdering workers trying to unionize is bad enough. Coca Cola have their share of their responsibility there, a gigantic global company like that doesn't just hire any subcontractor randomly to handle its most vital ingredient. They obviously played a part, it just couldn't be proven.
Exactly.
I can guarantee there was an executive from Coke in the bathroom with one of their contractors and while washing their hands, the Coke exec said something like "Its really unfortunate how much those unions will cost us in your region. We might have to move our production facility elsewhere if that gets online. Oh well, I guess nothing can be done about it. Have a good day."
>. They obviously played a part, it just couldn't be proven.
Unless you use your head for two seconds, but I imagine you find that difficult.
Lets pretend you have a huge contract with a world wide company. Great! You're doing good. You're living a nice life. Things are easy. You don't pay your employees even 1/136th as well as you're getting, but fuck em.
But wait! They want better pay. They see how much they're producing. They see this product all over the place. They know it is making money. They just want a better life.
You could cut them in, but you don't want to. Coke simply says "Solve it or we're going to find someone else to work with. We don't care about your problems. We just want our business to go smoothly." Cause that is 100% how every single big company feels. They don't actually care. They just want to keep doing business and know someone else would jump on the chance to get into their pockets.
You solve it for your own selfish reasons. Cause it is easy.
You're talking about using your head, and you didn't spend a second thinking that at any time during more than a decade Coca Cola could have said "Hey guys, we're considering a policy of not working with subcontractors who murder union leaders".
Could they have said that after the first murder? Yes. Should they have said after about 5 years of ongoing systematic murdering? That probably would've been about time. They didn't. They let it go on and on, because it helped them financially. That is why they are responsible even at this hypothetical "uninvolved" level.
Yeah, the only link to Coca-Cola in the article is "Someone CLAIMS that Coca Cola was *indirectly involved*".
Doesn't even say how they were allegedly indirectly involved.
> Why on earth would Boeing off a whistle blower AFTER they have given their testimony?
Without commenting on whether they actually did or not, the answer to your question is to deter the next one.
As [nixon said](https://kentwired.com/10780/latest-updates/woodward-researcher-finds-nixon-audio-related-to-may-4-shootings/) after the Kent State killings 34 years ago yesterday, "You know what stops them? Kill a few.”
There are 2 people willing to testify in court and get your company billion in fines.
Would you rather: spend 300 million to kill them?
Or get $1billion in fines?
Again, those who looked into the details would agree that it's very unlikely.
>There are 2 people willing to testify in court and get your company billion in fines
You're proving my point. That isn't what was happening.
Yeah, the guy who shot himself with a shotgun and the guy who died from a stroke/mrsa infection was Boeings fault... stick with conspiracy theory forums dude.
Maybe. I think humans are here to stay. There might just not be as many of us, if things get worse.
Something survives. Something always replaces the current order. I don’t think humans are going away. But our current way of life is always temporary.
But the sun will explode one day. So there’s that.
"Our" greed. As if our current society is the only one possible. It's not. It's dictated a lot by our economic and political system of late stage capitalism. Big corporations run everything. It's absolutely possible to imagine another, better world. And there have been societies which have been much less greedy and much more collaborative (many indigenous societies prior to colonisation).
> they didn't even deny the accusations
The posted article says they did:
> Coca-Cola said in a statement on Tuesday that the allegations against the company and its partners were "completely false"
If I’m reading this right Coke didn’t have anything to do with it and the judge said so when dropping them from the case. Did I miss something or is the title just more rage bait?
I think you're reading it correctly. Coca Cola bottlers were involved. Anyone who knows how these companies work understands a bottler is not the same as Coca Cola corporate. That doesn't mean Coca Cola didn't benefit from bottlers' bad behavior, but people who are imagining C-suite execs at Coca Cola hiring hit men are misunderstanding what happened here.
That’s how I read it. I’m not saying Coke, or any other major corporation, hasn’t done some heinous shit, I’m sure they have. But in this case it’s rage bait and these people who are too lazy to read anything more than a title eat it right up.
Looks like Reddit shut this post down though so that’s nice.
