This was originally written a year ago for PolSci 9. It has been 'lost' for more than half that time. I cannot even begin to explain how much trouble I went through trying to get this article back, only have it unexpectedly 'back' now. I am leaving it intact though some parts are a bit dated, yet other parts show Americans were willing to put up with uncountably more and far worse revelations about the President, Vice-President, and Attorney General, have Congress change hands to an 'opposition' party, and still yet did a whole lot more of nothing but, 'Thank you sir, may I have another."
 

Has Constitution Cola Lost Its Fizz? Hot New Brands Topple Industry Leader's Market Dominance
 

        Like a lot of people, I just took it for granted it that it would always be there. I drank it while growing up like we all did. Who can't remember a lazy summer day, sharing a half-gallon bottle (no plastic 2-liters in those days) with your siblings, parents, and even grandparents, who would remind you how their grandparents drank it too.

         It was kind of like an institution, something handed down from generation to generation. It was there for us through the hard times of the Great Depression when this country was tested like never before, and as a symbol of America at home and abroad during both World Wars as much as American movies and cigarettes. For a lot of us, it was as unquestionably American as apple pie and giant gas-guzzling cars. Yet times change, and its market decline came faster than anyone could have dreamed.

        One could blame its lousy recent ad campaign for its decline, or the brilliant marketing campaigns for new rival brands aimed at its key demographic bases, or our tense modern times, but the fact is, once people became open to the idea that other brands are not un-American or unthinkable, its dominance was fated. The reality is, though we all drank it, though we all thought we liked it the same way, it basically was different things to different people.

         We all went through our youthful phases where we argued about how to improve its recipe. We may have put rum in it, some put it in cake and brownies, but it was usually there at every gathering, like a safety blanket keeping us safe in large groups, helping us feel comfortable with one another, breaking the ice, making the police respect our wild parties because they drank it too. Some of them may not have liked what we did with it, but it was a common part of all our lives and psyche.

         The biggest blow to it as being unquestionably a symbol of Americana was when even the President suggested it was stale. He even implied he might even prefer one of the newer brands from time to time at the White House. This set the stage for rival brands to suggest it was not necessarily synonymous or required at all American homes, functions, and gatherings.

         A lackluster ad campaign by its chief promoter, Alberto Gonzales, showed his heart was no longer with it. In trying to reinvent it for the future, he turned on its historical legacy and the traditional image people had of it, saying those who held it in their hearts above the current President were un-American, unpatriotic, and reported them to the police for investigations. The “This-Is-Not-Your-Father's-Cola” campaign was ill-conceived from the start, but the board consistently backed him up, even as sales began to plummet worldwide.

          The media, which had always been an unofficial cheerleader of brand, giving it free product placement in all of their news reporting, they were targeted too by Mr. Gonzales' campaign, threatened with investigations and monitoring of their reporters who might possibly infringe on its trademark instead of appreciating the free advertising they were constantly giving his brand. One could even begin to question which company he was really working for, his stewardship was so destructive to its stock. 

         But nothing happens in a vacuum. Its gravely questionable and self-destructive marketing strategy came at a time when retro-fascions were in vogue, and to younger generations they were not retro or fascist or fashions at all, merely something hip, new, and different. After Constitution Cola abandoned its tired-but-true admittedly dull “Separation-Of-Powers” ad campaign, other brands recruited those who were let go to be used in their own marketing strategies.

         The Supremes, long the unsung supporting mostly off-camera backup players, became the new subtle stars in the campaign of an upstart, much more fashionable and chic micro-brewery label. The brilliantly named and marketed Dick Cider's Cider used them to great effect, coyly keeping them in the background in ads as well, but as an ever present presence in all of their commercials, a beautiful masterstroke of co-opting and undermining the idea of continuity and loyalty Constitution Cola enjoyed with consumers, and transferring that warm sense of nostalgia to the new brand, while still appealing to those who were looking for something new.

         But why now? Other brands have always been around making Constitution Cola refine it image over the years. Socialist Soda was never as popular here as in Europe, but its clever use of common people in its ad campaigns made Constitution Cola have to refine its image and marketing strategy to have to play better to its own populace base, and as a result reached even new heights in sales both at home and worldwide, becoming far more world-market competitive in the process in response to the competition.

         The answer to “Why now?” is simply because the “War on Terror” © TM made people more receptive to a stronger image. They also demanded drinks which catered to their own individual images of being unique and different than a one-size-fits-all grand umbrella which contained everyone underneath it and applied to everyone equally. Not every white-collar suburban ex-yuppie necessarily wants to be identified with liking the same drink which a homeless Black from New Orleans drinks. Its a mental image thing.

         Other new and revised brands have better catered to that sense of “individuality” which ironically was Constitution Cola's whole main selling point until it became ubiquitous. You cannot always be universal and regional at the same time.

