Real gold winners: Coke, McDonald
By
Saul Landau Read Spanish Version
In
776BC, the Greeks first allegedly celebrated physical beauty
alongside skill, courage, strength and will. The ethical character of
their naked athletes would honor Zeus, top dog in the pantheon of
Gods. Slaves did not qualify, of course, but Greek rulers offered an
olive crown — peace — to the ancient equivalent of today’s metal
medal winners. During the games, warring nations took a time-out. The
TV competitor for the 2008 games featured war between Russia and
Georgia. But the Olympic charter still calls for “sport at the
service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to
promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human
dignity.”
The
Beijing Olympics proved Chinese leaders could orchestrate a show
(harmonious development?), something foreign investors presumably
want. Like the government, investors don’t care about “promoting
a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”
The beautiful and the good in the globalized corporate economy mean
profits made by displaying athletes as promotional actors.
If
the world’s fastest man — Usain Bolt — gobbles chicken nuggets
before his big race, why doesn’t it work on me? Indeed, the
ubiquitous TV commercials interrupted athletic contests to assure
viewers of their inadequacies. Not only can’t we do eight flips and
six twists and not make a splash after diving from a forty foot
platform, but we don’t get proper pleasure, sexual satisfaction,
vibrations of pride, prestige, power, status and honorific deference
that come from owning an SUV or eating a Big Mac.
The
formidable opening and closing spectacle and superb Chinese athletes
announced to the world: “We have arrived.” The Chinese proved
their competitive Olympic worthiness by spending immense amounts of
money to train children to win medals (glory) while U.S. commentators
boasted that 100 million Chinese now play the stock market. A real
show of strength!
As
“history” was being made in Beijing on the track and in the pool,
Coca Cola, in a display of chutzpah that no TV commentator noted,
claimed “sponsorship” of the events. Did no one notice the
incongruity between “proud” Coca Cola, a dubious beverage from a
nutritional standpoint, and the athletes who spoke for it, those who
supposedly epitomize all that’s healthy including diets?
Miniature
— supposedly 16-years-old — Shawn Johnson, gold medalist in balance
beam, smiled, but didn’t get a speaking role in the Coke
commercial. What could she have said: “In all honesty, drinking
this sweetened bilge begets no nutritional value, will remove the
paint from your car and makes me richer.” In other words, unlike
the Greek ideal, modern Olympians don’t deal in truth or honesty;
nor do the games show the spirit of good sportsmanship. Corrupt
judges! Athletes kicking them!
This
international summit of great athletes relates to the promotion of
commerce. Coca
Cola, for example, has no interest in fair play or honest
competition; yet, it has “sponsored” every previous Olympics
since 1928. CEO Neville Isdell explained in an interview with CNBC:
“Carbonated soft drink consumption in China will rise to 150 eight
ounce serving per capita each year.
“Sponsoring
the Beijing Olympic Games will give his firm the world’s biggest
marketing stage,” Isdell continued, “in the biggest potential
market.” Ah the thrill of sports! (Thomas
Wilkins, Chinastakes.com Aug 10)
The
games had become a business before Coke paid little Shawn Johnson to
push its non nutritional beverage in the name of wholesomeness. Avery
Brundage symbolized Olympic values. As head of the USOC in 1936, this
fascist businessman showed his ethics by refusing to even entertain a
boycott of U.S. athletes as Hitler not only excluded German Jews from
competing, but persecuted them in all areas of life. The two U.S.
Jews in the 400 meter race, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, got
removed from the 400 meter race. Glickman suspected Brundage had done
this. Brundage’s ass kissing Der Fuhrer at the games paid off. In
1938, the Avery Brundage Company “won” a contract to build the
German Embassy in Washington. Nazi authorities even acknowledged in a
letter that they appreciated his pro-Nazi sympathies. As late as
1941, Brundage made a pro Hitler speech in New York. No matter! The
unrepentant Brundage rose to become International Olympic Committee
vice president in 1945 and president in 1952. In 1971, after
historians had revealed documents showing how Hitler used the 1936
Olympics for propaganda, Brundage still insisted: “The Berlin Games
were the finest in modern history.”
