The article discusses the activities of the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) — an advocacy group that has produced some of the most vulgar market-ideology I have ever seen, funded by food processors and big agribusiness.   One of their targets is nutritionist Marion Nestle, whose advice is summarized by U. S. News as follows: “Kids need to eat less, include more fruits and vegetables, and limit the junk food.”   Gentle reader, perhaps that is the advice you want to give to your children — and so why should government get involved with it? The problem is that you are being undermined without realizing it. Should the availability of junk food in your child’s schools be limited?  Lobbies are at work that would refuse to permit it.  What about the advice you rely upon to determine whether or not a particular product is wholesome for your children?   According to a pediatrician  cited by U. S. News: “If a study is funded by the industry, it may be closer to advertising than science.”   If you seek to rely on the advice provided by the  U. S. Department of Agriculture, the lobbies are at work to have that watered down.   If you think a nutritionist like Marion Nestle provides wholesome advice, here is what the Center for Consumer Freedom  will tell you: “[Our strategy] is to shoot the messenger. We’ve got to attack [activists'] credibility as spokespersons.”

You might at one time have heard a late-night  TV comedian  joking — “Regulate cigarettes?  Thing you know, they’ll want to regulate junk food!” There is an individual of my acquaintance who is so paranoid — not without reason, it must be added — that he believes such lines were planted by interested money  handed under the table to the entertainers and television executives to soften us up.

Lurking behind the details is the larger issue — which is that some people absolutely seethe at the thought of any limitation being placed upon them.   Any such thing is simply terrific, it is tantamount to totalitarians killing millions of people. Here is some advice from Party of 1:  Such people are not to be trusted, nor should they be allowed to get control of government.   They won’t permit any expert advice or specialized knowledge to serve as a basis for limiting their prerogative — so they have to spew out misinformation. As I once heard it put: If the epidemiologists claim  that secondhand smoke is a health hazard, they belittle the epidemiologists; if the climatologists point to evidence of climate change, they slander the  climatologists.

Speaking of climate change — that is a matter that eventually will have to command the attention of this site (although I cannot take on everything at once). The dynamic at work is similar to the one we see with regard to food and nutrition. Climate change is a matter about which the public is disposed to be skeptical, since potentially it portends such a dramatic change in our lifestyles; probably it can only be dealt with by means of research and development into new sources of energy, so that our lifestyles might not have to change too dramatically.  When the issue began to become prominent publicly, it appeared clear to me that the “debate”  was being driven by misinformation fueled by interested money coming from one side  of the question rather than the other. This has all been reported on thoroughgoingly by investigative journalist Ross Gelbspan;  see his website here, and his 1995 article from Harper’s Magazine here.