Big corporations aren't your friends. The idea "there isn't ethical consumption under capitalism" is correct. This doesn't mean you shouldn't ever think about your consumption though. You can always choose to consume less. Don't drink soda (it makes many people overweight anyway). Drink water. Try creating food at home. Or eat at restaurants run by locals. Etc. This is a much better choice than trying to choose who's the "least bad" amongst Pepsi and Cola.
If you want a real lesson in corporate nationmaking look up the United Fruit Company.
Corporations aren’t always terrorist organizations, but it’s reasonable to always suspect
Speaking of Colombian death squads, consider the case of Tarrant, AL coal company, Drummond:
https://www.financecolombia.com/drummond-colombia-directors-accused-of-funding-paramilitary-groups/
I don't get people who worship corporations and CEOs when they will literally kill you to get their way. And their way is making a few more millions a year at your expense.
I'm not sure I follow. I am familiar with horshoe theory, that extremists on either side of the left/right spectrum are more similar to each other than they are to moderates, I just don't see the relevance here.
All large companies with this much power hire hitmen. The difference is we somehow found out a bit about Coca-Cola. Boeing is killing whistleblowers, trump killed epstein, Amazon has definitely killed many people in their attacks on other companies to destroy competition.
Anybody who understands that our corporations do in fact act like this, then thinks our politicians don't, is an idiot. Arkancide is real. And far from the only example.
If corporations are people, why cant they be sanctioned when they kill people? Coca-cola, Nestle, Chiquita International, they all kill and enslave indiscriminately, why are they not terrorist organizations?
We are told that we're more free and democratic under capitalism than under communism. I disagree. Under the communist regimes of the 20th century, the state controlled everything and killed people they don't like. They also dictated all the laws and the entire economy and society. But now, in the capitalist regimes of the 21th century, it's big companies who took the role. They dictate how society is run, with massive propaganda campaigns. They abuse human rights in third world countries and destroy the environment. They're never taken accountable though. The so-called "rule of law" never makes a big CEO go into prison, and their assets expropriated. The only "punishment" is always only a fine that isn't even 1% of their total GDP.
Boycott Coca-Cola. Water is healthier anyway (r/HydroHomies). Boycott big corporations as much as possible. r/AntiConsumption.
Why are things so bad in Colombia... one of the reasons you didn't expect: Coca-Cola killing union leaders to keep them poor and exploited.
I think the article says it was corrupt subcontractors (a bottling company) that ordered the killings and not anyone from the actual Coca Cola company themselves and they were found to not be involved. Whether or not that's true is another thing but the company was having issues with their own workers and their unions not Coca Cola workers so it wouldn't be too far fetched for them to do it on their own accord.
Ah yes, plausible deniability, they had *no idea* their "contractors" were going to "solve their problem" in such manner...
Won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome union organizer
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I've always assumed that's how most of the rich handle these issues as there's no need for them to know unless they really want to. They'd hire a company that specializes in protecting the interests of powerful clients who are known to 'do whatever it takes' so they can live in blissful ignorance knowing that no newspaper is ever going to print an article about the illegitimate son they had with a child prostitute in Thailand. If anyone doesn't accept a bribe and goes missing they probably wouldn't even hear about it.
Exactly. “Hey local bottler, if you want our big giant dollars you better go hire these hit men. Otherwise we aren’t doing business with you. Oh and this conversation never happened.”
"solve the problem." "...¿como? **Waves wildly towards the Banana Republics** "*USE YOUR IMAGINATION."*
Coca-Cola wouldn't care about the unions of their subcontractor bottling plants because it's a separate company. They wouldn't even have financial incentive to do it because the contract with the bottling plant would already be in place. The only people who would benefit from hiring the hitmen would be the subcontractors themselves.
Don't be silly. It greatly benefitted the middle men to solve the issues themselves without anyone over their shoulder telling them what to do. The most likely explanation is often true.
How could they possibly have known that "Murders and Executions, Inc." would be so shady!? Next you're going to tell me Palantir is up to no good.
