Russell Brand On Ronaldo's Coca Cola Snub

 

Richard Mellor

Well Russell Brand seems to be a fairly decent bloke as they say. And he's pretty good here. I liked what Ronaldo did of course. But Ronaldo has been the highest paid athlete in the world a few years in a row earning up to $100 million some years I believe. I don't think the Coca Cola company will be too concerned about Ronaldo's snub. The drink is very addictive and well established. I thought it somewhat funny Euro 2020 offered some sugarless version that is surely just a chemical mix with its own poisons.

Whether Ronaldo's snub actually cost the company money is debatable as stock goes up and down all the time; I doubt the investors behind the company are worried too much. And there will be plenty of other athletes willing to step to the plate and get some of the brand recognition dollars people like Ronaldo have accumulated over the years.

As likeable as Brand's contribution is, it doesn't really get to the heart of the matter. It's a bit like calling for boycotts. Boycotts are OK as a secondary action in the struggle of workers against capital, but this activity, organizing the consumer, is not a substitute for organizing the worker as as producer of wealth and the source of profits. The labor process and out role in it is where we have the power to change the world.

Brand say's there's nothing wrong with "turning a little bit of profit for labor done" which is a bit confusing but it reminded me of when my mum who left school at 14, and used to complain about the uber rich and their greed that, "a little profit often" is the alternative to grabbing the whole bag. But producing for profit is the problem.

The global corporations fund this sporting event just as they do all sporting events. I remember watching track and field when it was amateur. Now, with football, I sometimes can't make out which teams are playing against each other and I upset a friend, a big football fan when I said that Heineken were playing O2. Same with track, Toyota's ahead of Volkswagen at the 5000 meter point.

The power of global capitalism is considerable.  Here in the US we are in the belly of the pro-market beast. I refuse to call the Oakland Coliseum, the stadium where the Raiders and the A's play (The raiders have moved to Las Vegas) by any other name than the Oakland Coliseum. It's been the Overstock.com coliseum and the Zhone Coliseum and the McCaferty Coliseum depending which gang of investors forks over some cash for the privilege of advertising their product. As I drive by that stadium or watch sports events in publicly funded venues with corporate logos on them, it reminds me of yet another imposition of the private sector on public life.

Look at the power of the capitalist class here in the US. The leadership of the Black Lives Matter or much of it has been co-opted. Hundreds of millions of dollars has been pledged to black businesses, black colleges and other institutions in order to placate those who seek a step up for their class in the pecking order of capitalist society. The role of leadership in the struggle against capital is crucial. As Warren Buffet said, there is such a thing as a class war and his side is winning.

Simply calling for us to resist, to not buy the product, in other words, to boycott it in this situation, does not worry the global capitalist clique that is behind all this. Brand points to all the "brands" (not his family) behind Ronaldo as he moves an unhealthy sugary drink that he personally finds distasteful, there's real power represented by those logos.

The only power that can bring this monster down, can open a new day where sport is enjoyed as a cultural event between competing teams and communities for the sheer joy and respect for community that brings, is the organized workers as central components in the production, and distribution of what we produce. Think of what it's like for an African athlete that comes from a poor former colonial country. In order to play football in a league where they can compete, they have to change nationality. There are track and field athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia that have to change their nationality and represent a European country because capitalism is incapable of developing the infrastructure and facilities that would support this activity in their homeland. We have to own what we produce and how we produce it and that includes how we organize our leisure time and our social lives if we are to change this.

What would worry Coca Cola and all of them represented by the logos behind Ronaldo would be if he pointed to the workers that make Euro 2020 happen. The workers in the stadiums, the workers that drive the buses that deliver the players, fly the planes, make the footballs, make the apparel, work in the Coca Cola, Volkswagen and  Heineken factories. In other words, the international working class. If he called on them to unite and bring their potential to shut down profit taking to the table.

The money that the corporations pay to make Euro 2020 happen is our collective product. It is stolen from us, from the workers in Cambodia, Dubai and throughout the world. It is not that "little bit of profit" that Brand says is OK. It's the product of the global workforce.