Friday, January 23, 2009

Killer Coke


Corporations hate unions. After reading from the website killercoke.org, I am shocked to learn of the indifference to the safety of workers who bottle Coca-Cola products. There are undisputed reports that Coca-Cola bottling plant managers in Colombia, South America, allowed and encouraged paramilitary death squads to murder, torture and kidnap SINALTRAINAL leaders and members in an effort to crush their union.

Union leaders at Coca-Cola's Colombian bottling plants have been murdered. Hundreds of other Coke workers have been tortured, kidnapped and/or illegally detained by violent paramilitaries, often working closely with plant managements.

Aspartame is the dangerous artificial sweetner used in Diet Coke. An examination of Aspartame, its history and its effects, is enough to shock anyone into really looking at their food labels next time they shop. Aspartame is a toxic food that came into the world as an investment by Donald Rumsfeld, while ignoring the deadly effects the tests showed. Reading all the stuff about aspartame could make your head explode. But what convinced me that aspartame is not safe are not just the studies that have found its link to cancer but also the efforts of Donald Rumsfield and Searle/Monsanto in ramming this product down our throats. Monsanto, as you know, is the world's leading producer of genetically modified products - another innovation that many are convinced has already wrought havoc on human life and the ecosystem - and uses not just money and influence but also threat and intimidation on those who go against it, as a Vanity Fair investigative report makes clear. Indeed, Monsanto's track record alone is enough to convince me that this product can kill.

The Coca-Cola Company has recently come under fire by the Food and Drug Administration for its reluctance to disclose exactly what the "Plus" in Diet Coke Plus really means. For starters, the FDA isn't exactly thrilled with the concept of fortifying an unhealthy snack drink. Couple that with the fact that the amount of vitamins and minerals added to Diet Coke Plus remains somewhat vague, and it becomes clear why the FDA deemed it appropriate to step in.

Residents living around Coca-Cola's bottling plant in Kala Dera, near Jaipur in Rajasthan, India marched and rallied demanding the closure of the bottling plant. Nearly 60 villages surrounding Coca-Cola's bottling plant in Kala Dera have complained of severe water shortages since the bottling plant began operations in the area.

The Coca-Cola company is also the target of intense community campaigns in Mehdiganj and Kala Dera in India for creating water shortages and pollution. The company was forced to agree to an assessment of its bottling operations in India as a result of a sustained international campaign. The assessment, released in January 2008, was a damning indictment of Coca-Cola's water management practices in India. The assessment recommends that Coca-Cola shut down its bottling plant in Kala Dera because the plant contributes significantly to water shortages in the area.

The council of Colombian capital Bogota fined the local unit of Mexico-based soft-drink bottler Coca-Cola Femsa SA (KOF) 201 million Colombian pesos, or about $110,000, for dumping industrial waste waters in marshes located in the city's outskirts...The council's environment secretary's office said Femsa had been polluting the wetlands with industrial waste waters since 2006.........(excerpts from killercoke.org)

This is a list of Coca-Cola products.

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