Coke: What Would Jesus Do?

No no no...I'm not talking about our lord and saviour snorting white powder. I'm talking about the oh so tasty beverage. Believe me, the second sentence is sincere. I love the taste of Coke, that is, if I can manage to remove the foul taste of death and torture from my mouth while sloshing it down. With the recent murder of the lead organizer in Coke's subcontracted bottling factories in Colombia, Coca Cola's recent threat to suppress the free speech of an artist in India who has "painted the truth" about the company, and the present "morality"-driven political climate in the US, the call to investigate Coke and the free-market should sound even stronger than before.

Before you read on, please realize that I'm not claiming to be perfect. I support my unfair share of sweatshop and unethical products every day. Not only is it difficult not to support unethical products just by living in the US, I also sometimes compromise my values and go for the unnecessary chocolate bar that isn't fair trade, or what have you. However, what I am saying, is that we can do our best to minimize our support for such practices, support some fair trade businesses some of the time (and conservatives should love this market driven solution), and educate ourselves and take informed, appropriate, non-violent political action to change the world we live in, such as pressuring our politicians into regulating businesses only to the extent that they are acting ethically. I recognize the potential of market-based competition, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the global capitalist system in general. However, there are downsides. Businesses have simply proven over and over again that, while they are willing to act ethically in many regards, they are also willing to actively pursue large scale, unethical practices that hurt many people, particularly the poor and otherwise disadvantaged. So, we must show them how to act correctly, monitor them to the extent necessary, and take away the latitude they have consistently abused. It's been done many times successfully before; we can do it again.

Regardless of our religious, political, or economic views, we must face the moral cost of our Coca Cola and other unethical products. What are they worth to us? Will we help fund the sacrifice of children's, women's, and adult's rights so we can have a drink or shirt we like? Will we pay the price of labor organizers' lives for the caffeine kick or the latest trend? We have to ask ourselves these important questions, and then do something about it. These questions should be especially salient to Christians, who have faith in what they view as a "truth" or morally higher way of life. Yet, many of those same people will cast aside the immorality of supporting sweatshop labor, or almost as worse, refuse to read about issues that might cause them moral dilemmas and go on supporting them all the while.

Large groups of conservative Christians, although certainly not all Christians nor even all conservative Christians, brought great political power to the last presidential election. They strove to define morality in their terms, and over 20% of Bush's voters cited this version of "morality" as a main reason for voting for Bush. But the issue of Coke, or many other sweatshop products such as chocolate, clothes, and diamonds for that matter, are exactly the type of issues that should be especially important to anyone who claims to care about a higher morality, the sanctity of life, family values, and many other issues. A person who claims to be pro-life and pro-family, but then buys a Coke or another product and thus supports forced abortions in sweatshops, murder of protestors and organizers, the destruction of families from sweatshop labor, and a number of other atrocities, is a person who is compromising their values. Indeed, a largely unregulated economic system, strongly supported by Bush and many of his supporters, is a prime reason for the compromising of such values.

Some individuals did not have enough information to know they were compromising their values by voting for Bush, and indeed, some people may be forming counter arguments as they read this. After all, I'm not presenting any facts here, just opinion. It's fine to argue, but I've talked to so many people who can't tell me the first thing about sweatshops, or even know that they exist, and they claim to be moderate, rational, and fair in their arguments. How can you be any of those with such massively incomplete information? I recognize I still have much to learn about economic systems, but I have learned enough to see their impacts on people and can make a moderate, fair, and rational argument for why they should be regulated to the extent necessary to insure basic human rights. Many inviduals ignored moral inconsistencies and willingly compromised their values to vote for Bush. Many others were given introductory information about the ramifications of Bush's free market ideology, weak support for an argument of a "just" Iraq war, and views on the environment, but based on assumptions or an unwillingness to learn more, avoided information that would let them know they were compromising their values. These individuals are just as guilty as those who willingly compromised them.

What Bush-voters should have done, if they were really anti-abortion, for example, would have been to write in a candidate who was both pro-life and who woudl actively pursue business regulations to stop sweatshop factories from forcing young girls into abortions (or from being required to take birth control for that matter). That would have been sticking to values. A person who compromised their values and voted for Bush based on religious reasons, but ignored Bush's numerous contributions to the degredation of "God's people and Earth," have no moral or even logical religious ground for their vote in my eyes.

Could you imagine Jesus justifying a vote for Bush like so many other people did?

"I'll vote for Bush because he is against abortion. Even though his preferred economic and political systems will let businesses sacrifice the rights and lives of many people, those links are more indirect than abortion so it's ok to let them slide."

And if you can imagine that, which must be pretty difficult, could you further imagine that Jesus would not say anything about Bush's practices and policies after the election was over? How many people who voted for Bush are willing to stand up and oppose sweatshops and fight for the rights of those who are most exploited in our world? Jesus supposedly gave his life for the sins of all humankind, but how many people in your church are willing to do something as simple as buying fair trade, boycotting a sweatshop company, writing a letter to those companies or our government officials, or put the time and effort into reading about these issues so they can take other appropriate action to stand up for what is so obviously right?

Finally, could you imagine Jesus saying this?:
"Eh...I'm only one person. I don't really think my actions will make much of a difference. I know it's wrong, but I'll just buy the Coke."

If you have questions about things you can do, please ask me and I'll do my best to share my limited knowledge with you, or to point you in a direction that will be able to help you more. Thanks for reading. Comments welcome.