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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (12084)	6/16/1999 5:04:00 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

Neocon, Or are you suggesting that the Flemish made up the incidents of contamination because they are angry at the States? Exactly! See, Neocon, I've been following this ludicrous frame-up against one of the most prominent American corporate icons since Day One. Now, I watch the Coca-Cola Co. getting tangled up in its pathetic crisis management... It's pathetic because THERE NEVER WAS ANY toxic substance in these bottles. Physicians and chemists are still looking for evidence. After all, up to now, there's only ONE critical case of a teenager whose red corpuscles ratio was abnormally low but physicians claim they can't connect such a metabolic failure with a drink of Coke! Notwithstanding, Coca-Cola Co. had to come up with some ''rational scenario'' because otherwise the company's public image would have been hurt even more as people would question Coca-Cola's quality standards/troubleshooting. So, Coca-Cola said the bottles have been contaminated by a pesticide sprayed over the pallets used to carry the bottles... Local physicians wouldn't even comment such a ridiculous screenplay. Anyway, the detail that strikes me is the topography of the whole story: all these allegedly intoxicated kids are Flemish kids enrolled in Flemish schools, and all the schools are located in the Flanders. Now, obviously, other ''cases'' are popping up beyond the initial area: in Northern France for instance, but, as often in collective contamination affairs, there's a mass hysteria effect and I bet you that in the days ahead, more and more people will suffer from headaches in Germany, Holland, maybe even in the UK! Remember that the Flemish agribusiness lobby's been severely hit by the recent Chickengate (factory-farm chickens infected with dioxin): the financial prejudice is estimated to be in the BEF billions range! Hence, the need for the Boerenbond (who enjoys an agrifoodstuffs monopoly in Belgium) to light a backfire.... Today, nobody's talking about this junk poultry anymore --and France, after the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, has also ordered Coca-Cola to call off its Coke, Fanta, and Sprite bottles. Well, to light a backfire is one thing but the target is another, so why Coca-Cola? To answer this question, you have to be familiar with the local political whereabouts. Several astute (Belgian) observers noted that the Chickengate unfolded at the worst time: a few days before Belgium's across-the-board elections! And, since it affected agribusiness, it rebounded off CVP, that is the Flemish social-democrat party whom several top bananas belong to the agribusiness lobby. Still with me?? Okay, let's proceed... To shake the powerful CVP (who's been a government partner since 1945!) in the midst of the election campaign was pivotal in order for Belgium to have a symetrical coalition in the coming legislature (in the French sense), that is the same ruling parties in both the Flanders and Wallonia. Since Walloon PSC --CVP's counterpart-- was belly-up, Flanders's CVP, somehow, had to be hammered down as well... Were the US instrumental in the chicken ploy to ''stabilize'' Belgium? For such a political fix is not to please the radical fringes of the Flemish bourgeoisie who work towards Flanders's independence. However, the clue is the initial topography of the alleged ''Coca-Colagate'': Belgium is such a small country! Hence, it's highly suspicious that all the contamination occurrences are located north of the so-called linguistic border... Besides, Belgium and especially the Flanders, are built around several powerful, ubiquitous lobbies: the Catholic welfare agencies, the agribusiness lobby (het Boerenbond), the secretive freemasonries (both Socialist and Rightist), etc. So, it's all too easy for any one of them to frame Coca-Cola up by asking a couple of their own children to moan about this Coke bottle with their teacher... The rest is history. My 2 cents, Gustave.