Now I have to track down a Coke ad

"No I don't think objecting to the Coke Ad is silly. It's fuckin America: SPEAK ENGLISH. NOTHING DIVIDES A COUNTRY FASTER THAN RELIGION AND LACK OF A COMMON LANGUAGE!"
Posted by: Nevergiveup

Sigh! Now I have to track down a Coke ad so I can decide for myself about its politics. I get the impression it's no different than the "teach the world to sing" thing, but there seems to be some thinking it's more harshly propagandistic than that.

These days it can be hard to separate simple celebration of actual diverse cultures from the push to institutionalize balkanization.

I greatly appreciate our diversity. I like Spanish! (Grew up in Spanish-influenced SW, & it's the only 2nd language I ever studied, since Latin doesn't count.) I'm happy my kids grew up in a truly diverse Chicago neighborhood where we could walk out thus door and might hear Mandarin, Swahili, or Polish spoken on the street.

That sound like I'm opposing assimilation, civic education, or proper path to citizenship? I'm not. That's the difference. Is Coke just doing the celebrating diversity or pushing an America-undermining agenda? If we weren't at war, I might think having America the Beautiful sung in the languages of the world would be a patriotic pro-American message.

I've mentioned this before, but one day here in Smallville, I was behind some Japanese ladies at the cafeteria as they attempted to communicate with the Hispanic salad lady. I could understand both thickly-accented English speakers, and I was amused how the "glitches" in pronunciation of each fell right into the glitches of hearing and they couldn't understand each other. I was going to jump in and translate English to English but they worked it out with feminine intuition and gesticulation.

Might have a similar situation with someone from South Texas and someone from the Bronx. Diversity!

Boy, the thread must be dead and over by now, huh?