Center for Consumer Freedom Supports Terrorism

CCF’s press release and letter warns neighbors of the “potential for harassment, violence, and mass pet killings” from a “radical animal rights group.”

“It’s not unusual for ordinary people to be unsure about how to act around the group’s employees,” CCF warns. “Please be assured that most of them are harmless unless provoked.”

Lines like that might make you wonder if this is all a joke. But Rick Berman and his crew at the Center for Consumer Freedom are dead serious. The letter is part of an ongoing media campaign by the group to demonize animal rights activists as “animal rights terrorists.” And it’s part of a broader scare-mongering campaign by corporations, politicians and industry groups called the Green Scare.

It’s not just PETA they’re going after. CCF bought a full page ad in The New York Times labeling the Humane Society as a terrorist organization. Yes, the Humane Society. And they’ve gone so far as to label Charlotte’s Web “animal rights extremism.”

Stunts like this are intended to instill two types of fear. They are meant to make the general public afraid of animal rights activists. And they are meant to make animal rights activists afraid of using their rights. The sole purpose in branding groups like PETA and the Humane Society with words like “violence” and “terrorism” is to have a chilling effect on free speech.

CCF likes to call activists “crazies,” as they did in this media stunt, but I question the sanity of any group that cares more about “delicious liberties” than the real thing.

Rick Berman has no shortage of enemies. He and his various front groups have been the hired guns for a laundry list of nasty corporations, smearing anyone for a buck (including Mothers Against Drunk Driving or, as Stephen Colbert calls them, “O-mamma bin Laden”). I’ve written here about one of his groups, the Center for Consumer Freedom, and their campaigns to smear activists as “eco-terrorists” and “animal rights terrorists.” (And we’ve also linked them to terrorism).

So it’s not really breaking news when unions, animal groups, environmentalists and everyone else targeted by Berman rails against him. But the most scathing attack on Berman I’ve ever read comes from his own son.

His son, David Berman, was the head of the band the Silver Jews. When the band broke up, David Berman wrote on Drag City message board, saying “I’ve always hid this terrible shame from you, the fan.” (Stereogum had this story first. Thanks to Liz and Justin for the tip.)

Here’s an excerpt:

“Now that the Joos are over I can tell you my gravest secret. Worse than suicide, worse than crack addiction:

My father.

You might be surprised to know he is famous, for terrible reasons.

My father is a despicable man. My father is a sort of human molestor.

An exploiter. A scoundrel. A world historical motherfucking son of a bitch. (sorry grandma) …

A couple of years ago I demanded he stop his work. Close down his company or I would sever our relationship.

He refused. He has just gotten worse. More evil. More powerful. We’ve been “estranged” for over three years.”

He goes on to say: “He props up fast food/soda/factory farming/childhood obesity and diabetes/drunk driving/secondhand smoke. He attacks animal lovers, ecologists, civil action attorneys, scientists, dieticians, doctors, teachers… This winter I decided that the SJs were too small of a force to ever come close to undoing a millionth of all the harm he has caused. To you and everyone you know. Literally, if you eat food or have a job, he is reaching you.”

David Berman’s feeling about his father’s work are so strong that he announced he is quitting music.

“Previously I thought, through songs and poems and drawings I could find and build a refuge away from his world,” he wrote. “But there is the matter of justice. And I’ll tell you it’s not just a metaphor. The desire for it actually burns. It hurts. There needs to be something more. I’ll see what that might be.”

Last week the Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry front group, took out a full-page ad in The New York Times accusing the Humane Society of the United States of supporting “terrorism.” Their crime? A speech at a “holiday gala” for a group called the Humane League. If you’re not following, well, you’re not the only one. The ad included a flow chart to explain CCF’s convoluted logic, and their website has a 70-page document trying to support the flow chart.

CCF argues that they connect the Humane Society to bullhorn-wielding “eco-terrorists” in six steps, and in response I created a little contest called “Six Degrees of Consumer Freedom.” I asked you all to trump CCF by connecting them to real terrorists in fewer steps.

I’m proud to say… we have a winner!

Karen left a comment connecting CCF to terrorism in two steps: CCF was created by Philip Morris, and Philip Morris has ties to cigarette smuggling, which directly funds terrorist groups. (Congrats Karen! You’ll be receiving your “domestic terrorist” apron!)

Below, I’ve added in my own research to substantiate the claims.

• In 1995, Philip Morris created the Guest Choice Network. It’s a front group that was proposed by Rick Berman in a letter to a Philip Morris executive. Here’s the letter.
• In January, 2002, the Guest Choice Network renamed itself the Center for Consumer Freedom. Rick Berman is still in charge.
• Philip Morris has been exposed for its involvement in illegal cigarette smuggling, including smuggling into Iraq in violation of United Nations sanctions. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says cigarette smuggling funnels millions of dollars to groups like Al Qaeda [See Washington Post, ""Cigarette Smuggling Linked to Terrorism" and the UK Telegraph, "US tobacco companies face claims of smuggling to Iraq," and the six-month investigation by PBS and NOW with Bill Moyers.]

I created this new and improved version of the CCF ad… what do you all think?

I found this very funny clip of Rick Berman on “The Colbert Report.” Berman, as many of you know, is the head of Center for Consumer Freedom. CCF has been out front in the effort to label animal and environmental advocates as “terrorists.” In this clip, though, Colbert questions where CCF gets its money (corporations) and why Berman has a problem with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (or, as Colbert calls them, “O-mamma bin Laden”).