Yegads.
At the 2004 Olympics, you
can't drink Coke,
eat a burger from Burger King, or otherwise engage in
"ambush marketing"
by using or wearing items you like. You could get kicked out for drinking the
wrong brand of bottled water, and thanks to the tight media lock-down, would be
banned if you were caught taking pictures and emailing them to your friends.
You can thank the International Olympic Committee for this elimination of
freedom, and their primary sponsors (Pepsi, Kodak, McDonalds, etc).
This is not the only hokey advertising idea going on lately. Some television
channels have been silently modifying their shows before broadcast, replacing
logos on billboards and such with logos of their sponsor companies. This
includes well-known signs such as an ad in Times Square which recently was
dubbed over with a different brand during an on-location broadcast. The idea
of doing favors for your sponsors doesn't bother me very much, but I consider
this a form of lying. The audience should at least be informed that the image
does not accurately represent the location it was filmed at, and be told what
specifically was changed.
These things make me wonder... What happened to
truth,
and
penalties for lying?
What happened to personal rights, and why are corporations getting favored over
citizens? What's happening to freedom, fairness, responsibility, and
accountability for one's actions?
Will brand discrimination become a common thing, where you could get lynched
for drinking the wrong brand of diet cola? With corporations becoming as large
and powerful as governments, do we need a new set of rules to keep them from
usurping all of our rights and freedoms? If so, is it too late to change our
broken system?
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