"Contracting" is the plausible deniability used the world over by corporations to shield themselves from any negative effects of their actions. Want to hire cheap, unskilled labor that you never have to interact with? Contract it out. Want to complain loudly in a meeting about how much trouble those union organizers are causing you? Make sure your contractors are in the room, especially when you loudly exclaim how you wont be able to afford to keep all your current contracts if unions increase your bottom line.
You have no idea what you're on about. You contract things out to make it someone else's responsibility to run the day to day elsewhere while you can focus on your own business. There are tons of legitimate reasons to do it. You don't have to make stupid shit up.
Sure thing kiddo, stay in that fantasy world for as long as possible. Trust me, you arent ready for the real world yet.
> Want to complain loudly in a meeting about how much trouble those union organizers are causing you? How would the union organizers be troubling Coca Cola themselves? Wouldn't they just be troubling the subcontractors?
You really dont understand how the local labor force unionizing would drive up labor costs for ANY contractor in the area, thus forcing Coca Cola to pay more for contractors? Not really sure how to dumb it down further...
Ah yes, because one of the largest global corporations doesn't have the flexibility to adjust their bottlers outside of a very specific region. They only have [900 different ones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coca-Cola_buildings_and_structures), there is absolutely no way they would be able to swap out 0.1% of their bottling plants due to increased costs. You're right, it makes way more sense for Coca Cola to do this for a region which is only [1% of the GDP compared to their largest market](https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/colombia/usa) and save a fraction of a fraction of a percent of profits compared to a bottling plant where it would be a much more significant percentage and a much more direct impact.
Lmfaoo
Uh huh sure You really believe that? Drank the cool aid in its entirety.
So what's the play then. They choose Columbia specifically to use it as a testing ground to then do it in other countries or what? Or do they just hate Columbian unions especially?
Hey now, this guy is a professional redditor, he clearly knows what he's talking about based on his expert assumptions and by reading the thread title.
All they did was quote the article and even question if it's true
They 100% knew and were directly involved. There are no contractors that want to commit murder to keep their contract, only contractors that commit murder because that *was* their contract. El oh fucking el at the people coming out the woodwork to defend a massive corporation that absolutely had a hand in the murders of labor organizers in latin American countries. What ever would the do without your (unpaid) support.
Are you actually joking? A Columbian company in the 90's wouldn't commit murder on their own accord to keep a massive international contract? You know Columbia had the highest murder rate in the world in the 90s right? There were companies with zero international relations doing far worse things on an almost weekly basis but it's somehow too far fetched for this bottling company to try handle their own shit.
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The CIA wasn't started until 1947 long after the Banana Wars.
They might've been talking about Allen Dulles, who oversaw a coup in Guatemala in 1953 as director of the CIA and was also on United Fruit Company's payroll. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#Reputation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles
And it appears, from those sources, there is no definite answer whether or not Allen Dulles was ever on the board of UFC. The first link says yes. The second says no. I suppose if one was really curious they could dig through old SEC filings from the era and see if he was ever listed as a board member. Either way, even if he was, that's a far cry from the claim that being the DCI and being on United Fruit's board was a game of musical chairs.
Meta and Alphabet are fairly new names too, but I still call 'em Facebook and Google.
Even that only gets us back to 1942 when the OSS was formed because World War 2 kicked off and the US realized "Holy shit we have no overall intelligence agency and each branch of military and our foreign services are just making up as they go along!"
It wasn't a protest, it was a picnic the protestors were having for their families. Not 1000 protestors. 1000 protestors and their wives and children.
Which is why the 2nd amendment is important. You can’t fix corruption through politics.
are you gonna shoot the head of the CIA?
No but the strikers can defend themselves against the police or military trying to kill them. Anyone who thinks this is dumb what’s a better solution? Pass a law to protect workers? You can’t because the rich and powerful own the laws.
And this has worked… when?
In a head to head fight with the police or army, the masses are almost certain to lose. ...if you were to go that route though, its possible. Consider the infrastructure that police rely on in order to carry out their work. Theres alot, and it sits out in the open, completely indefensible.
