Center for Consumer hood-winking

Its interesting to see how people with the opposite views from you portray you. As a progressive you can check out the "Center for Conumer Freedom". They have quite an interesting web site with a break down called activist cash of a large number of progressive activist groups, foundations and individuals. For each one there is an overview, list of motivations, financial information, connections to other organizations, news and a "black eye".

There is no doubt some, even a lot of factual truth in the information they provide, however in amongst the lists of funders, actions taken etc. is also a definite and strong marketing pitch by CCF because everything is written on the assumption these organizations are a) wrong, b) corruptted and c) acting against the interests of consumers, heck they even rail against Mothers Against Drunk Driving because: [their] original goal of going after “drunk” drivers has now been replaced by the goal of eliminating any drinking and driving.

Strangely missing from this web site is the kind of information about CCF that they provide on all other organizations. The "About Us" page merely says:

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.

Oh. Well that's really informative. How about some more? Strangely they suggest that one has to go search for their non-profit 501(c)(3) filing to find out more. And conveniently:

Many of the companies and individuals who support the Center financially have indicated that they want anonymity as a contributor. They are reasonably apprehensive about privacy and safety, in light of the violence some activist groups have adopted as a "game plan" to impose their views.

So that stopped them from naming even one single person who is supporting them? Not one of those restaurant chains wanted to step forward and lay claim to supporting consumer freedom? Well that's a suprise isn't it!

Well I think I can probably name the #1 contributor to CCF - junk food and huge meat and food processing companies that supply them. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out given that the CCF web site is full of TV and press ads criticising efforts to encourage junk food restaurants to be more responsible about how they market the calorie loaded "meals" they sell. Predictably the CCF chase after the lawyers who are trying to bring suits against people like McDonald's, while conveniently forgetting that it took lawyers to bring down the big tabacco companies for selling cigarettes, and lawyers to bring down Goodyear for selling tyres known to be defective. Its sad that sometimes peoples own free will, and the governments legislation are powerless to have an effect on multi-billion dollar industries with their own sticky fingers stuffing wads of cash in the back pockets of government...

For the full scoop on who the CCF really is - the scoop that their "freedom" site was too afraid to publish - check out the truth about the Center for Consumer Freedom.