I recently finished reading Constance L. Hays’ The Real Thing – Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company [2004, Random House], and my goodness what a view of corporate avarice and imposition of American Liebensraum! 1998's total sales of the liquid would see bottles stacked from the Earth to almost the surface of Mars! To reach the dust of 'the red planet' you only had to add two more months' sales! That's over 1,000,000,000 servings of Coke®!

The former C.E.O. of Coca-Cola® was fixated on making the phrase "Coke is it!™" true in every way. In fact, he honestly saw any potable beverage sale that wasn't one for his product as 'a loss for Coke'. Why would anyone buy juice, water, a hot coffee, iced tea, anything that wasn't Coca-Cola? "It's the Real Thing™" after all. Even a purchase of another product by the company was a purchase that he wanted to have changed.

Did you know The Coca-Cola Company offers nearly 400 brands in over 200 countries? Well, we do! From Inca Kola, a soft drink found in North and South America, and Samurai, an energy drink available in Asia; to Vita, an African juice drink, and BonAqua, a water found on 4 continents, our product variety spans the globe!

"Jeepers, Jimmy-Joe, I just wanna have me a sodey-pop, not change the economic conditin of the world!"

According to the book by Ms Hays, in the wet-dreams of the corporation, all beverages in the world, not just competing colas, would bend to their domination. If that were the attitude of a nation, wouldn't we go to war with them?

Basic introductory history and so on at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola then head to your favorite bookstore and either buy or order a copy of this book.