         The “Dick Cider's Cider” brand comes in many different flavors. These are regionalized, marketed and packaged differently around the country in ways that Constitution Cola cannot be, forced by peoples mental images of it as being representative of everyone, which is unappealing to those who want to stand apart from the common crowd. The Dick's “De-cider” Hard Cider flavors are marketed in rural areas, and softer non-alcoholic flavors in cities, without contradictions in image in ways Constitution Cola's universal image cannot do. The former is what you want it think it is since its image is new and vague, and can mean whatever it wants to mean or whatever others want it to mean. Its new, its different, and being undefined in people's minds means it has no baggage as necessarily being liked by people whom you don't like.

         Some like me like to believe it is not over yet. After all, Constitution Cola still has, for the moment anyway, by far the best image and name recognition in the hearts and minds of consumers, the mute approving respect of the general public, even if that public image might have been hollowed recently, while its stock values are plummeting as corporate investors pull out seeking always those industries with the highest profit margins and growth potentials, while its own future prospects are undeniably only to be notable at all for a continued increasing decline and watering down, a fatal and unforgivable sin for investors.

         To China and to Third World authoritarian dictatorships is where most of our investor's dollars have gone, trillions of them, because there and other similar places, they really prefer these companies' structures which can operate without any of the historical restraints, labor or health codes, quality controls, quality of life, safety controls, and legacy considerations which Constitution Cola's board had to deal with until recently on a daily basis. The new fascion brands now taking the country by storm are much more in line with world-market trends, and are preferred by our own and major world investors.

         And because that lack of faith among investors is not daily front page news, most Americans are oblivious that one of their flagship brands is even in trouble, while they cluelessly continue to drink their hard cider, eat their brownies, play their video games, not realizing those parties they used to have without concern for safety or privacy are no longer safe nor secure, and not because of terrorists. You cannot give up supporting Constitution Cola yourself and expect everyone else to keep buying it too. It is a case of a crumbling giant whom no one will support anymore because everyone prefers to think it needs no support, while each is free to ignore what they prefer not to think about, that once it is gone, it is never coming back.
 

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         The question is what will people not sell out on for money. From what I have seen of Congress, the Press, the Supreme Court, the answer is nothing. Wealth is the great consoler for a lack of conscience. Pay me enough and maybe I too might choose to believe we are not dishonoring the past and the truth and victims with endless bold-faced lies, sacrificing the public's future prosperity and control over their own government, and perverting the definitions of freedom and democracy to mean anything but what they used to mean. I don't know how high the price would be for me to roll over and play dead like the three above mentioned “estates” have and have thrown all the Constitution Cola they could get their hands on into the ocean like some Bostonians once did so famously with tea not all that long ago.

         What I choose to believe is that price would be far higher than what a Congressman makes, including all the bribes, legal and otherwise, all the PAC money, speaking fees, and guaranteed multi-million dollar book deals, guaranteed corporate jobs with million dollar salaries after leaving office, and their “token” $300,000 plus official salaries, all combined. It would take more money than that.

         It would take more power than the power trip the ideologues on the Supreme Court seem to be on, defiling the Constitution by backing up the most shameful decision the Court has ever taken (not allowing Florida to proceed with a court-mandated recount votes of an extremely questionable, extremely close election specifically mandated to need to occur by law by Florida's own and the country's own Constitutions) with going along silently and guiltily with an endless stream of shameful unconstitutional policies of what that one moment's turn away from history and democracy has wrought, a chain domino effect now an endless web of shame, all solely to hope to attempt to “spin” the future to their own personal views of how they think Americans in the future “ought” to think and behave. And to attempt to achieve an ideological goal, in the process they have abandoned all of their previous principles of avoiding judicial politicking and how government should stay out of people's daily lives and privacy, which they so much criticized others previous Supreme Courts for, but had at least occurred before within some semblance of legality and legal processes.

         It is a free-for-all world of Justice now, where the Attorney General of the “Justice” Department can threaten to imprison and investigate any whistle-blower (with a not-so-subtle thumbs up from the “Supremes” a few days ago) of any reporter who uncovers any more details or tries to investigate a blatantly illegal program he himself helped create, now safely using his office and control of law enforcement to quash any investigations of it, or himself, or his superiors who may have authorized it.

         Low level soldiers can be investigated, incarcerated, and even potentially executed for torture and murder and for violating the Geneva Conventions and Military Code of Conduct in committing War Crimes, while the head of the Defense Department and the President can openly state or imply that such bans on torture or international treaties rules and codes of conduct in war do not apply to themselves.

