My Errant Mind

4 Comments Add your own

• 1. Alex  |  July 25, 2007 at 10:32 am

  sir i have no idea why you have a problem with an energy drink.
  you say they are undoing the hardwork of parents. if parents did such a great job then their kids should understand that its only an energy drink. The kids if their parents did such a great job should or would understand that drugs are bad and never use them, so how can you say that a simple company that came up with a name thats easily marketed and a product that causes none of the horrid effects that are related to Cocaine or drugs.

  Are you saying that if i drink Cocaine energy drink i will have brain damage? not be able to operate a vehicle properly?
  Make poor decisions?

  Sir i think that you have no basis for any of the accusations you have said.

  Yours truly,

  Alex

• 2. Sean Wilson  |  July 25, 2007 at 12:54 pm

  Alex, hello, and thanks for dropping by to read and comment. I’ll make an attempt to address your questions in a way that highlights my concerns suitably.

  First of all, I understand marketing. I understand capitalism and the all-consuming drive to feed the bottom-line of American businesses. I also understand principles and ethics and believe that they are required in business—especially in marketing.

  Firstly, I don’t have a problem with an energy drink. It’s just a liquid. What I have a problem with is the practice of trading on a name that attempts to associate it with a drug that has destroyed countless lives—both from addiction and because of murder. And you have to take in the entirety of the cocaine trade when you consider its impact—including the various government death squads that have been responsible for the deaths of thousands throughout Central and South America over the last 30 years, as well as those who are murdered because of it every day, and those who die of overdoses and illnesses acquired due to the sharing of needles.

  Let’s establish one thing right here and now. Either you think all of those things are acceptable and OK social behavior or you don’t. If you think they are acceptable, there’s no point in trying to explain business ethics to you or to make my case. If, on the other hand, you think those things are unacceptable practices and the result of unscrupulous, evil people who make their living preying on the weakness of spirit in others (and I’m not talking religious spirituality, but rather, basic humanity), then surely you can question why a company would attempt to make money by glorifying that drug and all the human destruction of lives that it causes.

  Secondly, as to the job parents are doing, your comments suggest that you are ignoring many facts of social interaction. Are you aware of that little thing called ‘peer pressure’ and how it has an effect on youth? It’s how the overwhelming majority of negative social habits are learned, right after failure to having been taught proper behavior and ethics, morals and values. It often undoes those teachings and good example even when they have been instilled and demonstrated.

  Take a look at the music industry and rap music for instance. Hip hop and early rap started out as something far different from what it is today. But a few people in the music industry decided that it would be cool and possibly make money if the rappers were thuggier, more criminal, scarier sorts. And thus, gangsta rap was born. As a result, racism has been enflamed, violence has been made to look fun and we have broadcast journalists losing their jobs for saying ‘ho’ and so forth. Just look at games like Grand Theft Auto, which included special ’scenes’ such as a rape. Are you telling me that’s a good thing?

  Parents can only do their part. Peers, teachers, the media (which includes magazines, books, television, radio, music, popular culture, etc) often have as many and in most cases more influence on the youth of today in our society. Are you trying to tell me that kids don’t smoke or have sex or do drugs because of peer pressure? If you are, I suggest you get out of your shell and come live in the real world.

  My argument has nothing to do with brain damage or vehicle operation. It has to do with the morality and ethical considerations of a corporation getting rich off something that glorifies violence, death, murder, disease and the blatant lack of caring and outright disregard for the damage that the drug cocaine has done to millions of lives around the world and to the families of those persons as well.

  I’m sure there are people that go around dismissing such arguments and listen to their gangsta rap, saying its all good. But the truth is that when someone’s homie gets shot in a drive-by or someone’s brother is murdered for drugs, or their little sister is raped because some punk thought of her as just some bitch or ho he had a right to do as he pleased with…then maybe they will feel differently. Perhaps you have never had anyone close to you whose life has been taken or destroyed by drugs? Perhaps you don’t know anyone whose life and that of their family has been devastated by AIDS acquired by sharing a needle to feed the cruelty of an addiction?

  Sure, parents can teach and do a good job. But the simple fact (which has been borne out by research) is that young people are more likely to go to friends with their problems. Young people spend more time with popular media and friends than they do with their parents, both of whom usually work in the screwed up society we live in—all because marketers have convinced people that in a capitalist society you need to acquire meaningless, worthless junk called ’stuff’ and that you must go into debt for decades to own a house, and that your kids need the latest designer clothes and electronic gadgets.

