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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
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Wednesday, May 29, 2002
13:34 - Speaking of McDonalds and Coca-Cola...

(top) link
I was just thinking-- wouldn't it be bizarre to be the VP in charge of international expansion at one of these hated bastions of capitalism?

What must it be like to know that the product you make or the company you represent-- and the policies over which you yourself have control-- are symbols burning in the minds of the 19 who flew the planes in September and their compatriots who continue to skulk in Paktia?

What would you do if you were handed a proposal from your field research teams discussing the opportunities for expansion of McDonald's into Saudi Arabia or Iran?

At the "World of Coca-Cola" museum in Atlanta, which I visited (by chance) in the week following 9/11, they had a movie proudly showing all the different countries into which the Coca-Cola Company sells its products, and all the different ways the bottles and cans get to the smiling faces of the people-- by rickety van, by river punt, by bicycle cart, by rickshaw, by towering backpack. The crowds of villagers would always come running and swarm in a cheering, ecstatic mass as the Coke arrived. They would all down their bottles of carbonated sugar syrup with the relish of wanderers in the desert who had just crested a dune and stumbled into a suburban swimming pool.

Perhaps reveling in the global ubiquity of American brands, seeing the happy third-world consumption of our exported hip culture, is not quite the heartwarming Sunday family event anymore that it always has been. I know it felt awfully weird to me, that mid-September day.

I'd say it must be even less fun to be the person in charge of finding new cultures into which to insert our memes than it is to be President right now. And if it were up to me to sign a paper which would probably net the Company an extra few percent of revenue each year, but that would give the Islamic terrorists that much more reason to resent our success in their own backyards-- well, I'd make myself a flaming paper airplane.

I'm not against globalization. I think McDonald's is a fine thing to have in Afghanistan and Sudan, if the people want it there. (If they don't, maybe they shouldn't be clamoring for it to come there, then.) What McDonald's lacks in soul it makes up in the ability to provide cheap, clean food to a population that doesn't necessarily have a guarantee of those things.

I just think the roles of these companies in directly influencing world affairs and the motivations of our enemies isn't getting a whole lot of play in the public eye these days, and perhaps it should.

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© Brian Tiemann