I wasn't going to post a response because I'm sick of the sound of my own voice, but here it goes (it's Saturday, I'm reading Thomas Friedman so I'm in the mood for economics and globalization, and I've got WAY too much time on my hands, lol).
I've seen the documentaries, read a lot of the books coming out in the vein of pop-opinionism on globalisation and corpocracy, and yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of a lot of their doings. But let's consider the other side of the coin for a moment.
Argentina runs on corporate sponsorship. It was the first thing I noticed here - you don't go to a pet store, you go to a Eukanuba store, you don't sit in a chair you sit in a Quilmes chair etc. Not exactly that much different from home, but certainly with a greater degree of visibility (anyone go to the PersonalFest? Might as well have been at a corporate convention & team spirit retreat...)
As far as kicking out Coke & Pepsi -- it is actually one of the corporations I don't have major problems with. If it weren't for Coca-Cola there wouldn't be hope fo the schools systems in most developing countries, let alone the US.
In South Africa you will see every school is signposted by Coca-cola because they are the ones that built the schools, that bought the books so that these children could actually get a bit of an education. Coke builds and donates huge amounts of money to schools all over not only Africa but South America, Pakistan,the Phillipines, Indonesia etc etc etc
In the States there is the push to eliminate the soft drinks machines from schools in an effort to fight back against obesity. However, the schools cannot do this since elminating the machines means elminating vast sums of money from annual budgets, which means no more desks, books, science equipment etc. Whose going to replace those sums, which often run in the $100s of thousands of dollars? The government? I don't think so.
MacDonald's Chairty record certainly isn't on the same scale as Coke's, and BK's is practically non-existent. However, the Ronald McDonald House is another charity organization worldwide that provides hospice care for terminally ill children and their families. I don't know enough about McDonald's charity programmes to really be able to say much more on the subject, perhaps someone else can enlighten us?
As far as saying that these companies are throwing their propaganda all around the world, I'm more concerned about the US Army, the US Govt, and CNN doing that. At least (to my knowledge) McDonald's & Coca-cola don't run "news" websites, papers, & radio stations that pose as being "unbiased" journalism when the reality is they are being operated by the US Army.
AlexD, good for you for boycotting, that's fine, but the fact of the matter is these "Capitalist franchises" for all their disgusting warping of the industries in the US etc, actually pour money to developing countries and run some programmes that I grudgingly have to say are doing some good.
Just to rile you even further: the first Kosher McDonald's outside of Israel recently opened. In which country? Right here in Argentina - at Abasto Shopping.