         No new independent consul investigations have been launched by Congress, nor foreseeably will be, to investigate recent new blatantly illegal and unconstitutional revelations implicating the President and/or the Attorney General to such abuses as:

1.Secret prisons and kidnappings of Americans, Europeans, and others shipped to other countries to be held without charges, without enough evidence to even arrest them, without acknowledgment that they are being held and reportedly with plenty of evidence showing these people may be and are being tortured, occasionally even tortured to death so long “catastrophic organ failure” is not the intent of the torturing but merely a regrettable “side-effect”

2.Wiretapping of Americans' overseas calls and now revealed potential wiretapping of local calls, all without warrants, all actions specifically spelled out as illegal under current law deflected only after being lied about until that was impossible by the Presidents own brazen admission that the law could not prohibit anything he might authorize in secret if he called it a “national security” measure, and

3.Illegal logging all calls made by all Americans into a database which includes cross referencing of age, race, and political party registration.

4.Nor has there been any attempts to constrain or question the revocation of Habeas Corpus (the right to trial) by the courts or Congress.

         Why should a reporter risk jail time for looking into crimes against the Constitution or lawbreaking by administration officials when Congress and the Courts have a make-no-waves policy towards literally any and absolutely whatever egregious violations of the law the White House may do, especially since they now know both they and their sources are being spied on while they try to do their work? Better to take the pay-off payments they acknowledge the government has been willing to pay them to write favorable stories about the President and administration since writing unfavorable ones could cost them their careers or worse, jail time.

         Will Congress demand the resignation of the Attorney General for decimating the capabilities of the Press to be able to do their jobs by threatening them with investigations if they pursue legitimate stories of circumventing the law or Constitution by the President, all to squash any independent checks of abuses of government power, and to prevent lies and disinformation as being exposed as such as is their mandate, right, and purpose under the First Amendment?

         Or will Congress instead continue to remain silent and knuckle under yet again to threats which now include the Speaker of the House specifically alleging a smear campaign against him by Gonzales and the Justice department in retaliation for his criticism of an unprecedented in 230 years of history raid of the Capital offices of a Congressman? Could that have been a fire across the bow of a Congress potentially beginning to become uncomfortable to being publicly repeatedly exposed as the completely ineffectual and powerless “tools” they have let themselves become?

         Will reporters too knuckle under and allow their owners to continue to sweep critical stories under the rug while their own hands are being tied and their voices silenced from publishing stories pointing to abuses far worse than Watergate, simply because their owners and editors prefer only to have good things written whenever possible about the President since they stand only to profit from such corruption, and conversely, would surely come under fire themselves if they became more openly critical even 1 inch more ahead of the rest of pack of other news organizations, and become a target of “Swift-boating” themselves?

         If even the 3rd highest official in Washington can allege such intimidation and potential blackmail by leaks and criminal investigations of himself for simply speaking out on one of those few and extremely rare occasions he might not be willing to march completely in lock-step with the President and Vice-President, one who is not even in the opposition party but one of “their own” sitting on a comfortable majority, all of whom are as loyal to whatever the President might ask of them as he is, imagine what they might do to intimidate him if he was a real obstacle in their way, the leader of a different Democratic Party of not so long ago, one that had a spine and a paper thin majority behind him?

         Then he might get a real indication of what intimidation by this Administration really means. But it would mean absolutely nothing to the public or to the law because of course, the trend is that the Press would never be allowed to cover it nor the police ever be allowed to investigate it. Think I am exaggerating? Watch how quickly this story above fades from sight like all other negative stories about what the Administration does. There are no “Teflon” Presidents, just ones who have the Press on a short enough leash to make all the bad stories about them fade quickly away from the headlines because the public is so easily convinced, when told, they don't wish to hear it, and corporations behind the news organizations who don't wish to say it because they stand only to lose from such negativity of a corporate friendly Administration that is loosening restrictions on their coverage and ownership laws, willing to do anything it can think of to make them richer, and they back up the President to the end.

         The Pentagon has begun to question its own paid propaganda stories to the Iraqi Press, but no one seems willing to call “off-limits” to spreading the propaganda money around the home front corporate media for favorable news stories about the President or his policies.

         The “Constitution Cola” being offered by the current heads of all branches of this current government and its Press is not the same sugary drink I grew up on, nor does it have merely saccharine substituted instead. Its main flavor ingredient is now arsenic, determined by design to destroy any sense of credibility or faith in our government, or in the validity of its elections, other than blind unquestioning and unquestionable patriotism-or-else, as defined for you by the President of course. In case you are unsure what “patriotism” means, they will be sure to define it for you and back that definition up with overwhelming force. Attempt to influence your government or even have it listen to you, attempt to protest or speak out publicly against it, and you do so at your own most certain peril, photographed, personal info logged, and phones tapped. Welcome to a 21st century “democracy,” American style. But drink enough hard cider and it will all go away or just seem alright.