The anti-consumer crowd may seem to take tiny footsteps on the way to controlling your food and beverage options, but it’s essential to track these “baby steps.” In reality, they’re successfully getting their feet in the door. It just takes a little opening to initiate big changes — changes that restrict your ability to enjoy a good meal:
DIET CHOICE: Surgeon General David Satcher declared a “war on fat” in December, The Daily Oklahoman writes — and the call was accompanied by activist yells for taxes on snack foods, giving restaurant customers smaller portions for the same money, and more. They got their foot in the door in California, where public schools now restrict soda — and plan to use soda bans as a “wedge” (their word!) issue meant to open up all sorts of foods and beverages to new government regulation and restriction.
Writes the Oklahoman, Satcher’s “Call To Action” on obesity is “the first step.” Food vendors will be pressed into talking customers out of “consuming the foods they like. Liberal special interest groups will take up the call, urging Uncle Sam to subsidize fruits and vegetables… while taxing [other] foods, to make them less affordable.”
The paper notes that Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says “the government needs to ‘put in place policy and change the environment around people so that it is easier for them to eat well and be active.’ Scarier words were never spoken.”
ALCOHOL: When activists started whining about NBC’s decision to air responsible-consumption announcements sponsored by spirits vendors during late-night broadcasting, they insisted they were not going after the right to consume beer and wine. Not so fast: George Hacker, director of the Alcohol Policies Project at CSPI, now says, “It is now time for Congress not only to stop broadcast liquor advertising but also to restrict or eliminate beer advertising.”
How’s CSPI capitalizing on this foot in the door? Says the nation’s top anti-consumer outfit: “We will be promoting regulatory and legislative actions to reverse this expansion of alcohol marketing.” [There’s much more on CSPI at ActivistCash.com.]
PORK: PETA and other anti-pork groups have a pig’s foot in the door. “Floridians for Humane Farms,” a front for several animal rights organizations, is taking on hog farms in Florida, even though they admit “there are only a handful of farms in Florida” that they object to. So why Florida? PETA’s Bruce Friedrich tells activists that the Florida effort “could lead to similar… campaigns in other states” — and, more importantly, “would help us lobby in Congress.”
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is in on the act, too. His Waterkeeper Alliance is at war with pork farmers, and wants to drive them out of business. (Seems Bobby Jr. doesn’t realize some Americans have to hold down honest jobs to support their families.) Kennedy says, “we hope we can put an end to this industry.” And once the Waterkeepers have their foot in the door? Referring to the poultry and beef industries, he says: “We’re starting with hogs. After the hogs, then we are going after the other ones.”
