Soft Drink Industry Using Smokin' PR
Soft drink companies are joining the list of corporations scrambling to use tobacco industry public relations tactics to influence legislation, in this case to scuttle a proposal to tax sodas and sugary drinks to help fund health care. A front group formed and funded by the beverage industry called Americans Against Food Taxes (AAFT) says on its Web site, NoFoodTaxes.com, that it is a "coalition of concerned citizens" including "financially strapped families," but its members are the world's biggest soda pop and sugary-drink manufacturers, along with the nation's biggest convenience store and fast food chains. AAFT is running TV ads in the Washington, D.C. area that show a slender adult couple and their children on a family camping trip while a voice-over says, "This is no time for Congress to be adding taxes on the simple pleasures we all enjoy. ... We all want to improve health care, but taxes never made anyone healthy. Education, exercise and balanced diets do that." Yale University researcher Kelly Brownell says the soft drink companies are using the same tactics that the tobacco industry uses to ward off taxes: promoting personal responsibility as the answer, offering "healthier" versions of their products that have negligible benefits, abdicating responsibility for abuse of their products and claiming a tax on soda would be an attack on free choice.
Comments
Why do you call Americans
Why do you call Americans Against Food Taxes a "front group'? It lists its members right here: http://www.nofoodtaxes.com/about/. And it's clear from its site, its advertising and its positions that it's representing the beverage and related industries. There is nothing wrong with this. As a consumer, I'd expect nothing less than the beverage industry to fight back against a tax increase. I'm glad its money is paying for this effort.
Yet you, the "public interest" scolds at Center for Media and Democracy, are somehow more noble than the greedy corporations you lambaste because your funding is routed through foundations and trusts??
At least with the "front groups," I know where the money is coming from and why it's being spent. I can't say the same about you guys.
Front group
Because when the Center for Media and Democracy speaks publicly, they speak as the Center for Media and Democracy - not by placing a fake "family" on TV to "speak" about that "family's" "concerns".
And because "Americans Against Food Taxes" is not actually an organization of Americans against food taxes - it is a FRONT GROUP for the soft drink industry. When they call themselves "Soft Drink Corporations Against Soft Drink Taxes", i will agree they are not a front group. Why do they give a false name if they are not trying to finesse their identity?
And the ONLY reason you can read their actual members at their website is because "public interest scolds" have FOUGHT to get public disclosure laws passed, so that it is at least possible to find the true identity of FRONT GROUPS like "Americans Against Food Taxes". Without this legal protection in force, they would be HAPPY to leave NO TRACE of their actual identity while they spread their disinformation.
Front Groups...continued
Again, I don't quite get what makes it a front group. It lists almost 370 associations and companies as its members, and they include manufacturers, retailers, distributors. Some are large, some are small, but all have a real interest in this matter.
The Center for Media and Democracy, however, is one organization. Its funding is untraceable. How is it any more credible than a coalition with nearly 370 pledged members?
CMD's mysterious funding...
... is fully described here:
www.prwatch.org/finances.html
To understand where the money goes, please read our latest annual report -- available at that same page -- or simply read what we post on this website and our SourceWatch collaborative encyclopedia.
This illustrates one of my points
This illustrates one of my points. CMD gets the bulk of its money from foundations, according to its website. That's fine. I don't have a problem with that.
However, it undermines the endless charges of "astroturf" that CMD lobs against groups it disagrees with, since the money that funds CMD has effectively been washed of its origins by the time it's spent.
With Americans Against Food Taxes, we know exactly where its money is coming from. And frankly, the fact that lots of large companies and groups - often with competing business interests - have come together and lent their names and resources to an effort like AAFT is far more credible than one group -- with untraceable funding -- dismissing AAFT as some despicable "front group."
And frankly, the fact that
What's "credibility" got to do with it? As the other commenter pointed out, they wouldn't have "lent" their names to their astroturf project if they hadn't had to -- they're no more transparent than they're forced to be -- and they still hope that by calling themselves "Americans Against " instead "Corporations Against" they'll divert most people from looking at who they are. That's astroturf.
You may call yourself "Proud Corporate Shill" if you like, but you're doing yourself no credit.
Last response from me on this topic
I promise, I know I sound like a broken record.
If a company like Coke or Pepsi or Yum Brands has tens of thousands of employees and contractors and millions of customers and shareholders, and it signs on to a coalition with similarly-sized companies, I think the coalition membership can rightfully call itself "Americans" for or against whatever it wants.
Lighten up, folks. The rest of America isn't as dumb as you think it is.
two thumbs up for this tax
Soft drink companies should definitely be taxed, almost as bad as tobacco and alcohol. The amount of sugar, preservatives, and all kinds of other garbage in soft drinks is killing us by the millions in cancer, obesity, and heart disease. There are way more tax problems to worry about before fussing over harmful foods!
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Thank you very much for comments.