The Nation magazine has an interesting article about how the Coca Cola Corporation is increasingly finding itself the target of student protests and boycotts on many college campuses around the country. The primary allegations against Coca Cola revolve around their alleged complicity in the murders of several union leaders in their bottling plants in Colombia. As the article explains,

So far, six colleges and universities in the United States -- including Carleton, Oberlin and Bard -- have responded to a call by the Colombian beverages union for a boycott, either by canceling contracts or banning vending machines. Campaigns are active at about ninety more, making this the largest anticorporate campaign since the one against Nike. . .

The campaign has rattled Coke, which has dispatched representatives from its headquarters in Atlanta and from its subsidiary in Colombia to campuses to argue its case. . . Reflecting a trend in the anticorporate globalization movement to draw connections between disparate issues, other groups adding their voices to the campaign are accusing Coke of child labor in El Salvador, failure to provide healthcare for workers with HIV/AIDS in Africa and even childhood obesity in the United States.

There is a movment here at UMass Amherst to get the university to cancel their contract with Coke as well. However these events turn out, it is very encouraging to see that at least judging by this particular campaign, progressive student activism is still alive and well on many college campuses around the country. In other words, the George Bush, John Ashcroft, and the Republican ideological machine has not destroyed the liberal fighting spirit in many of us yet.