Brundage
could have belonged to the Bush family. George W. Bush’s
grandfather, the late U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, held major shares
in companies that profited from involvement with the financial
backers of Nazi Germany. National Archives’ documents reveal that
Prescott Bush directed a company deeply linked to the Nazi elite.
Prescott maintained his connections until 1942,
when his company assets were seized under the Trading with the Enemy
Act.
Like
the Bush family, Brundage’s ethics involved profiting from Nazi
connections. Brundage also had trouble with non-whites. He adamantly
opposed restoring Jim Thorpe’s 1912 gold medal because the Native
American had played pro baseball before racing in the Olympics —
where, coincidentally, he beat Brundage in two events. Indeed,
Brundage had ratted to the IOC about Thorpe’s brief baseball
career. Brundage also felt “fed up to the ears with women as track
and field competitors… her charms sink to something less than zero.
As swimmers and divers, girls are [as] beautiful and adroit as they
are ineffective and unpleasing on the track.” (Andrew Postman,
The
Ultimate Book of Sports Lists,
1990)
Likewise,
Brundage detested the 1968 Olympics drama in Mexico City, when during
the medal ceremony winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised fists
to show support for Black Power. Brundage spitefully suspended them
from the team.
In
1972, Palestinian guerrillas of Black September seized and then
killed 11 Israeli athletes during the Munich games. Brundage demanded
proper priorities. The games must continue. A few athletes withdrew
and competition did stop — for one day. At a memorial service of
eighty thousand spectators and three thousand athletes, Brundage
“mourn[ed] our Israeli friends.” But, he insisted, “sadly, in
this imperfect world, the greater and the more important the Olympic
Games become, the more they are open to commercial, political, and
now criminal pressure. The Games of the XXth Olympiad have been
subject to two savage attacks. We lost the Rhodesian battle against
naked political blackmail. I am sure that the public will agree that
we cannot allow a handful of terrorists to destroy this nucleus of
international cooperation and goodwill we have in the Olympic
movement. The Games must go on….”
The
Olympics Committee expelled Rhodesia because it practiced racial
segregation, hardly comparable to fanatic Palestinians dramatizing
their plight! After the attacks in Munich, however, Brundage linked
the assassinations of the Israeli athletes and the expulsion of
Rhodesia as similar examples of political interference in his games.
The Olympics uber alles!
Brundage’s
reality reigned
in
Beijing’s Olympic village where McDonald’s and KFC set up shops.
Ah the publicity when Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, downed
chicken nuggets an hour before breaking the world speed record. “Hey
kids, before your next big race, crucial exam, or maybe sex for the
first time, you know what to eat and where!”
In
the pre Olympic promotions, between July
1-12
Coca-Cola and McDonald’s captured the most media coverage of all 12
Beijing Olympics’ sponsors. (Dow-Jones Insight—2008 Olympics
Media Pulse)
When
the thrills and chills faded, Coke chief Isdell’s
smile remained. He expected a
six-fold growth in China, already the fourth-largest consumer of the
largest beverage company’s 450 sparkling and dull brands — like
Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite and Minute Maid. Coca Cola products reach
unlucky consumers in 200 countries, who daily drink 1.5 billion cans
or bottles. That’s an Olympic record! Now everyone can understand
‘Live Olympic on the Coke Side of Life,’ the slogan for Beijing
2008.
Isdell
told the BBC that the firm supported the “credo of the Olympic
movement.” Had he been in charge of Coca-Cola in 1936, Chairman and
CEO Isdell said, he would have also sponsored the 1936 Games in
Berlin. “Let me be clear,” Isdell told the Financial
Times,
“We would ask those groups and individuals to find a way to use the
openness of the Olympics in a positive way, rather than to attack and
undermine one of the world’s last remaining unifying events.”
(financial.express.com)
April 30, 2008) Unification means Coca Cola sells more sweetened
sewer water and taps drying water reserves in rural India.
In
the Olympics, viewers watched young people run and swim, coordinate
their bodies while fans screamed “USA! USA!” Wholesome and
unifying values? The 2008 Olympics symbolized the triumph of
corporate globalization in a nation still officially ruled by a
Communist Party. Another end of history?
For
Saul Landau films on DVD go to roundworldproductions.com.