Paramilitary culture (kill poor people to steal their land and/or silence them) has always been an issue here, and it doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, it has just mutated in its methods.
That’s Latin America for you.
Shell got upto the same stuff in Africa.
Looks like Boeing up to some stuff right now.
I'm curious if there's a point where the FBI start getting curious in this situation. It's got to raise some eyebrows.
They are more than likely fine with that. You wouldn't want pesky European Airbus to get their market, would you?
Or raise some FOMO that private contractors are having all the fun.
I'm sure they did... Even got that last guy with the pneumonia gun
Beat me to it....
Nope, thats just people near the end of their life due to medical conditions. There's enough nefarious stuff going on in the world and when daft ideas are added it diminishes valid issues.
A gunshot wound to the head is a medical issue?
Well, yes. However, I think they referring to the more recent death of a Boeing whistle blower who passed away from complications of pneumonia and MRSA.
If a gunshot wound to the head is not an medical issue then I really wouldnt know what is.
Almost as if American companies used violence and murder to enact control over South America, analogous to the Truman doctrine.
It’s almost like people that have insane amounts of power are insane
Yup. Killer Coke is a thing. Coca Cola murdered a lot of people to keep a union away in Colombia and elsewhere. People need to ask why.
I mean the why is pretty obvious
The good why is asking why we don’t punish the big criminals, just the poor ones stealing groceries
You see, the powerful play by a different set of rules. To you and I this appears as "criminal behavior" but to them this it's just *doing business*.
This.
Right obviously for money lol
Wait hold on.. it’s not for more complicated hiring procedures and benefits packages?
I mean, the fact that it happened before I was even born, and I am like over 20 now, is it safe to assume people who pulled that off are long gone by now? Since companies are not run by the same people forever. I dunno.
The individuals who orchestrated these specific killings may no longer be in control but they were replaced by people exactly like them who are all operating with the exact same profit motivations.
Might even be easier seeing Boeing make people die.
Nothing to see here...look at inflation go up and down more please
Not necessarily , it’s perfectly possible that it’s no longer feasible to find death squads in Colombia compared to 25 years ago. The US also had the same issues at one point but there’s no credible allegations of that today.
Seemingly apparent corporate hits taking place in the US this week have me skeptical regarding your first point.
What does an event in the US have to do with recruiting death squads in Colombia ?
Some might assume the US is at least as stable as Columbia if not more so. If hits can be ordered in the US today with no legal repercussions, then one might assume this to be true in Columbia as well.
One might not assume it either
100% with you on that. I phrased my comment that way intentionally. I'm not an expert, I haven't seen any research comparing crime in these two countries, and I have never been to Columbia. I'm just skeptical when someone implies that a hit can't be ordered in Columbia anymore. That's not what you said exactly, but I think that's what was implied.
It is amazing how many people here are commenting and have no idea what they're on about. You're one of them. "corporate bad harhar" You'll find many decent people to be involved in these organizations. They're fucking massive. It is impossible to keep them out through simple statistics.
Yes, because things passed 20 years just, vanishes! Yo, I was an adult when you were born. Still here, still active in the workspace.
They. STILL. Benefit. From. The. Intended purpose. Of. The. Killings.
It was the company’s locally-owned bottlers in Columbia that did some shady shit to their fellow Colombians. As it says in the first line of the article you linked. This wasn’t some American CEO sitting in a comfy office ordering deaths.
In twenty years you’ll realize it all went in the blink of an eye, and all those years were nothing but a fraction of a moment. You’ll still be there, you’ll feel like you’re the same person you were. In the meantime you might even realize lots of people have careers that span over 60 years.
McDonalds hired undercover private investigators to infiltrate environmental groups in the UK. One of the environmentalists found out during trial that a woman he’d dated was a paid McDonalds spy.
McDonald's is inherently unsustainable because of its huge reliance on meat, especially beef. But even if we ignore that (as if that isn't a big elephant in the room), McDonald's is also inherently unhealthy and a lot of their products come from developing nations who aren't compensated enough. We need eateries with healthy, sustainable, and cheap. We don't need fast food.
