Lovin’ the corporation that has loved you

It seems the trend these days is to turn against our own, to mutiny against our most… It seems the trend these days is to turn against our own, to mutiny against our most beloved corporate entities, the ones who have been with us since way back. The bandwagon of dissenters first went rolling toward the cigarette companies and effectively killed Joe Camel, with no regard for his feelings, much less those of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings, its subsidiaries or its shareholders.

Now, motivated by a couple of bogus lawsuits, they’ve set their sights even closer to home, attacking McDonald’s quality and business practice, slandering the Golden Arches with the cold-hearted efficiency only a lawyer could muster.

Well I’ve had it, and I want to make sure every muckraker, alarmist and would-be plaintiff out there understands something — you’re blowing it for everybody, and while you’ve taken Joe, you’ll never take Ron.

As a child, McDonald’s won my heart with its Happy Meal toys, its soft drinks and its clown. That restaurant spoke to me — it was almost as if they knew what was inside my head and could provide for my specific interests. Their mall location even had full-size, automated Fry Guys who road in a balloon, a singing Ronald, a grinning Grimace, a mischievous Hamburgler and a stately Mayor McCheese. It was less a restaurant than an adventure into a cartoon-ish world, evidence of an eatery that was willing to go the extra mile in market research.

I was hooked after the first visit. They say crack is instantly addictive, so I guess that would make Chicken McNuggets sort of like crack, if crack were delicious and came in polystyrene packaging, with sweet ‘n’ sour sauce.

I asked for McNuggets everywhere I went — Wendy’s, Burger King, Red Lobster, even that Amish roadside stand that dealt in shoofly pies. But the real franchises are unique — 100 percent standardized, as if there were a big machine somewhere that assembles, and then plants, identical models along highways and at busy intersections. If you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all, and a visit to the Siberia location might make you feel right at home.

While I grew older and my tastes started to change, McDonald’s stayed remarkably the same and my allegiance never wavered: Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuits with hash browns in the morning; fries and a nine-piece for lunch; a Big Mac and two-for-a-dollar apple pies for dinner.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the quality of this food, and quite frankly I don’t know how to respond. The taste speaks for itself, and it speaks loudly. Each and every golden fry — dipped in sweet ‘n’ sour sauce, or not — is like a party in my mouth and only the coolest kids are invited. Some are saying the taste is mostly chemical, specially engineered like food in “The Matrix.” That’s a weak argument. Fast food might be in a sense artificial, but so is some intelligence, and it turned out that Johnny 5 really was alive.

Then there’s the ethics talk, about how the fast food industry thrives on employees too young to care about good wages and too apathetic to organize; about the high staff turnover rates and strict opposition to labor movements; about the crazy markups, minimal training practices or the vagaries inherent in the term “natural flavoring.” But I guess what these idealists will never understand is that you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and you can’t make a large order of fries without breaking a few high school sophomores. It’s the nature of progress, and I find it goes down smooth with sweet ‘n’ sour sauce.

In 2001, Eric Schlosser dropped the book “Fast Food Nation,” about “The Dark Side of the All-American Meal,” and it quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Now we’re preparing for “Super Size Me,” a documentary by Morgan Spurlock about his month-long McDonald’s diet and its effects on his body.

These are the efforts of men without roots, who maintain no sense of loyalty to the corporations that raised them, no respect for the gilded arches that now dominate every skyline, no awe for the American dream.

Their success just goes to show you that we the envious love watching the great ones fall. Just ask MC Hammer, Corey Feldman, Anna Nicole Smith or David Gest. We are vultures feeding on the carcasses of fallen heroes.

McDonald’s has always been there for me, and I will be there for them now. Everyone has faults, even international super-corporations. I can accept that. Low-quality food with little to no nutritional value? I’ll take it. Hiring practices that target teen-agers and dismiss unionization? I’m in. Tastes that come from a vial in New Jersey, rather than a field in Idaho? Why not?

Fast food is convenient and inexpensive and delicious. It is the friend of the common man, and, anyway, it’s now too big to be stopped. Complain and nitpick if you want, but me, I’m lovin’ it.

E-mail Eric Miller at save101@hotmail.com.