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Sunday, April 11, 2004
Giblets has listened to a lot of people whine and complain about the so-called American institutions that're under so-called attack, like "marriage" and "civil liberties" and "the right to vote." Giblets would like to believe he has treated this piffle with the appropriate level of screeching disdain. But lately a true bastion of Western civilization has come under fire and Giblets will be damned if he will stand there and let Coca-Cola be abused like this.
Belle Waring of the blog John & Belle Have a Blog has used a lame argument about "oooh, oooh, agribusiness subsidies are huge corrupt and bad" to take a swipe at her real target: the enduring American institution that is Coke. She argues that Big Agribusiness's replacement of sugar with high fructose corn syrup has made Coke "taste bad." Coke bad? Please, Belle Waring. Burn Giblets's flag, destroy his Statue of Liberty, rip his still-beating heart from his chest and hold it triumphantly in front of him before squeezing it to mush - but do not disparage that sweet elixir, that beverage bastion of the Western world. That is too much. When Coke is filled with that corn syrup, it is American corn syrup, strong, saccharine sweetener fresh from the nation's heartland, land of the Indians and the buffalo and the pioneers and the factory farms. What would you have us put in it - cane sugar, imported from some strange foreign country, like they put in the Cokes of the French? Maybe if this were RC, or Tab, or even Mr Pib, we could allow it. They are just sodas in the end. They are not representing the pioneer spirit. But when you lift a cool, refreshing Coke to your lips you are not just drinking a cold, delicious, bubbling beverage. You're drinking America. The smooth, rich flavor of a newly-opened Coke is the flavor of America. The worldwide market dominance of Coke is the manifest destiny of America. Coke does not taste sweeter because of the sugar in its composition. It tastes sweeter because of the pride we have in our nation. After 9/11 Coke was so sweet and so refreshing it moved Giblets to tears. He drank twelve cases and required an emergency stomach-pump. No matter what happens to America, there will always be Coke. When the terrorists strike again, we will still have Coke. When a neo-fascist government takes over the United States, suspends the constitution, and imposes permanent matrial law, we will still have Coke. When the genetically-engineered underclass is forced into slave labor camps to build neutron bombs to fling against enemy empires, they will sit back after their toils and enjoy Coke. When aliens sift through the ashen ruins of human civilization centuries hence for some clue to who we once were, they will find a shimmering red can beneath the sands, pop it, guzzle, and understand. This was our gift to one another, our gift to the world. Christian, Muslim, gay, striaght, liberal, conservative, all of us everywhere can join in the dream. All of us can Enjoy Coke.
posted by Giblets at 6:37 PM
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