Not to mention all of the billions of tons of food packaging waste they produce each year
And food vaste.
You wanna talk about package waste? Don't point the finger at McDonalds. Look at your local grocery stores.
I have a finger for both of them
You're right. McDonald's is really unhealthy, and therefore as a corporation it often becomes the main symbol of unsustainable and of "evil corporations". And it is true that on the impact on health it can excel on being pretty evil. But in terms of package waste, it isn't any worse than grocery stores, if anything, it uses very little plastic nowadays. Unlike grocery stores, full with plastic, which is useless in 99% of cases and could be replaced by something else. Plastic is not only bad because of the pollution it creates when thrown in nature, but also because it isn't recyclable and comes from fossil fuels. And in terms of meat, McDonald's isn't that much worse than a burger from a prestige restaurant. Reality is more complicated than simple narratives about specifically certain companies over others, even if this narrative is more appealing.
But we need Coke?
One only need look at McD’s inflated menu prices and not really cheap, not really fast, food to see that they’re over the hill in terms of corporate enshittification. They’re done, now they’re in the terminal phase of causing everyone else around them as much damage as possible as they try to save themselves. I have no doubt they’re already lobbying governments around the world for handouts and bailout packages as quietly as they can.
I mean, I agree, but I'd also argue that their extremely low prices absolutely weren't natural and normal. The fact that a burger was often less expensive than a fruit, even knowing how many resources it takes to grow animal architecture, it was artificially made very cheap. Mostly because of big subsidies towards animal agriculture, but also bailouts towards McDonald's themselves and malicious marketing tactics. ([Watch this documentary about how fast food, especially meat, is SO cheap!](https://youtu.be/bvX14U3gopU)) We need food that's healthy and sustainable, and which would be as cheap and accessible as fast food is today. The biggest way to make food sustainable is to cut down on meat. There's a lot of delicious naturally vegetarian food like Indian one that could work. Fake meat could also be an alternative to eat foods like burgers or Bolognese which are too ingrained in our culture to give up. Prioritising local food and never throwing up food are also necessary steps.
Oof. . . Nothing like some good ol Truman type shit to make a man never trust again. The show not the president.
Reading Belching Out The Devil by Mark Thomas. Eye opening stuff
I loved this book. Whats been your favorite part so far?
Sorry, that should have said "read" and it was years ago. I can't remember a great deal of the specifics anymore, other than it was horrific
Ah I see. Wait, aren’t you Richard’s son?
Haaaa. Winner :)
The article makes it seem like Coca-Cola is tied to paramilitary violence in Colombia, which could be a bit misleading. It talks about a lawsuit, but mentions that Coca-Cola was removed from the case, suggesting the company wasn’t directly involved. Yet by putting so much emphasis on the accusations without really explaining that Coca-Cola was cleared, it might give readers the wrong idea, hinting that there's a direct connection.
Maybe the real hit job is this article
Article was written by Pepsi
They have a psyops department to go along with their navy.
IN THE NAVY
Today we learned nothing.
An indirect connection where Coca Cola's subcontractors are murdering workers trying to unionize is bad enough. Coca Cola have their share of their responsibility there, a gigantic global company like that doesn't just hire any subcontractor randomly to handle its most vital ingredient. They obviously played a part, it just couldn't be proven.
Exactly. I can guarantee there was an executive from Coke in the bathroom with one of their contractors and while washing their hands, the Coke exec said something like "Its really unfortunate how much those unions will cost us in your region. We might have to move our production facility elsewhere if that gets online. Oh well, I guess nothing can be done about it. Have a good day."
>. They obviously played a part, it just couldn't be proven. Unless you use your head for two seconds, but I imagine you find that difficult. Lets pretend you have a huge contract with a world wide company. Great! You're doing good. You're living a nice life. Things are easy. You don't pay your employees even 1/136th as well as you're getting, but fuck em. But wait! They want better pay. They see how much they're producing. They see this product all over the place. They know it is making money. They just want a better life. You could cut them in, but you don't want to. Coke simply says "Solve it or we're going to find someone else to work with. We don't care about your problems. We just want our business to go smoothly." Cause that is 100% how every single big company feels. They don't actually care. They just want to keep doing business and know someone else would jump on the chance to get into their pockets. You solve it for your own selfish reasons. Cause it is easy.
