Coors beer is owned by the Coors family; a powerful, wealthy family that funnels the money it gets into hundreds of ultraright wing movements from neo-Nazi groups to anti-environmental think tanks. Founded by Adolph Coors, the Coors empire is a very influential force in the U.S. government. All of the information here has been well documented by civil rights and environmental groups and also in a heavily footnoted book, The Coors Connection.
The Coors family has always had strong ties to neo-Nazis. Adolph Coors allowed KKK meetings and cross-burnings on brewery property in Colorado. In 1984, Bill Coors fought against passage of the Civil Rights Act, telling an audience of black businessmen that blacks don't succeed because they "lack intellectual capacity." After encouraging them to go back to Africa, he said that one of the best things slave-drivers did to American blacks "was to drag your ancestors over here in chains" because blacks in America have greater opportunity than those in Africa. Joe Coors is a major contributor to the Moral Majority, which has called for the imprisonment of gay persons with AIDS. The Coors family funds a right-wing sector of Christian fundamentalism, which seeks to replace democratic pluralism with so-called "traditional family values" that is, an authoritarian, gender-based social order. They support groups that say homosexuals are an abomination and AIDS is God's judgment on sinners. They have supported Reverend Sun Myung Moon and Christian Reconstructionists, both of whom have called for the abolition of U.S. democracy and the establishment of a theocratic state ( . . . one nation under God, or else).
Coors family members have sat on boards of groups with people like a former Indiana KKK leader, apartheid supporters and ultraright Christian Reconstructionists calling for the execution of homosexuals, adulterers and blasphemers.
Coors is fiercely anti-labor, having broken 19 unions in 20 years and having blocked OSHA inspectors from investigating workplace hazards which led to the death of Coors employees. Coors supported the National Right to Work Committee, an anti-worker group out to destroy unions.
Coors has supported terrorist activity in many foreign countries, including the Contras in Nicaragua, who have ambushed and killed civilians, murdered teachers and medical workers and destroyed rural schools and medical centers in order to help the CIA take over their government.
Coors is one of the largest dumpers of hazardous waste in Colorado. They’ve been cited many times for water pollution and have been caught covering up known pollution including contamination of multiple underground springs where toxic chemical solvents contributed to irregular heartbeat, unconsciousness, pulmonary edema and death.
Joe Coors was one of a small group of people with ready access to Presidents Reagan and Bush. Joe and his brother Bill both belonged to a since-exposed secret all-male club called Bohemian Grove that Reagan, Bush and other ruling class figures such as the Secretary of Defense and mass media executives (but no reporters) would attend. Coors also funded the Parental Music Resource Center, a pro-censorship group with strong ties to the religious right. The PMRC was led by Al Gore’s wife.
Joe Coors started the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank seeking to abolish civil rights laws, minimum wage laws, environmental laws, affirmative action, rights for the handicapped and arms control. He chose a neo-Nazi author of an Aryan supremacy book as co-editor of their publication, "Policy Review." They have sponsored forums for pro-Nazi groups and have funded the work of a convicted Nazi collaborator.
In the summer of 1996, the Heritage Foundation did a huge mailing to voters telling them to support Republican Senator Bob Dole for President. In the letter, Dole promised to abolish the federal departments of education, housing, transportation and energy. Right in line with libertarian rhetoric, they would have government off of corporate America’s back and no social safety net for the people.
When Coors commercials used to brag that they are the "right beer now," they weren’t kidding. Coors also owns Zima, Killian's Irish Red and Masters Beer.
-A lot of the info above was drawn from 3 different boycott factsheets from AFL-CIO, Pledge of Resistance and Student Environmental Action Coalition, which were largely sourced from the above book.
-The reference to Bohemian Grove is from a book from Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), a media watch-dog group that explains about the formerly secret, all-male club that the executives of Time-Warner attend, amongst others. A reporter from People magazine (owned by Time-Warner) snuck in once before getting kicked out. He tried to uncover the story, but before it went to print, it was suppressed. The reporter's story is available from FAIR. The book is called Adventures In Medialand.
-The reference to the Parent's Music Resource Center (PMRC) and Tipper Gore's involvement can be confirmed in the speeches of former Dead Kennedy's leader and political activist, Jello Biafra on his spoken word album, No More Cocoons. His group was bankrupted by the PMRC and he is the founder of the No More Censorship Fund.
-The reference to Dole's campaign is from a mailing that was done on Heritage Foundation letterhead supporting Dole for president.
-Explanations of what some of the various foundations that Coors funds can be found, besides in the Coors Connection book, in the Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Groups.