How full-time Skeptics receive their pay for subverting public accountability

[John Harvey]

The employment of lobbyists and multiple-personality correspondents, some full time, to undermine and attack public-interest groups calling for greater accountability by big business and for greater personal freedom to choose something not on the big-business menu won't be a great surprise to many readers here. How that employment works in practice, though, is something I haven't seen till today, when I followed a link in the Center for Media and Democracy's newsletter The Weekly Spin to this article on one man whose business it is to protect his anonymous paymasters while he carries out their thuggery in the name of free and open discussion for the advancement of science and society. Enjoy!
From
The Latest on Rick Berman, Attack Dog Extraordinaire
* Submitted by Anne Landman on June 2, 2010 - 2:57pm. activism ethics lobbying
A new investigative report published by the Humane Society of the United States examines the self-dealing activities of front group king Rick Berman , executive director of the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF).

Berman has developed a lucrative lobbying scheme that protects his corporate clients' anonymity while they attack the credibility of public interest groups and fight popular movements away from their products.
How it Works
Berman targets non-profit organizations with views that conflict with those of big business. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is one example. It lobbies against animal cruelty, which puts it at odds with beef, pork and poultry producers, dairies, puppy mills, captive ("canned") hunting operations, and contract research labs that do animal experimentation for pharmaceutical and cosmetics manufacturers. Another favorite Berman target, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), lobbies for lower legal blood alcohol levels for drunk driving charges, and mandatory use of ignition interlock devices for convicted drunk drivers, which puts it at odds with alcoholic beverage manufacturers, whose business success depends on people drinking more.
To maintain their profit margins, big businesses need to stay in the public's good graces, so they can't be seen overtly fighting public interest legislation. The Tyson chicken company, for example, wouldn't win much public favor it if openly fought laws to require the humane treatment of chickens in factory poultry farms.
That's where Rick Berman comes in. Berman devised a system through which does the bidding of big businesses by attacking such threatening groups on their behalf, while keeping his corporate sponsors strictly anonymous.
Read the rest: .
Cheers --
John
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"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd."

-- Bertrand Russell