When you buy a Chiquita banana, be warned, you might end up with blood on your hands. The fruit company boycotting our oil sands has a long history of bribery, violence, and corruption in Latin America to secure its banana monopoly. In recent years they have admitted to large monetary payments to terrorist organizations like FARC, who use violence in attempting to overthrow governments. Do you want to purchase and consume these blood bananas knowing that the money could find its way into the hands of paramilitary groups guilty of murder and kidnapping on an industrial scale? As Ezra Levant said "where do you think the term Banana Republic comes from?"
Ezra deserves most of the credit for discussing the violent history of this corrupt company, and for "blood bananas" trending on Twitter. All of this came to pass because Chiquita thinks our oil sands are unethical. Do they think the local environment will be better off if we leave the oil in the sand? Listen people, we have a serious problem. Thousands of acres of sand in Alberta are contaminated with oil. To me oil sands production is a massive clean up effort, not a precursor to doomsday. The oil companies deserve our praise for removing the oil from the sand. Plus I'm sure when workers strike for better working conditions, I doubt Suncor issues orders to open fire on their employees.
I loved Coke, too.
ReplyDeleteBut that polar bear thing turned me onto Pepsi.
I lived in Fort McMurray for eleven years and whenever I walked along the Athabasca or Clearwater Rivers I had to watch out for the little puddles of thick oil seeping up from below the surface. You didn't want to step in the stuff because it'd stick to your shoes forever. The Cree natives who have lived in the area for hundreds of years used to use it to waterproof their canoes.
ReplyDeleteEzra is awesome !
ReplyDeleteIt just came out on the radio that Danielle Smith is calling on Albertans to boycott Chiquita bananas.
Good stuff, as she pounds away at being the better defender of Alberta's interests than the international femminist lawyer Redford.
I still like their jingle from the '70s....
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness though, companies like celebrities should be very careful about taking moral or ethical stands on any topic.
Just how the hell do these bananas get from the tropical working paradises to the continental US?
Does Chiquita use solar powered kayaks or did they rebuild the Bounty?
I'm Chiquita Banana and I'm here to say
ReplyDeletewe exploit our workers and whack them
with nasty pesticides to provide us with
cheap yellow bananas and money to supply
our terrorist friends at FARC every day!