4A -The Michigan Daily - Monday, January 9, 2006 OPINION itbe aMibiwn * rntg JASON Z. PESICK Editor in Chief SUHAEL MOMIN SAM SINGER Editorial Page Editors ALISON Go Managing Editor EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their author. NOTABLE QUOTABLE I have always acted in an ethical manner. - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) in an announcement Saturday saying he does not plan to con- tinue in his House leadership position, as reported yesterday by FOXnews.com. KATIE GARLINGHOUSE l o Usr: ARREST WOW. .4hc.M Jo mm vupu a The politics of Coke SUHAEL MOMIN N) SUIRRENDER T o be entirely honest, I didn't really take the Coke people seriously. Along with the majority of students on campus, I was often indifferent toward the efforts of the "Coalition to Cut the Contract with Coca- Cola." Indeed, there's no need for the past tense: I still don't care too much. Even if the University doesn't serve Coke, each one of the 27-odd Jimmy John's stores in the square mile around Central Campus still does. The Uni- versity can cut its contract, the CCCCC crowd can claim its symbolic victory for human rights and I (along with every other University affiliate) can still savor my favorite fizzy drink. Call me what- ever you want, but I just can't get excited about carbonated water. Righteous indignation has erupted, how- ever, from the conservative corner. A Michi- gan Review editor wrote on his publication's weblog: "The administration has succumbed to radical causes, leaving students who would just like a bottle of Sprite to walk across cam- pus in the cold to enjoy a single beverage." A reader posting feedback to the original Daily news story on this issue ('U' to suspend Coke contract in milestone decision, 12/29/2005) wrote: "The Coke Coalition doesn't seem to focus too much on what they claim the problem is, instead it just sounds like they have some kind of vendetta against Coke. Worry about something more important like your grades or your girl/boyfriend and stop trying to make an utterly useless attempt to change the world." Like I said, I'm not really passionate about the Coke issue. But I am following it fairly closely, and it seems to me like the explosion from the campus Right has less to do with the defamation of Coke and far more to do with a preconceived hostility toward student - and especially liberal - activism. The complaint emanating from conservatives is yet another permutation of a tried-and-retried mantra: Those liberal anti-corporate socialist hippies are at it again; (insert target here) is the victim of rich kids who don't have to worry about nor- mal concerns, don't understand the real world and are making everyone suffer as a result. The reaction to the University's decision isn't a carefully constructed, intellectual response - it is, by and large, a knee-jerk reaction against progressive activism. It isn't hard to support the. suggestion that campus conservatives don't like student activism. Last year, the Review attempted to enlighten misguided activists with a edito- rial suggesting students should focus on direct action through service groups like K-Grams and The Detroit Project instead of activism. "It is interesting to consider," the paper wrote, "how large an impact these groups make in people's lives versus left-wing groups like the Defend Affirmative Action Party and Anti- War Action!, which spout off liberal rhetoric and fail to do anything tangible for the people who they claim are oppressed." Wow. Service-oriented groups do more community service than those oriented toward political action? That isn't insightful analysis; it's a bad argument for the preconceived notion that student activism is useless. (More amus- ingly, it's also an argument against editorial pages: What's the point of wasting money to print pages filled with rhetoric when it is so much more productive to donate it to charity?) With a prejudice against student activism, it's not hard to see why the University's conser- vative corner is mad that the Coke Coalition pressured the University into killing its Coke contract. So, while I'm not passionate about the Coke issue, I am annoyed that the conserva- tive response, often coming from a point of condescension, is motivated not by analysis of the facts, but by the holier-than-thou belief that campus liberals need to find real causes. The Coke Coalition found a real cause - the University's own Dispute Review Board found the accusations against Coke to be plausible - and pushed the University to uphold its Vendor Code of Conduct. The Coke contract dispute isn't a case of off-their-rockers liberal activists harassing the University into taking action. Accusing successful activists of being out-of-touch and radical isn't wise or enlightened, it's whiny. Yeah, there may be very serious implications for Michigan workers. And it may be entirely true that Coke subsidiaries, not the corpora- tion, engaged in questionable labor practices. But raising these concerns ex post and pontifi- cating from a position of superiority that lib- erals don't understand the big picture doesn't highlight the supremacy of conservatism, it begs the question: Why didn't vocal campus conservatives voice these concerns earlier? Perhaps because it's easier to bitch about liberal activism, to denounce it as extreme and discon- nected, to scoff at it condescendingly than it actu- ally fight against it. Momin can be reached at smomin@umich.edu. VIEWPOINT Coca-Cola is responsible for the abuse 0I By SAYAN BHATTACHARYYA In his viewpoint Coke killers miss the mark (01/06/2006), Mark Kuehn argues that criti- cism directed at the Coca-Cola Company for the alleged abuse (including allegations of