After visiting the base library and playing on a jungle gym yesterday, I brought Citrus to the nearby Burger King for dinner.
They now serve macaroni and cheese, with a side of “apple fries” (apple sticks) and milk, and a nice set of Crayola crayons, all for $3.50.
I tried not to like it. There is a lot of fat in that meal. Surely there is too much sodium. It is insulting to even be offered the “low-fat” caramel sauce for the apples. It is a terrible disincentive to healthy eating to charge 50 cents more for apples than fries. It is not even USDA organic, which is only 95 percent organic. The ingredients are processed, not in their natural state and have a huge carbon footprint. The calves are weeping for their stolen milk, drawn from the bodies of growth hormone injected cows.
I am sitting there watching my daughter munching away, thinking back to the early ’80s in Berkeley when someone spray-painted “Agribiz rapes the land!” on the side of a Safeway. And about Berkeley High School where you could count on returning from the school holiday for International Women’s Day (March 8th) each year to find that the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade had spray-painted the school buildings with
Break the chains! Unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution!
This slogan was usually accompanied by a picture of a panther. Since I do not have one handy, I have included a picture of my kitty (RIP) in this blog post as an illustrative aid.
And so I sit there knowing that somehow, somewhere, this meal oppresses women. Or, as Berkeley-raised cult figure Bob Avakian would say in layman’s terms:
What we see in contention here with Jihad on the one hand and McWorld/McCrusade on the other hand, are historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system. These two reactionary poles reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. If you side with either of these ‘outmodeds,’ you end up strengthening both.
Citrus liked her meal just fine. I just can’t figure out if it undermines the GWOT.
2 Responses to “Happy Meals (Unleash the Fury)”
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I had totally forgotten about that graffiti and that phrase! (But now I kind of want to get the kid’s meal at Burger King. Is that wrong? I mean, free crayons!)
I get funny looks at restaurants when I turn down the crayons and the coloring-book menus. I have to explain that Spud will make a meal of the crayolas long before his food arrives.
I found that McDs has a “fruit and nut” salad that actually consists of apparently unprocessed apples and grapes. it’s overpriced, but when the Arches are the option it’s something he’ll eat. I’m sure once he’s too old to be shielded from Ronald’s marketing juggernaut he’ll be eating the deep-fried salt licks with the rest of the family…