Reading time – 77 seconds . . .
The Coca-Cola company wants you to know that if 
you drink Cokes, amazingly wonderful things will happen for you. Pepsico wants you to know the same thing, but assures you that it has to be Pepsi. And both of these companies want you to know what really great guys they are, so they promote STEM learning and women’s empowerment and other good causes. These companies and their lobbying organization, the American Beverage Association, care deeply about your health, so much so that from 2011 – 2015 they contributed to at least 96 health organizations. That sure makes them look like great guys. And they’re pretty good at making themselves look blameless for anything other than good times, too.
According to a report released by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, while those companies were doing their supporting of good causes, they were spending $10 million per year lobbying to defeat legislation – 29 bills – designed to curb the sugar consumption that comes from the soft drinks we consume, the very stuff that is responsible for about half of the obesity in America.
Let’s see . . . they make it look like they care about you and your health and then make sure that their advertising skewers you with implied promises that you’ll be lovely and be loved, that you’ll be forever young and beautiful and that life will be a joy, if only you’ll drink their bottles of sugar water. And they put their money into making sure that they maintain their God-given right to ensure there is never any legislation that would allow you to know the actual, fact-based truth. Sorry, but more sugar will not make your life eternally wonderful. It will just make you fat.
In case you’re the kind of person who thinks that we really do have a fat problem in America and you believe that we ought to do something about it besides imagine that people will somehow magically and consistently make nothing but good choices for themselves, in case you think that product labeling of the things you consume is a good thing, in case you want government that works for the people, the truth is that
YOU AREN’T GETTING WHAT YOU WANT!
And you can trace that to our pay-for-play system of government that allows $10 million per year to prevent you from knowing what you’re consuming and what it does to you. If you want to start getting what you want, you better stop voting for people who like things the way they are. You better start electing reformers.
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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.
YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage. Thanks! JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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4 Responses to What Do You Want?
John Calia October 14, 2016
I stopped drinking soft drinks about 40 years ago. It is an option available to all. We don’t need new laws to protect us from our own stupidity.
Jack Altschuler October 14, 2016
Not sure about that, John. If people want to kill themselves with sugar, I suppose that’s their business. The problem is that you and I are paying for the enormous healthcare bill of the obese in this country. So, however inelegant this is to say, laws to protect the obese from their self-destructiveness are also laws to protect the financial welfare of all the rest of us. That’s a peculiar discussion, to be sure, and it’s not clear that we should be protecting people from themselves (think: smokers, those who refuse to wear a seatbelt or vaccinate their children, etc.).
On the other hand, we do have laws against suicide.
Note, though, that my main point is that the vast majority of the American people want changes regarding food labeling. We aren’t getting that because of the big money that pollutes our politics.
Joni Lindgren October 13, 2016
Nestle, Coca Cola and Pepsi have been privatizing springs, up stream water run-offs from the mountains and underground aquifers WITHOUT PERMITS for 28 YEARS!. Recently, a California judge ruled that Nestle can continue to help themselves to the water while the people of California are in a severe drought and have been rationing their water use. Nestle is privatizing water in Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Connecticut as well. Wonder what the people will do when water runs out of their shower heads in dribbles? This illustrates another corporate PAY-OFF to get what they want.
OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED BEFORE EVERY DROP OF OUR RESOURCES ARE GONE!
Jim Altschuler October 13, 2016
Isn’t it amazing how similar Coke & Pepsi are to other things in our lives?
They tell you what they think you want to hear.
They promise you the moon … and the stars … and the best life possible.
They have all the answers to all of your questions.
They say there are no ill effects from their products or policies.
They DON’T tell you about their foibles and failures:
you have to remember the Coke reformulation fiasco;
you have to discover how they’ve screwed up;
you have to find the media reports about those sugar quantities and their impact on your body;
This all seems so similar to other things going on in our lives, doesn’t it?