McDonalds' advertising... new depths

The BBQ Pit
41

Couldn’t let this go by without some comment.

I attended the Quebec City demo, one of the more vilified manifestations to have taken place in the anti-neoliberal circuit. I was in “the shit,” if you will; like thousands of other activists, I was up near the fence, in particular at Dufferin-Montmorency and St-Jean-Baptiste, right in with the tear gas and water cannon.

Total number of activists who participated in the demos: between 20 000 and 30 000.

Total number of violent people: estimates vary, but top out at 100. Of the thousands of activists I saw during the weekend, a total of 5 people were hucking rocks. Other activists were standing far apart from them, yelling at them to stop or otherwise isolating them.

And yet the police continually fired tear gas away from the ones throwing things, at the peaceful crowds scanning slogans or participating in speakers’ corners, and indeed at completely peaceful commercial areas at the bottom of the cliff, blocks away from any protest.

As for setting random fires, I personally witnessed a group of twenty activists using up the water they had brought to wash tear gas from their eyes, as well as buckets of water brought from a medical centre (which was later tear-gassed and forcibly evacuated) to extinguish a fire. But I know how inconvenient extraneous data points can be.

I’ll also have to disagree with your characterization of the demographics. The People’s Summit and the protests themselves brought together people from all walks of life, and from all parts of the hemisphere from Vancouver to Porto Alegre. Raging Grannies, union members, aboriginal groups, civil society groups, political parties (including the entire caucus of the NDP), and yes, university students, who I was unaware were barred from having political beliefs and expressing them through the time-honoured medium of political manifestation.

I started to get a little bit suspicious of the coverage of the demo as I watched the tube and saw the same protester huck the same rock five times in half an hour. This makes me, as someone who was actually there, suppose that the received wisdom about the conduct of these protests could perhaps stand a little analysis.

42

Actually, that’s the whole point, from McD’s POV… They already hold a huge chunk of the wage-slave/working poor market. They’re not really looking to expand that market any with these commercials. What they are looking to do is expand their market share among the professional working classes. That group is more likely to go, say, to Bennigans, or the Macaroni Grill, or the Soup Exchange, than they are to go mix with the working stiffs at the local burger mill.

McD’s isn’t concerned that some small quantity of working Joes may be insulted by this ad campaign. Any of their core demographic that are thoughtful enough to be insulted are probably already not eating there, so it’s no skin of McD’s nose, and if they can increase thier market share amongst the professional classes, that means a butt-load o’ money.

That said, I still find the Spice Girls campaign to be more tacky.

43

That seems rather reminiscent of a similar quote from Platoon.

44

“Tell me what you want, what you really, really want…”
Well, I want y’all to shut the fuck up! :smiley:

45

<Snippage, sorry.>

I’ll admit I can only speak from my experience with the “protesters” in Philadelphia during the RNC.

They wanted free reign, websites in advance bragged about shutting the city down, raising havoc, etc. It was a big game to some of these kids who had participated in Seattle and D.C.

There were legitimate protestors at the RNC. They got to march without the needed permits. No trouble.

Next day, the kiddies came out. Tried to block traffic so nobody could go home, succeeded with devices such as “the Dragon” where they are handcuffed together in PVC tubes. The police in those areas had to saw carefully through the tubing while the protestors screamed “The whole world is watching” (watching you being treated with kids gloves.)

Over near City Hall, the protestors tried to move as a mob, not amarch, a mob. They were warned and tried to move en masse to areas where they could run amuck and raise havok. You could watch them moving and running like a riot from helicoptor video. This was not a crowd trying to march peacefully, it was a mob trying to break into a free area.

Trouble was, they were stymied by a wall of bike cops who had to put up with massive amounts of abuse. No tear gas was used. Upset by this they, ran mostly down Walnit stree where they set fire to many dumpsters, and overturned a car belonging to a janitor.

In addition, many windows were broken on Walnut, police tires were slashed by the dozen. One cop had acid thrown in his face. Piano wire was strung up at neck level to nail for bike cops. There was no central message to the protest except havoc. Later they would claim the message was stymied by the actions of the police, but none of this added up. It was a mob. The Philadelphia police, with a reputation for excessive measures, handled the matter beautifully. There were many arrests, and some of these kids discovered for the first time that Civil (or Uncivil) disobedience means that you can GOTO JAIL for some time! (They had gotten off scott free in Seattle and D.C.).

I wandered on the fringe of the protest area, and the majority of folks I saw were college aged kids with a few old hippy types giving some guidance. The actions were random as well as their comments. It was like watching 60’s protests if the protestors all had ADD. They’d go one way to do something, then turn around and run another way to get to where the ‘action’ was. No central theme except for a dislike of Republicans and an high proportion of “Free Mumia” T-shirts. I have low opinions of those who wear such shirts nad the actions of the day spoke not of protest, but of destruction.

Perhaps protests have become calmer with increased discouragement of hotheads (as opposed to the "egging on"they enjoyed post-Seattle). I can only talk about what happened in my fair city, and what I witnessed.

46

I wonder what the odds are that some of these rock-throwers were planted by the cops, to give them an excuse to tear-gas and arest any protesters they wished? I know it sounds like a loony conspiracy theory, but such things really happened during the Vietnam era. I think in the future, protesters should appoint a special squad to tackle and detain anyone doing stuff like this, and publicize their efforts to help the police this way. Two things would be accomplished: better press, and if these people are police plants, it will come out.

47

Lizard: Agents provocateurs? I know that happened in the 60s. I have no evidence that it happened this time; frankly, though, it wouldn’t have surprised me.

48

Well at least now we know what to call that stuff they serve.

“Excuse me sir, but may I please have $2.00 of industrial food please?”

49

And Muffin the nekkid vegetarian streaks through the thread.

50

[Heston]

“Chicken McNuggets are PEOPLE!”

[/Heston]

51

Well, I’ll take that red-haired one.

Yes, I know. I admit to having no taste whatsoever.