  This same society then throws parents in jail and strips them of their parental rights if they actually have to ever discipline their kids. Instead, parents are told their kids have mental health problems and that they need to be on drugs of this or that sort and that if they don’t put them on prescription drugs that they are bad parents. Parents have a hard enough time just getting through to their kids, much less changing the prevailing attitudes they acquire through daily exposure to culture and hundreds of people and friends who all have different ethical and moral values. At some point it comes down to people (and not just young people, but adults as well) having and taking personal responsibility.

  At some point, ethics do matter. At some point you have to ask yourself something like this:

  I realize that millions of lives have been ruined, murdered, imprisoned and that people have suffered, ended up homeless, had their families torn apart, that women have been raped, churches and missionaries have been burned alive, innocent farmers and villagers have been forced into slave labor…all so some worthless jackasses can get rich off cocaine because they’re too goddamned lazy and unethical to do honest work…does that bother me? Do I give a damn?

  Ask yourself that Alex. Then ask yourself if you feel even the slightest compulsion to say, “You know what, I would rather simply drink another brand of energy drink and make that tiny little contribution towards trying to leave the world a better place than it was when I came into it.”

  If that seems like too much trouble to you, then I have to say that you and others like you who don’t give a damn about your fellow human beings are precisely why the world is so screwed up today. If you’re unhappy with our foreign policy, our economy, illegal immigration, crime, drugs, rape, inequality, racism…anything like that, you have to at some point take a stance. Parents can offer a foundation, but the structure that gets built on top of that is up to the individual.

  At some point, people have to believe that something else besides their personal satisfaction is important in this life and that other lives have value and meaning. In the end, I’ll say this: my degree is a marketing degree with a major in ebusiness. Again, I understand how marketers work, and I know the ethical questions that once comes up against when creating a product and looking for ways to earn money from it. I also understand that there are some things that are not for sale.

  Some of those things are self-respect, dignity, honor, compassion for my fellow human beings, and social responsibility.

  Next time you need an energy drink Alex, ask yourself why you do? Why do people need energy drinks in the first place? How did we humans get along without them since the dawn of history until recently?

  Then, ask yourself why YOU need one. What is it about your lifestyle that made you feel you needed one? Unless you’re a high caliber athelete who’s nutritional levels are so high that they are hard pressed to be met by three to five meals a day, you’re probably doing so because of marketing and peer pressure. Examine your choice to purchase, asking why and then asking yourself what the name of the energy drink represents and what it means to the millions of human lives destroyed by what it represents.

  If you can’t be bothered to think about it, you’re part of the problem. If you don’t care, you are the problem. You have a choice you can make that determines what kind of person you are. We all do, and we face dozens, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of such choices each day.

  We are human, and we need not analyze everything and live a monastaic life in an attempt to avoid buying, eating, or using something for fear of supporting something we would rather not. But when you KNOW something is supporting death and destruction and demeaning the lives of millions and not supporting it requires no thought other than to reach for a different brand…well, that makes one, in my opinion, just the same as those drug dealers who earn their living dealing cocaine. In fact…you’re buying into their product as much as you are the energy drink if that’s the case.

  And so, I would lump you in the same boat as them, morally and ethically to be honest. THAT is what I am saying.

  Now, this isn’t meant to be a personal attack of any sort. I am suggesting the above applies to everyone, even myself. I make conscious decisions to try and avoid those products that I know are propigating bad morals and that are the result of a lack of morals on the part of some company. Really, once you adjust your thinking and take into considerations of your purchases and the power you carry by what you as a consumer buy or don’t buy, it becomes second nature and requires almost no thought to reach for products that if you don’t feel good about, you at least don’t have to feel bad about purchasing.

  Just think about it. If you do, I’ve done my job.

  Thanks for dropping by and taking time to share your concerns. I understand how it can be difficult to see the WHY of ethics and the need for taking a moral stance as a consumer. I hope I’ve done something to make it just the tiniest bit clearer.

  Have a great day.

• 3. GIJOE From Brussels: Hasb&hellip  |  November 3, 2007 at 4:51 pm

  [...] This is yet another example of unethical marketing. [...]

• 4. ahndunk  |  February 16, 2008 at 6:33 am

  haha, I agree with you. That was very unethical marketing strategies.

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