FIFA
FIFA is the Federation Internationale de Football Association. This group has been responsible to for organizing major international football tournaments since 1904. It was seen as prestigious and comprised of 211 national enterprises. Most people viewed it as the default name for soccer tournaments and did not pay attention to it as an actual company until recently. Investigative journalists began investigating FIFA and found the corruption within their leaders. It included bribery and alleged vote-rigging for FIFA president, Sepp Blatter. However, as all the corruption was revealed, people demanded Blatter to step down, which he stated he would after the next president was chosen in 2016. The change in management could help FIFA become prestigious as it once was, but the revealed corruption within the company left it in shambles. My hopes are to write about how the view people had about FIFA has changed and how widely it is accepted as the leading soccer tournament in the world.
General Motors
General Motors is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, markets, and distributes vehicle and vehicle parts. It began with a man named Durant as a holding company for McLaughlin Car Company of Canada and Buick. Durant was also a leading manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles in Flint. Another man named Charles Stewart Mott, who was also a leading carriage company, took hold of the majority of the stock for General Motors. Eventually, Durant took full control as many different companies merged into General Motors resulting in becoming an automobile company with the assistance of Mott. General Motors has been thought of as a strong automobile company which has remained consistent for a long time, but in 2009, they declared bankruptcy. The company seemed like it was finished but the government financially supported them and brought them back. They still have many severe recalls that financially hurt the workers and companies themselves, leaving General Motors as a weak company relying on the aid from outside sources. I believe it would be interesting to write about how this company has risen and fallen along with the effects.
Red Ribbon
The red ribbon is a symbol that commemorates the story of DEA agent Enrique Camarena. Enrique was undercover for 4 years in Mexico that led to many different drug manufacturing operations. He continued to work until he was kidnapped by some leaders who was furious with Camarena and what he did. A massive search was done to find Camarena, but when they found him, he was already dead. The leaders tortured him to try to get information out of him, but he never spoke so they kill him. People were moved by Camarena’s work to reduce the amount of illegal drugs in America. The red ribbon was their symbol to commemorate him for his service, but the red ribbon today is also the symbol for the fight against HIV/AIDS. I believe this single symbol has a strong meaning and would be interesting to write about.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/02/football/fifa-sepp-blatter-presidency-successor-election/
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/01/news/companies/gm_bankruptcy/
As far as symbolism goes, I think the red ribbon probably makes the most sense: GM and FIFA can certainly be connected to the populous, but that doesn’t seem to be something you touched on a ton in this post. I think that if you want you can do either GM or FIFA, but you’ll have to delve into how they connect people to each other, and how they each represent the ideals of a community (for GM, America, and for FIFA, the global soccer world probably). The HIV/AIDS angle is also interesting for the red ribbon — that would probably be worth looking into a bit more. I also do feel like FIFA’s history with corruption kind of ruins it as a civic artifact, simply because it’s not a very trustworthy organization any longer and I don’t think it’s one that people look highly upon. That being said, you are correct that its members make up almost all of the world, and that does lend some credibility to this artifact since so many people are connected to it. I think FIFA is a tough balance, but the other two are very doable.
I like the red ribbon idea as well. You should add what the red ribbon means to people today and also what other groups feel about it. How is the red ribbon itself civic and what are some commonplaces associated with it? But otherwise really interesting.
I think the red ribbon would be an interesting artifact to discuss. Many people do not know about Agent Camarena and his story, including myself. I think you should definitely go into detail about Camarena’s story, but also you should further explore the red ribbon as it exists today.