The Center for Consumer Freedom: Allow Me to Introduce You

Wherever there is vitriolic anti–animal rights, pro–animal ag rhetoric, singing the praises of meat, dairy, and eggs and coming from a supposedly reputable source, there is often (or maybe even usually) the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), which would be more aptly titled the Center for Corporate Freedom and Deception of Consumers. If you see the names Center for Consumer Freedom, Rick Berman, or David Martosko attached to any letter to the editor, press release, ad, Web site, or quotation in a news article, be aware that what you're reading is being paid for by the food (particularly meat and junk food), restaurant, and tobacco industries. And when you run into professional-looking anti–animal rights Web sites whose ownership isn't apparent, do some research to see who's really behind the sites or the organizations supposedly running them. This organization, dubiously registered as a nonprofit and run by Berman's PR company, is as much about "consumer freedom" as Ann Coulter is about intelligent thought and honesty. It is a front group.

But don't take my animal-loving, meat-hating, dairy- and egg-eschewing word for it. The PR machine also goes after environmental groups, health organizations, teachers' unions, and even Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and its deceptive front-group status and shady tactics are well documented:

• "Beware Corporate Wolves in Consumer Watchdog Clothing," from American Chronicle
• "Assholes You Should Know: Rick Berman," from La Vida Locavore
• Center for Consumer Freedom entry at SourceWatch
• "Our Pious Babylon," by Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post (scroll about halfway down for the discussion of Berman, or search the page for his name):

But even the MOD Squad [Merchants of Death, from the film Thank You for Smoking] is a pale imitation of the reality of the Beltway's most outrageous advocate, who goes by the name of Rick Berman. . . . Berman's salvos against unions are just the latest in a line of attacks he's leveled against drunk-driving laws, anti-smoking statutes, food safety ordinances and minimum-wage standards. He is, broadly speaking, the lobbyist for the Hobbesian state of nature.

• "Sticking Up for the Big Guys," from AlterNet
• "Don't Worry, Eat More Fish," from E Magazine
• "'Worst teachers' contest is ruse for big money agenda," from the Flint Journal
• "What's in a Name?" from USA Today