Center For Consumer Deceit

What do you think of when you read the following title: Center for Consumer Freedom?

I was sitting at a restaurant the other day and an interesting commercial came on the big, annoying screen above the bar. Click here for the link to the commercial. It was another silly skit defending high fructose corn syrup. First of all, I could care less whether HFCS is exactly the same or different from white table sugar! Does that in any way excuse it from wreaking havoc on our health? Ironically, the only thing the corn people can say about their beloved HFCS is that it's the same as sugar--as if that solves the problem. The problem is that it exists in the first place, is needlessly but highly prevalent in foods and beverages and is linked to obesity. But I am getting off subject.

As I watched the commercial, I noticed this in the lower part of the screen: PAID FOR BY THE CENTER FOR CONSUMER FREEDOM. I thought to myself, Hm. That sounds legitimate. Perhaps we are blowing this HFCS-thing out of proportion?

The next thing I know, Jeff is busy Googling the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) on his iPhone. Annoying!

But I'm glad he did, because he shared with me what this Center is all about, and we laughed like little kids. What an appealing, creative, deceitful title. What a load of @!!#.

After looking at their website, I have to say that I probably disagree with EVERYTHING they say. It's not that surprising when you learn that the Center is supported by over 100 companies, including "the restaurant industry, food companies and individual donors. The forerunner to the CCF was the Guest Choice Network, which was organized in 1995 by Richard Berman, executive director of the public affairs firm Berman and Company, with $600,000 from the Philip Morris tobacco company, 'to unite the restaurant and hospitality industries in a campaign to defend their consumers and marketing programs against attacks from anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-meat, etc. activists ...'"

Do you know what a "front group" is? It's an "organization that purports to represent one agenda while in reality it serves some other party or interest whose sponsorship is hidden or rarely mentioned. The front group is perhaps the most easily recognized use of the third party technique."

Beware of the CCF: "For example, Rick Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) claims that its mission is to defend the rights of consumers to choose to eat, drink and smoke as they please. In reality, CCF is a front group for the tobacco, restaurant and alcoholic beverage industries, which provide all or most of its funding." (sourcewatch.org)

Go to the CCF website and see for yourself all the incredible health and wellness groups and activites they speak against! They attack preventative medicine, treating animals with respect, organic food, eating healthy and more. I went to their "About Us" section and almost choked on my tongue.

Here are some snippets:

• "Consumer freedom is the right of adults and parents to choose how they live their lives, what they eat and drink, how they manage their finances, and how they enjoy themselves.

• Unfortunately, Americans have been force-fed a diet of bloated statistics hyping the problem of obesity. Those statistics have been used by Big Brother government bureaucrats and greedy trial lawyers to justify a host of noxious "solutions," like extra taxes on certain foods and lawsuits against anyone who grows, makes, or serves anything tasty.

• A growing cabal of activists has meddled in Americans’ lives in recent years. They include self-anointed "food police," health campaigners, trial lawyers, personal-finance do-gooders, animal-rights misanthropes, and meddling bureaucrats."

Down with those who campaign for health! Darned those crazy food police and do-gooders! Can you imagine the nerve of CCF saying these things?! Who could possibly be their audience, besides each other?

The name of their HFCS commercial is "sweetscam.com". The real scam is that when people see the commercial, they may make the same mistake I did, but without investigating who the Center for Consumer Freedom really is--a front group who wants us to throw away our money and health on their food.