Bolivia Expels Coca-Cola Because of the Apocalypse

Sometimes your Wonkette gets so carried away lamenting the ills of American politics that we ignore the bigger picture: The Mayan Apocalypse is coming at the end of the year, and then we won't have to worry about any of this. Has our government made preparations for the country's afterlife? It's time they got a jump on that, like Bolivia has. Bolivia's foreign minister, Ken Layne David Choquehuanca -- he's all about the Mayan Apocalypse. In his view it won't be so much anapocalypse-apocalypse, just an apocalypse of U.S. capitalists meddling in their business. And so he's announced that in the New Times, Bolivians will no longer be allowed to drink Coca-Cola. They will drink this peach thing or another "fizzy" drink instead.

 Via HuffPo:  

In what is being called a "symbolic rejection of US capitalism," Bolivia has announced that it will be marking the end of the Mayan calendar with the expulsion of the Coca-Cola Company from the country.

"December 21 of 2012 will be the end of egoism and division. December 21 should be the end of Coca-Cola,” Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca said earlier this month, according to Russian news agency, RT.

This is a significant move for Bolivia -- who will join Myanmar, North Korea and Cuba as the only countries in the world that are coke-free, Yahoo! News notes.

Unlike the doomsayers who have predicted the apocalypse to occur on Dec. 21, Choquehuanca said he is optimistic that the end of the Mayan calendar will usher in a new and more progressive era -- one that will see "the end of hatred and the beginning of love."

“The planets will align for the first time in 26,000 years and this is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism,” he said, adding that the people of Bolivia should opt to drink Mocochinchi -- a local peach-flavored drink -- as an alternative to Coke products, Russian newspaper Pravda reports.

Well, that's one very longwinded way of saying that you're trying to protect domestic industry:

What the minister failed to mention, however, is the Bolivian government's other drink of choice -- a fizzy energy drink called "Coca-Colla" -- was given the stamp of approval by Bolivian president Evo Morales.

All hail the coming post-capitalist two-l'd soda pop knockoff era!

[ HuffPo via Felix Salmon ]