murder) of workers and union leaders in Coca- Coca bottling plants in Colombia is misdirect- ed because these plants are not directly owned by Coca-Cola. What is the relationship of Coca-Cola to these allegations? There is a news report from July 20, 2001, filed by Jim Lobe of the news agency Inter Press Service (IPS), which seems relevant. (The full text of this fasci- nating report from IPS is available online at: www.commondreams.org/headlines0l/0720- 01.htm) Lobe writes that, in a lawsuit in Miami against Coca-Cola for killing union leaders at the Carepa bottling plant in Colombia, the plaintiffs have charged Coca-Cola with failing to prevent its bottler from bringing in death squads. According to IPS, the bottling compa- nies themselves - Bebidas y Alimentos and Miami-based Panamco - are also named as defendants in this lawsuit. On May 6, 2003, Panamco was acquired by the company Coca- Cola FEMSA, according to a report on FEM- SA's website. The IPS newsreport says that "at the Carepa bottling plant ... paramilitary forces murdered two activists in April 1994 and then were invit- ed by management at Bebidos y Alimentos to come onto the premises to threaten other mem- bers of the local SINALTRAINAL (the work- ers' union) leadership ... Management hired members of the paramilitaries ... They carried out a campaign of intimidation that included death threats against specific board members and culminated in the murder inside the plant of Isidro Segundo Gil in Dec. 1996." Dan Kovalik, a lawyer, is quoted in the report as stating that the union had repeatedly asked Coca-Cola Colombia and the bottling compa- ny's management for protection, but that "Coke did nothing." In all these cases, according to Terry Collingsworth, another lawyer quoted in the IPS report, the bottlers effectively acted as Coca-Cola's agent due to the degree of control that Coca-Cola exercised over their operations under the bottling contract. "We are confident that if any of these plants make a mistake in applying Coca-Cola's formula or in deliver- ing Coke, (Coke) would be there to correct it," Kovalik is quoted as saying, "but in cases where they kill union leaders, they do nothing." It is noteworthy that, in Coca-Cola's negotia- tions concerning the suggestion by a multi-uni- versity consortium of which the University is a part that Coca-Cola be independently inves- tigated, Coca-Cola has sought that nothing uncovered in the independent investigation be used against Coca Cola in the ongoing lawsuit against the company. An analogy might help to understand the University's response. When a University defensive tackle was suspected of indecent exposure more than a year ago, this suspicion was universally held by the University to be damaging enough to its reputation that the tackle was dropped from the team, even while investigations were ongoing. His case was brought to trial only recently. This was the right thing for the University to have done. Everyone, including Coca-Cola and the football player, has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty. But playing foot- ball for the University - or selling soda at the University - is a privilege and not a right. The University ought to revoke that privilege even if investigations or trials are continuing. In a Dec. 29 press release, the University stated: "Based upon Coca-Cola's inability to cooperate with a third-party, independent review of bottling plants in Colombia, the University is unable to resolve concerns about the company's compli- ance with (the University's own) Vendor Code of Conduct." In each case, the University found evidence that the suspected party (the defensive tackle and the Coca-Cola company) may have violated the University's code of conduct. As the University states in its press release, "the Dispute Review Board found evidence that Coca-Cola may have violated standards of the University's Vendor Code of Conduct." Under the circumstances, I do not think the University had any ethical choice but to suspend the con- tract, just as it had no choice but to suspend the football player. Bhattacharyya is a Rackham student. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Reader wants everyone to read MCRI for themselves To THE DAILY: The Daily editorial Affirm Affirmative Action (01/06/2006) makes grossly wrong claims about the opponents of MCRI, as well as the challenges against the initia- tive. The editorial stated that many groups have filed voter fraud complaints, but this is false. The highly violent, radical and frankly frightening organization BAMN the Civil Rights Amendment. I encourage everyone to read the initiative for himself, and stop listening to the biased and igno- rant opinions made against it. Alanna Holt LSA sophomore Review of "Munich" didn't focus on terror Israelis faced To THE DAILY: murder committed against innocents. A scene from the film tells us that the differ- ence between a civilian and a soldier is that one is holding a gun. The athletes certainly were unarmed civilians. Phrases used in the review, such as "a mission to hunt down and kill the men," "a band of Palestinian nation- als" and "freedom of Palestinian prisoners of war," all miss one key word: terrorists. Call them what they are. Also, how about mentioning the humanity of the "assassins?" For example, how quick- Editorial Board Members: Amy Anspach, Andrew Bielak, Reggie Brown, Gabrielle D'Angelo, John Davis, Whitney Dibo, Milly Dick, Sara Eber, Jesse Forester, Mara Gay, Jared Goldberg, Ashwin Jagannathan, Theresa Kennelly, Mark Kuehn, Will Kerridge, Frank Manley, Kirsty McNamara, Rajiv Prabhakar, Matt Rose, David Russell, Katherine Seid, Brian Slade, Imran Syed, Ben Taylor, Jessica Teng.