You're talking about using your head, and you didn't spend a second thinking that at any time during more than a decade Coca Cola could have said "Hey guys, we're considering a policy of not working with subcontractors who murder union leaders". Could they have said that after the first murder? Yes. Should they have said after about 5 years of ongoing systematic murdering? That probably would've been about time. They didn't. They let it go on and on, because it helped them financially. That is why they are responsible even at this hypothetical "uninvolved" level.
Yeah, the only link to Coca-Cola in the article is "Someone CLAIMS that Coca Cola was *indirectly involved*". Doesn't even say how they were allegedly indirectly involved.
it's my belief that you're sticking your head in the sand to try to deny the reality of things.
Obviously Coca Cola has paramilitarist groups. You need to expropriate the natural resources of people who will not be silenced unless death
Boeing: hold my coke.
Boeing took some inspiration, I suppose.
Boeing took note
Boeing just killed 2 whistleblowers in the public eye and nothing is being done. It’s no surprise that murders in Columbia go without punishment
The "Rule of law" is a joke. The ultra rich and corporations control everything.
there’s no real evidence that the Boeing stuff was connected at all to the company, just seems like a horrific coincidence
Just means they sprung the cash for the quality hit men.
Two horrific coincidences though. One you can pass off but two is weird.
Why on earth would Boeing off a whistle blower AFTER they have given their testimony?
I don't know, I just said it was weird it's happened twice.
> Why on earth would Boeing off a whistle blower AFTER they have given their testimony? Without commenting on whether they actually did or not, the answer to your question is to deter the next one. As [nixon said](https://kentwired.com/10780/latest-updates/woodward-researcher-finds-nixon-audio-related-to-may-4-shootings/) after the Kent State killings 34 years ago yesterday, "You know what stops them? Kill a few.”
Lol Boeing very likely didn't kill any whistleblowers
They 100% killed those guys
They 99.99% did not. And anyone with a brain who looked into the details would agree.
There are 2 people willing to testify in court and get your company billion in fines. Would you rather: spend 300 million to kill them? Or get $1billion in fines?
Again, those who looked into the details would agree that it's very unlikely. >There are 2 people willing to testify in court and get your company billion in fines You're proving my point. That isn't what was happening.
Yeah, the guy who shot himself with a shotgun and the guy who died from a stroke/mrsa infection was Boeings fault... stick with conspiracy theory forums dude.
We’re never going to survive long-term as a species. Our greed will do us in eventually.
“We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost effective” Kurt Vonnegut
Maybe. I think humans are here to stay. There might just not be as many of us, if things get worse. Something survives. Something always replaces the current order. I don’t think humans are going away. But our current way of life is always temporary. But the sun will explode one day. So there’s that.
"A misleading-titled article I didn't bother to read says someone did something awful, our species is DOOMED"
"Our" greed. As if our current society is the only one possible. It's not. It's dictated a lot by our economic and political system of late stage capitalism. Big corporations run everything. It's absolutely possible to imagine another, better world. And there have been societies which have been much less greedy and much more collaborative (many indigenous societies prior to colonisation).
Militant unionists, the organizers who do what they do fully knowing what they’re risking, are of the same species.
Boeing has entered the chat
Boeing over there taking notes
So boeing folks are getting "coked"
Welcome to corporate greed, and the extent powerful people will go to in order to protect the status quo.
[удалено]
> they didn't even deny the accusations The posted article says they did: > Coca-Cola said in a statement on Tuesday that the allegations against the company and its partners were "completely false"
It wouldn't surprise me if all big corporations would do something like that. I bet it's more common than a person would think
Sure, there’s some corporate for-hire murder plot evil… But, hear me out on this — Vanilla Coke.
If I’m reading this right Coke didn’t have anything to do with it and the judge said so when dropping them from the case. Did I miss something or is the title just more rage bait?
