Corporate Agribusiness Launches National PR Campaign to Brainwash Americans

By Jill Richardson
Today marks the big launch of a $11 million PR campaign to make consumers like GMOs, fertilizer, pesticides, and factory farms. The U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) is hosting "Food Dialogues" in New York, California, Washington, DC, and Indiana and broadcasting it live on the internet. (The hashtag is #FoodD if you are following on Twitter.)

USFRA claims "The goal is not to advance an agenda or to persuade you to any particular point of view. We simply want to create a forum that, we hope, will result in all of us being better informed about issues that affect our lives, our health, our planet and our future" but that's only what they are saying AFTER they hired the major PR firm Ketchum to handle their campaign. Before the PR firm came on board, they were much more open about their goals. I guess the PR gurus told them to tone it down, and to instead discuss how they use "modern" technology in "production" (i.e. industrial) agriculture. Now instead of overtly promoting pesticides, GMOs, and veal crates, they say they "have collaborated to lead the dialogue and answer Americans' questions about how we raise our food - while being stewards of the environment, responsibly caring for our animals and maintaining strong businesses and communities."

Stewards of the environment? USFRA gets 25-30% of its funding from industry, including from some of the biggest pesticide companies on earth. And the agricultural groups that make up USFRA have long histories of lobbying against any environmental regulation, livestock welfare standards, labor reform, competition reform, and more. And as for their claim they don't want to convince anybody of anything - you don't hire a PR firm if you don't want to convince anybody of anything. 

American Breakfast Foods Are a Corporate Scam

By Dr. Mercola
Starting your morning with a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice, a donut and a cup of coffee, or a bagel and cream cheese may seem like second nature, but did you ever stop to think about why or how these foods came to signify breakfast in America?

 It wasn't always this way, that's for sure.

 Generations ago Americans would have scoffed at a cold breakfast of flaked grain cereal. Instead, they fueled their bodies with a hearty meal of eggs and meats (sausage, ham, bacon), and sometimes pancakes or bread. This was intentionally the heaviest meal of the day, as workers, particularly farmers, often wouldn't eat again until dinner.

 What happened to make cold cereal, juice, donuts and bagels the "norm" of American breakfasts? Breakfast food became corporate food.

How Much of YOUR Diet is Dictated by Corporate Creations?

 You're probably well aware that nowadays most of the food Americans eat is no longer dependent on local farmers and seasonal growing conditions. Instead, it's dictated by corporate America. The foods you may call "staples" are actually wildly successful marketing creations drummed up by some of the forerunners of the modern-day food industry. 

Corporate Dictatorship: Citizens United 2.0

By George Zornick

Campaign fundraisers are already at work on the upcoming presidential election-Obama 2012 is soliciting donations, and Republican candidates like Tim Pawlenty are spending more time meeting donors than voters.

Outside groups like Karl Rove's American Crossroads, which spent $50 million on the recent midterm elections, are also no doubt revving up the money machine. Crossroads and similar groups with benign names like Americans for Job Security, FreedomWorks, and yes, the US Chamber of Commerce will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the presidential race.

The Supreme Court's ruling in Citizen's United, which allowed unlimited corporate expenditures on political advocacy efforts, has vastly improved the fundraising abilities of groups like American Crossroads. (Karl Rove has admitted this). Corporations can funnel unlimited money into an outfit like American Crossroads, and then let it do the dirty work of conceiving, producing, and airing advertisements that bash or support a chosen candidate.

How Wal-Mart, Google and Other Corporate Giants Are Trying to Trick Progressive Consumers

The signature phrase of America's booming good food movement has been expanded from "organic" to "local and sustainable."

Good! The phrase suggests great quality, strong environmental stewardship and a commitment to keeping our food dollars in the local economy. If you support the local-economies movement, as I do, no doubt you'll be thrilled to hear that a new, local food store is coming soon to your neighborhood. In fact, it's even named Neighborhood Market.

Only, it's not. It's a Wal-Mart. Yes, the $400-billion-a-year retail behemoth, with 2 million employees laboring in 8,500 stores spread around the globe, now is putting on a "local" mask. The giant is promising to buy 9 percent of the produce it'll sell from local farmers. Big whoopie. This means that 91 percent of the foodstuffs offered in its "Neighborhood" chain will come from Wayawayland. Wal-Mart is to local what near beer is to beer. Near beer is not beer ... and Wal-Mart is not local.

But even the 9 percent number is a deceit, for Wal-Mart says that it defines "local" as grown in the same state. Excuse me, but in California, Florida, Texas and other such sizable states, that can be a mighty long truck-haul away.