What Is the Center for Consumer Freedom,
and W hy
Is It Attacking PETA?
The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit corporation run
by lobbyist Richard Berman through his Washington, D.C.-based for-profit
public relations company, Berman & Co. The Center for Consumer
Freedom, formerly known as the Guest Choice Network, was set up
by Berman with a $600,000 “donation” from tobacco company
Philip Morris.
Berman arranges for large sums of corporate money to find its way
into nonprofit societies of which he is the executive director.
He then hires his own company as a consultant to these nonprofit
groups. Of the millions of dollars “donated” by Philip
Morris between the years 1995 and 1998, 49 percent to 79 percent
went directly to Berman or Berman & Co.
Richard Berman is an influence peddler. He has worked out a scheme
to funnel charitable donations from wealthy corporations into his
own pocket. In exchange, he provides a flurry of disinformation,
flawed studies, op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, and trade-industry
articles, as well as access to his high-level government contacts,
who are servants of the industries he represents.
Berman’s name might sound familiar. In 1995, Berman and Norm
Brinker, his former boss at Steak and Ale Restaurants, were identified
as the special-interest lobbyists who donated the $25,000 that disgraced
then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was hauled before the House
Ethics Committee for influence-peddling over the money. Berman and
Brinker were lobbying against raising the minimum wage.
Richard Berman is a spin doctor. For example, he has argued against
a Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) initiative to lower the blood
alcohol content (BAC) limit for drivers by claiming that the stricter
limits would punish responsible social drinkers. He has claimed
that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warnings
about salmonella-related food poisoning are just “whipping
up fear over food.”
Here’s how an internal Philip Morris memo described Berman’s
spin: “His proposed solution would broaden the focus of the
‘smoking issue,’ and expand into the bigger picture
of over-regulation.” Smoking won’t kill you; over-regulation
will.
Berman is “a one-man wrecking crew on important issues.”
His approach has been described as “misleading” and
“despicable.” Berman has been called “a
tobacco company whore,” but he’s branched out since
then.
Using “freedom of choice” as his battle cry, Berman
has now taken on PETA and a number of other groups and organizations
whose points of view could have an impact on the profits of his
clients by waking consumers up. Berman’s Guest Choice Network
has an “advisory panel” whose members in 1998 included
officials representing companies ranging from Cargill Processed
Meat Products and Outback Steakhouse to Minnesota Licensed Beverage
Association and Sutter Home Winery. Berman’s clients are companies
with vested interests in low employee wages; cheap, unhealthy restaurant-chain
food, particularly meat; and tobacco, soft drink, and alcohol consumption—companies
like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Armour Swift, and Philip Morris,
whose product line includes Kraft Foods and everything from Marlboro
cigarettes to Oscar Meyer wieners and which is a major shareholder
in its former subsidiary Miller Brewing, now known as SABMiller.
PETA’s recent successes in gaining fast-food industry concessions
for more humane conditions for farm animals have sent ripples of
fear through the food and beverage service industry. About the same
time that McDonald’s buckled to PETA’s demands, Richard
Berman changed his front group’s name and stepped up his attacks.
The key to Berman’s aggressive strategy is, in his own words,
“to shoot the messenger ... we’ve got to attack their
credibility as spokespersons,”—an interesting remark
from someone whose background and funding so severely challenge
his own credibility.
|