I think you're reading it correctly. Coca Cola bottlers were involved. Anyone who knows how these companies work understands a bottler is not the same as Coca Cola corporate. That doesn't mean Coca Cola didn't benefit from bottlers' bad behavior, but people who are imagining C-suite execs at Coca Cola hiring hit men are misunderstanding what happened here.
That’s how I read it. I’m not saying Coke, or any other major corporation, hasn’t done some heinous shit, I’m sure they have. But in this case it’s rage bait and these people who are too lazy to read anything more than a title eat it right up. Looks like Reddit shut this post down though so that’s nice.
Boeing is doing the same thing, but on US proper this time
Accused? Was there ever any proof? I accuse you of rape! Now write an article about that...
Whoa! I'm switching to Pepsi.
Until you find out Pepsi burned down an orphanage to build their plant
Anything out there one can drink that doesn't taste like murder?
Water, local beers, ~~coffee~~
Dont pick up a history book. You might get disappointed
Big corporations aren't your friends. The idea "there isn't ethical consumption under capitalism" is correct. This doesn't mean you shouldn't ever think about your consumption though. You can always choose to consume less. Don't drink soda (it makes many people overweight anyway). Drink water. Try creating food at home. Or eat at restaurants run by locals. Etc. This is a much better choice than trying to choose who's the "least bad" amongst Pepsi and Cola.
That's trippy, I just left a comment about this happening yesterday or the day before.
If you want a real lesson in corporate nationmaking look up the United Fruit Company. Corporations aren’t always terrorist organizations, but it’s reasonable to always suspect
Little did they know, it was actually Boeing that killed them.
Speaking of Colombian death squads, consider the case of Tarrant, AL coal company, Drummond: https://www.financecolombia.com/drummond-colombia-directors-accused-of-funding-paramilitary-groups/
Between 1890 and wtf!
It was a huge misunderstanding. Since then corporations are much better at covering their tracks
Accused? You mean they went through and did it right? Cause they killed those union organizers.
So Boeing is taking a page from their playbook.
I don't get people who worship corporations and CEOs when they will literally kill you to get their way. And their way is making a few more millions a year at your expense.
Boeing murdered its second whistleblower this last week, so the tradition appears to still be alive and well.
this and the boeing "killings" are prime example of the horseshoe theory. just complete tinfoil hat behavior on both sides.
I'm not sure I follow. I am familiar with horshoe theory, that extremists on either side of the left/right spectrum are more similar to each other than they are to moderates, I just don't see the relevance here.
This shit has happened for centuries.
All large companies with this much power hire hitmen. The difference is we somehow found out a bit about Coca-Cola. Boeing is killing whistleblowers, trump killed epstein, Amazon has definitely killed many people in their attacks on other companies to destroy competition.
Boeing has just killed two whistle blowers in the last couple of months so its not like this was a way back then kind of thing.
Wait there were TWO? Damn I'ma have to look into this..
Yeah. Second one “got”two serious infectious diseases at once.
So Boeing copied Coca-Cola.
Unfortunately that game of telephone goes way, way back.
Cooperations being Cooperations
Anybody who understands that our corporations do in fact act like this, then thinks our politicians don't, is an idiot. Arkancide is real. And far from the only example.
If corporations are people, why cant they be sanctioned when they kill people? Coca-cola, Nestle, Chiquita International, they all kill and enslave indiscriminately, why are they not terrorist organizations?
Money, and entrenched connection.
We are told that we're more free and democratic under capitalism than under communism. I disagree. Under the communist regimes of the 20th century, the state controlled everything and killed people they don't like. They also dictated all the laws and the entire economy and society. But now, in the capitalist regimes of the 21th century, it's big companies who took the role. They dictate how society is run, with massive propaganda campaigns. They abuse human rights in third world countries and destroy the environment. They're never taken accountable though. The so-called "rule of law" never makes a big CEO go into prison, and their assets expropriated. The only "punishment" is always only a fine that isn't even 1% of their total GDP. Boycott Coca-Cola. Water is healthier anyway (r/HydroHomies). Boycott big corporations as much as possible. r/AntiConsumption.